Our latest dining evening was at the Japan Inn, located in Plantation. This restaurant offers Sushi, Sashimi, Thai and Hibachi, but we went there particularly for the latter. If you are going to visit, I would suggest calling ahead for reservations, since it is a popular spot, especially on the weekends. Without reservations, on a Friday night our wait was about a half an hour. That’s actually not too bad considering the area and the average wait for a table during the weekends around here. However, I know other people have had to wait longer for tables there, so like I said, reservations are the way to go.
We sat at one of the hibachi tables, which if you didn’t know is a large table with a huge flat cooking surface on the backside, just an arm’s length away from where you dine. The chef comes to the table and cooks the whole meal (well, not the soup and salad) right there, to order. There’s a big production with knives flashing and flames jumping up on cue. There’s often juggling and joking on the chef’s side. Unfortunately, our chef was held up at another table, so we got the abbreviated version with no fire show and few jokes. The wait and the lack of show didn’t dampen our experience, but it did make at least one of our number extremely antsy because she was practically fainting from hunger. Our chef was quick to recognize that and made it a point to serve her first.
We each ordered from the hibachi menu (obviously), and the selections included soup, salad, appetizer and main course. There are no choices for the soup, salad and appetizers, or at least, not so far as I could see. We were all served the same salad with a ginger dressing that, in my opinion tasted a lot like your typical French dressing. I like French dressing, so that worked out fine for me. I’m not really sure what type of soup they served (I'm sure Cap and Guida know!), but it was a clear broth with mushrooms, scallions and other unidentified, but yummy ingredients. Our chef first whipped up a huge batch of fried rice, which he divvied out between us and the other party who sat at the same table. If you’d like some advice, I would suggest to go easy on the rice, because I routinely do not and then I can never finish my main course because I am too stuffed with everything that comes before it. It’s tasty, so it’s hard to hold back, but remember that you can always take it home with you, or even finish it after the main course, if you are so inclined.
Our appetizers were a couple of shrimp, just to hold us off until our main course was done. My main course consisted of the shrimp and steak combo. It was delectable, but sadly, as I have already stated, I ate too much rice and had to doggy bag the rest of my shrimp and steak after just a couple of pieces.
Mex ordered the chicken and steak combo and judging from the complete lack of left overs from his main course, I would not hesitate to say he enjoyed it. Cap ordered the shrimp and filet combo, which she ordered with a topping of garlic butter. The filet melts in your mouth, she swears. Guida ordered the filet with the garlic butter as well, but she also ordered the scallops.
Everyone was very happy with the quantity and quality of the food at Japan Inn. The price wasn’t at all steep. I think the most any of us paid was around $25 for their order and we got fed until we were all fit to burst. The restaurant is right around the corner from both of our homes, so we’ll definitely put this place on the “to be revisited” list.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Rosario's II
Our second venture in our new dining pact was to a small Italian restaurant in Sunrise called Rosario’s II. The location is in the outer perimeter of the Sawgrass Mills Mall and since it was a Friday night when we went, we passed many other restaurants with lines of people spilling out the doors, waiting to get in. In fact, the adjacent parking lot was crammed with the overflow of the nearby restaurants. But when we entered the dining spot of our choice, we were the only ones there. Typically, that’s not a good sign, but we’re a committed group, so we sallied forth and accepted the hostess’s invitation to “sit wherever you want”.
An average person would assume that being the only patrons in a restaurant would guarantee you prompt service, but we all know what happens when you assume. The wait for someone to take our drink order was somewhat disheartening and more or less set the status quo. Another small group came in, complete with roaming tots, and were served significantly quicker than we were. To the point where they had left quite some time before we were able to leave ourselves.
We ordered mozzarella sticks as an appetizer. Other than having some type of fabric-fiber sticking out of the breading on the piece I grabbed, the sticks were okay. There’s not too much you can do with a cheese stick to ruin it. I hope. They brought us out some garlic rolls, which were quite yummy, though they literally had pools of butter on top. None of us could bring ourselves to pick up the butter and garlic coated rolls with our hands, so we all ate them with forks and knives.
Our salads, when they came, were similarly swimming in dressing. If you go to this restaurant, I would highly recommend ordering the dressing on the side. I couldn’t eat more than a couple of pieces of lettuce, which had miraculously escaped the overall drenching. Guida had decided on pasta fazool soup instead of the salad, but didn’t bother with more than a couple of mouthfuls since she found it dissatisfying.
