Kotas Reviews Mikata Japanese Grill

Well, the dog days of summer are upon us. For Pokemon Go players, they are probably more like the Pidgey days of summer, but the point still stands: It's damn hot out there, and it isn't cooling off any time soon. So, what is an intrepid young (ha!) reviewer to do to beat the heat? Why, go to a Hibachi Grill of course! Today we review Mikata Japanese Grill.

Angled because I'm either artistic or lazy. 

Mikata Japanese Grill is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in a little strip mall type place that you really wouldn't think has any restaurants in it, but in fact has more than one. It's a sort of hole in the wall style place, but the chairs are padded and comfy, the decor is...there, and the service, at least when I went there, is fast. This particular trip was with about a dozen co-workers in celebration of "August Birthdays", as is our tradition. I'd never been to this particular restaurant, and let's face it, they badgered me to review it. So here we are.

What we refer to as hibachi style cuisine in North America is actually teppanyaki, and originated in 1945 when an enterprising Japanese restaurant chain called Misono introduced the idea of cooking Western-influenced food on a Japanese teppan, or iron griddle. They also provided a little show with the meal, introducing the various food tricks, such as the ever popular onion slice volcano and the egg catch. They style was popular with visitors and most famously imported to the United States via the Benihana restaurant chain in 1964. Neat, eh? Let's get to the food.

Like all right thinking people I got the "chicken entree with fried rice" because I'm not a savage who gets steamed rice. I honestly had no idea what to expect, though I suspected it to be a form of chicken teriyaki. The menu also had small variety of sushi rolls available, but I was warned that the entree is a "metric ton of food", and avoided ordering too much. Or so I thought. Now, unlike what most people think of when they think teppanyaki, there wasn't a table we sat around to see the food cooked in an entertaining manner, but ya know what? That was fine. Let's get to the food.

Would you believe this was after I'd eaten about a quarter of the food?

Dear lord the portion sizes here are ENORMOUS. You get fried rice, chicken teriyaki, a heap of "standard teppanyaki vegetables", and some fried noodles, in case you didn't get enough carbs in your rice. What I should have done was divide the meal in half, save one half for later and had a decent meal. What I did instead was eat all of it, because it was very tasty, and then regret my life decisions. It was not the absolute finest food I have ever consumed at a teppanyaki grill, but it was far and away the best food I'd consumed at that price. $8 for an easy two meals worth of food that I had a hard time not eating? Yes please.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 smiley faces. Tasty, inexpensive, and filling, you really can't ask much more of a teppanyaki restaurant. Sure, we didn't get the traditional show with our meal, but who cares? I ate two lunches in a row for $8! The Value is Real, and the Flavor is Good. If you are in the Oak Ridge area, do try and stop in. You won't regret it.