Teppanyaki Manchester

Teppanyaki Manchester
Connaught Building, 58-60 George Street, City

“Never been touched, never been kissed,” was the slogan that our table’s teppanyaki chef underscored our Birthday Girl with once he discovered the nature of the occasion. That we didn’t capitalise thoroughly enough on this throughout the rest of our night is our fault. That we suffered through the indignity of the rest of our meal is, well, also our fault.

A teppanyaki restaurant aims, one can only assume, to recreate the somewhat Spartan conditions of Japanese army encampments by crowding its punters around a large hotplate and on this point Teppanyaki Manchester scores very highly indeed but why should we, in central Manchester c. 2010, want to recreate this atmosphere? Perhaps the answers lies in the 6th criteria of the ‘Taste of Manchester’ website (Teppanyaki is in this discerning guide’s top 50 best restaurants): “motivated and keen people running a quality show”. Quality. Show.

As far as I could tell, our quality show ended after our personal chef had finished banging his spatulas against the hotplate and juggling a few eggs. Naturally I envy him his talent as a juggler but I resent the idea that this allows him to proceed to serve up a generic meal of grilled meat/fish/tofu to the consuming public. The one further show-stopper involved diner-participation and Birthday Girl and a couple of friends were goaded into having a go at flicking an eggshell into the hotplate’s crap-shoot. However, I will say that he created some of the best egg-fried rice I’d ever tasted (probably imitable at home if you too happen to have about 5 dozen bulbs of garlic) and the stern faux-geishas pressed upon us miso soup that was unique amongst its kind for being edible.

The rest of my meal was essentially grilled meat – the sort of meal that you’d probably send back in any establishment that didn’t have a knife wielding chef looming over you from behind an imposing slab of hot metal.

Certainly the staff were “motivated”; chef didn’t spare an eyebrow in getting that plate hot enough to toss our food out onto and I don’t remember anyone actually asking for the bill before the head stern faux-geisha presented it to us. But, of course, teppanyaki is the speed dating of restaurants for the modern world; the place was packed and they never seat less than 6 so prepare yourself for sharing your meal with other mugs but don’t count on being around long enough to really get to know them.

Highlights include rice and Japanese beers, at a price no young professionals or hen parties can afford to shrug at: the set menus range from £26.15 to £41.60 – if I had to go again I would avoid these and sacrifice the erroneous salad, generically bland appetisers and ice cream/fruit dessert.