When it came to our entrées, I’m afraid that the consensus was disappointing. I had ordered the eggplant parmesan, but the pieces of eggplant were sliced so thin that I was eating more breading than eggplant. There was a huge pile of spaghetti that came as a side, but I just wanted some eggplant parm, so they could have cut way back on the spaghetti side and bulked up their slices of eggplant. Seriously, eggplant isn’t an expensive item to offer, so if it’s on your menu, you really don’t need to skimp on the serving size.
Cap had ordered the Chicken Francaise, but was convinced that someone with no prior knowledge of Italian cookery had worked on her dish. Not only was the chicken off-putting, but the spaghetti was overcooked and the sauce was, in her opinion, too lemony. Which is amazing, because I didn’t even know spaghetti sauce had lemon in it. But then, I don’t have much knowledge of Italian cookery myself. Perhaps I could apply for a position as chef….
Guida had the Chicken Cacciatore, which she found to be overbreaded and fatty. They also skimped on the amount of chicken, which was not an issue since it was so unappetizing, but in a more likeable dish, she would appreciated more chicken. Too many onions and not enough peppers were her other comments.
Mex had the Chicken Scarapiello, which he was okay with, other than saying it needed more sausage.
We declined dessert.
It was actually at this dinner that we decided to start recording our dining experiences so that we would be assured to not repeat unpleasant dining experiences. And this would be one of them.
Based on the quality of the meal, the price of our dinners was definitely on the high side. We paid about $15 a person for our main courses, which as I have said before is not an exorbitant amount. But there are many other comparably priced restaurants that have a much better turn out from their kitchens. I look forward to writing of those places very soon!
An average person would assume that being the only patrons in a restaurant would guarantee you prompt service, but we all know what happens when you assume. The wait for someone to take our drink order was somewhat disheartening and more or less set the status quo. Another small group came in, complete with roaming tots, and were served significantly quicker than we were. To the point where they had left quite some time before we were able to leave ourselves.
We ordered mozzarella sticks as an appetizer. Other than having some type of fabric-fiber sticking out of the breading on the piece I grabbed, the sticks were okay. There’s not too much you can do with a cheese stick to ruin it. I hope. They brought us out some garlic rolls, which were quite yummy, though they literally had pools of butter on top. None of us could bring ourselves to pick up the butter and garlic coated rolls with our hands, so we all ate them with forks and knives.
Our salads, when they came, were similarly swimming in dressing. If you go to this restaurant, I would highly recommend ordering the dressing on the side. I couldn’t eat more than a couple of pieces of lettuce, which had miraculously escaped the overall drenching. Guida had decided on pasta fazool soup instead of the salad, but didn’t bother with more than a couple of mouthfuls since she found it dissatisfying.
When it came to our entrées, I’m afraid that the consensus was disappointing. I had ordered the eggplant parmesan, but the pieces of eggplant were sliced so thin that I was eating more breading than eggplant. There was a huge pile of spaghetti that came as a side, but I just wanted some eggplant parm, so they could have cut way back on the spaghetti side and bulked up their slices of eggplant. Seriously, eggplant isn’t an expensive item to offer, so if it’s on your menu, you really don’t need to skimp on the serving size.
Cap had ordered the Chicken Francaise, but was convinced that someone with no prior knowledge of Italian cookery had worked on her dish. Not only was the chicken off-putting, but the spaghetti was overcooked and the sauce was, in her opinion, too lemony. Which is amazing, because I didn’t even know spaghetti sauce had lemon in it. But then, I don’t have much knowledge of Italian cookery myself. Perhaps I could apply for a position as chef….
Guida had the Chicken Cacciatore, which she found to be overbreaded and fatty. They also skimped on the amount of chicken, which was not an issue since it was so unappetizing, but in a more likeable dish, she would appreciated more chicken. Too many onions and not enough peppers were her other comments.
Mex had the Chicken Scarapiello, which he was okay with, other than saying it needed more sausage.
We declined dessert.
It was actually at this dinner that we decided to start recording our dining experiences so that we would be assured to not repeat unpleasant dining experiences. And this would be one of them.
Based on the quality of the meal, the price of our dinners was definitely on the high side. We paid about $15 a person for our main courses, which as I have said before is not an exorbitant amount. But there are many other comparably priced restaurants that have a much better turn out from their kitchens. I look forward to writing of those places very soon!
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