【Recommend Restaurant】Fujiyama: Japanese Fusion Dinner and a Teppan Show

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If you are traveling towards San Francisco and are craving for Japanese cuisine on the way, I would recommend that you stop by Fujiyama, which is located in Salinas about two hours south of San Francisco. This week, I drove up to Salinas to enjoy a quiet getaway and while on the hunt for a flavorful dinner, I stumbled upon Fujiyama which is a sushi and hibachi restaurant. Fujiyama is a restaurant which offers both a sushi bar and a separate area for hibachi, which is a style of dining where various ingredients are cooked on an iron hot plate called teppan in Japanese directly in front of the patron. In this restaurant, there is a separate dining area for sushi and hibachi.

My party and I were seated at a table with a large iron teppan in front of us. There are numerous types of entrees to choose from for cooking on the teppan, however, simply put they offer protein dishes such as steak, chicken and filet mignon, seafood dishes like red snapper, scallops and shrimp or also varied combinations of both protein and seafood.

I elected to dine on a combination of red snapper and steak. These combinations also come with fried rice, soup, and salad. We were first served with miso soup which had mushroom in it. I found the miso soup to taste very unique because it was strongly flavored with mushroom. It was very enjoyable. There was also a small house salad which was a nice appetizer to start before the main dish arrived.

Our chef was named Michael and he performed acrobatic tricks with his spatulas by flipping them around and joveling them. This is my favorite part of hibachi- not only is it tasty but you get to enjoy the chefs entertain you with sleights and tricks, it is almost as if you are watching Cirques Soleil.

Michael first prepared fried rice, which had a slight crunchy taste and was soy sauce based. It was so hot and fresh because it came right off the grill, and we even saw Michael break the eggs to make the fried rice. After the rice came the noodle, which was similar to chow mein and had a teriyaki flavor to it. Later, Michael carefully cut a piece of steak into small pieces and carefully grilled them into a medium-rare steak for me.

I just love listening to the steak pieces sizzle on the grill, and the aroma arising from the grill just made my mouth water even more. The steak is certainly not a disappointing entree, it is so tender on the inside while having the right amount of grilled charcoal flavor on the skin. I also got the red snapper which Michael cooked by layering it with soft butter on top and drizzling some teriyaki sauce on the top of it. The fish just melts in your mouth and the butter along with the grill flavor are the perfect trifectory. We also had a variety of vegetables including onions, broccoli and squash. Michael demonstrated the “volcano” which is a display where the chef takes onion rings, layers them up like a pyramid and lights it on fire to make it look like a volcano. It was very entertaining and the vegetables are so fresh and crunchy.