In the basement of the Taipei 101, like most other shopping complexes in Taiwan is a food court. While they all tend to have similar restaurants, just as food courts in malls back in the States are much he same, there is some slight variation from mall to mall depending on the clientele.
The Taipei 101 appears to attract foreign businessmen and that’s reflected in the food court.
We arrived right at the opening time for lunch and chose the Karen Teppanyaki. My exposure to teppanyaki is fairly limited as the total teppanyaki places in Arizona can probably be counted on 1 hand.
Teppanyaki, for the uninitiated, is a Japanese style of food grilled at specially-designed tables. The chef prepares the food in front of you while you watch. Back in the US, Benihana’s is probably the most widely known name in teppanyaki, but whereas the cooking at Benihana’s is more of a floor show with lots of flourish, knives being flipped and food being tossed around, Karen Teppanyaki was more matter-of-fact.
We placed our orders (I had the filet steak, Irene had the prawn, fish and rib steak) and the cook set about preparing our meat to order. he worked in a no-nonsense, but very efficient and well-practiced manner, and in a matter of minutes we had our food. In addition to the main dish, the meals also include rice, fried vegetables (lettuce, I think), bean sprouts and miso soup.
Without a broad base of comparison, I can say the steak was tasty and cooked as I’d asked it to be. The sauce it was served with was mild, but added something to the steak. Typically, I’m used to a teppanyaki sauce with a stronger ginger flavor, but that wasn’t the case here.
The steak was served topped with slices of crispy-fried garlic which, after a bit of getting used to, is pretty good.
As I’m on vacation, I didn’t actually bother to pay attention to how much it cost, but I’d provisionally recommend it as tasty food and as good as any teppanyaki I’ve had previously.
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