Birthday Celebration at Tsukasa

It was my birthday yesterday. My wife and Kai took me out to a teppan-yaki restaurant that we had never been to before. Teppan-yaki is the Japanese cuisine where they use a hot iron griddle to prepare the food right at the table in front of you. Benihana is the most famous of these places and is a national chain; we went to a place called Tsukasa of Tokyo, which is local to our area.

Kai and I started out with shrimp tempura.

And then it was time for the chef to start cooking. They always start by setting off a huge flame. Kai always gets scared at the thought of it.

This time I saw a smile on his face so I think he enjoyed it, though he still wanted to cling to Mom.

One of the nice things about this type of restaurant is that it's easier to get Kai to stop using the iPad or phone while we are there as the chef is quite entertaining. Our chef seemed particularly adept. The chefs all wear different color chef hats. We saw chefs with green, red, brown, and black hats. Our chef had a black hat which meant that he was a master chef, the top level. He demonstrated his skill by flipping pieces of broccoli into the mouths of each patron at the table. Here is the broccoli headed toward my wife's mouth as Kai gapes in amazement.

We all had combo platters with steak; my wife and I had it with scallops, Kai had his with shrimp.

The food was very delicious. We all thought that this was the best teppan-yaki restaurant we had been to.

Even the pineapple dessert was both delicious and artistic.

Afterward, we sat out by the koi pond.

And then went back home to finish off the celebration with an ice cream cake.

It was definitely a very happy birthday!