Back home in Australia I’d been to a Teppanyaki restaurant all of once. It was my birthday from memory and before going and seeing a movie me and my then girlfriend decided to try something different.

Walking into Tokyo Teppanyaki in Chapel Street South Yarra and not entirely knowing what teppanyaki was, I remember hearing the price for two to sit down at one of the grills. We quickly deciding that we’d just prefer to have a sit down meal.

Why should I pay exorbitantly extra just to have some guy stand infront of me and cook my food? It’s not like it’s going to taste any different if some guy does the same thing out back behind a wall in the kitchen.

After paying the $60 bill for one meal each and a drink and still feeling massively hungry (the serving sizes were smaller then what I’d normally get as an entree), I remember mentally crossing off ever going inside a teppanyaki restaurant ever again. Back then I was in university and $30 was practically a whole weeks food budget!

Tokyo Teppanyaki being my only experience with teppanyaki, it was not without some apprehension that I decided to revisit this style of Japanese cuisine in Taiwan.

The basic premise of teppanyaki is that you pay some guy to stand there and cook your food for you on a hot plate. This is supposed to, I dunno, be awesome or something. For me I don’t particularly care where my food is cooked… so long as it tastes good.

Naturally having some guy stand infront of you and cook attracts a high price premium in Australia and so the experience is quite cost prohibitive (or maybe Tokyo Teppanyaki is just really overpriced).

Thankfully in Taiwan rather then have pricey restaurant style setups, teppanyaki has been adapted into a cafe style culture. Teppanyaki cafes are dotted all over Taiwan and the good news is they are pretty cheap.

The few teppanyaki cafes that I’ve been into here have always been quite busy so I assume that teppanyaki is quite popular in Taiwan. Unlike in Australia where a chef will come out and be “your” chef over here it’s more of a communal thing. You order and eventually one of the guys will get around to making up what you’ve ordered infront of you.

The cafes themselves are set up like a bar. The cooking grill area is a long strip and you sit on the otherside on a barstool. After ordering you’re free to go help yourself to rice and soup which is all you can eat/drink.

After a short while one of the cooks will get to your order and start the grilling wherever you’re sitting. As your food is cooked a piece of aluminium foil is oiled and placed infront of you on the grill. This is where your cooked food is placed and because it’s on the grill it keeps warm. Just be careful not to burn yourself on it!

After your food is cooked it’s placed on the foil and the chef moves on. It’s quite impersonal really but hey that suited me just fine. This particular time I’d ordered a spicy peppered chicken.

All meals are served with an abundance of grilled cabbage and bean shoots. Oh and did I mention they’re absolutely delicious? So far my favourites have been the spicy peppered chicken and a beef dish which is basically cubed beef with the most delicious tasting marinate ever.

Infact so tasty was my meal that I dug in and totally forgot I had to take a photo (hence the ‘dirty’ rice!).

This particular meal came in at $80 TWD ($2.75 AUD) and left me wanting more. Not so much because of the serving size (which is admittedly on the smallish side compared to other meals available in Taiwan), but just because it was so damned good!

Forget paying $60 for this stuff back home, teppanyaki in Taiwan is yet another reason for me to appreciate just how retarded the price of some things are in Australia.

1. Taiwanese Flower Soup: It’s like eating a garden