Go All Teriyaki On Your Chicken

About author / Sarah Christine Bolton

Coffee addict; professional food writer; food fusion. Her slow cooker recipes go above and beyond your normal crockpot fare.

I vaguely remember visiting Hibachi grills when I was a child. The memories are mostly just images of flaming onion towers, eggs spinning on the hot grill, and the heat of the flame leaping up. I sometimes wonder, though, if my memories are simply fabricated from my more recent experiences at the Hibachi grill.

There was the time my family met my brother, who was somewhat estranged at the time, at a Hibachi grill. The dinner was awkward and strained and I don’t remember even tasting my food. Soon after that, he moved out of the state. The dinner has always stayed in my mind as a heartbreaking moment in time.

Then, there are fonder memories. Sunday lunch with my new boyfriend, holding his hand under the table. He hoped for a table all to ourselves. I ordered my fried rice and pushed it onto his plate, more excited about the teriyaki shrimp and veggies. He always sat to my left…he was left-handed and didn’t want us to bump arms trying to eat.

And then there was a goodbye lunch with my college friends. There were lots of cameras, taste-testing off each other’s plates, and remembering all our adventures together. We lingered at the table long after the food had been eaten and I’m sure long after the grill had cooled down. Nobody wanted to say goodbye.

These days, I don’t get to experience hibachi all that often, but I definitely look forward to the times I do. There is something satisfying about making dinner more of an event than a cram-food-into-your-mouth thing. And as much as I’d like to think that I’m a mature adult now, I still jump out of my seat when the tower of onions shoots into flames and I can’t help but watch when the chef twirls eggs on the grill and cracks them open with one quick chop of the spatula.

The concept of combining entertainment and food is an original idea from Rocky Aoki, the founder of the Japanese Benihana restaurants. He was born in Japan, and came to America as a young man. His first business in the U.S. was an ice cream truck in New York City. He sold ice cream served with Japanese cocktail umbrellas as a garnish. He saved money, and eventually opened his first Benihana restaurant in 1964. Aoki passed away in 2008, but his legacy lives on.

Hibachi is Japanese, meaning “fire bowl,” and is a traditional heating device not used for cooking. The hibachi grills that Americans are familiar with are actually called “shichirin.” The theory is that when these grills were introduced to the U.S., they were called hibachi because that word is easier to pronounce than shichirin.

Americans weren’t familiar with Japanese cuisine in the early 1960s, and the concept of having a meal prepared right at your table was unheard of. But apparently, it was a concept that people came to love. Benihana (which is not the only hibachi restaurant out there) has served more than 100 million meals since 1964.

That’s a lot of flaming onion towers.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 pounds chicken breast tenders
• 1/2 large onion, chopped
• 1 cup sliced red or green bell pepper (or a combination)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup vinegar