Since 1960's Benihana has been known as the place in which to have "dinner and a show" with its teppanyaki restaurants. The Miami-based chain is much beloved as a place to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries because of its communal tables and entertaining chefs that perform intricate displays of knife work while cooking in front of audience of diners.
The restaurant also attracts a large number of families, with precocious children mesmerized by the flashy skills of the chefs, while grownups tank up on cocktails served in souvenir porcelain Buddhas, as evidenced by this past weekend's Saturday Night Live skit in which Jonah Hill portrays six-year-old Adam Grossman. Hill's Grossman made his debut a few year's back. Now, he returns. An eternally six-year-old Catskills comic with a penchant for Japanese cuisine served table-side.
In this skit, Grossman is out to dinner with his stepmother, a long-suffering child psychologist who pitys the kidnapper that abducts her manchild stepson. When Dr. Debbie tries to get Adam to stop bothering the paralegals who are dining with them, young Grossman, retorts, "This is Benihana. It's a communal table. If they wanted privacy, they could have gone to ...I don't know...any other restaurant?" before quipping his catch phrase, "What do I know? I'm six!"
We haven't been to Benihana in a while, but after watching this, we're totally in the mood for chicken teriyaki!
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