Arigato, a local Japanese steak and seafood house, keeps business coming with their chefs’ showmanship abilities. The restaurant’s traditionally inspired architecture creates a pleasing, low-lit ambiance for a comfortable, casual and culture-conscious experience. The chefs’ performances, featuring “flashing knives and whirling shakers,” entice all ages to enjoy a celebratory meal preparation and a tasty meal, too.

All dinners begin with a clear chicken broth soup of chives and mushrooms. The soup isn’t exactly exciting, but it serves a purpose beyond the immediate satisfaction of your stomach. Chicken broth is bland, and in this case, it’s meant to clean your palate so that you can fully enjoy the upcoming meal. The next inclusive component of dinner is an iceberg lettuce salad with either soy-based house, ginger-based chef, ranch, thousand island, or blue cheese dressings. After the waitress removes the greens from your table, the real games begin right before your eyes.

When the chef, each of whom has a unique, brightly color-coordinated outfit, rolls around the corner and up to your table’s metal stove with his cart of utensils, spices, sauces, vegetables and raw meat, it’s show time. In his initial demonstration, he will cook a shrimp appetizer and try to impress the group with elaborate movements, jokes, and culinary skill. He’ll also whip up some oriental style zucchini and onions with fried rice. Out of the available sauces, I recommend the sweet mayonnaise, but he’ll also offer soy, ginger, and spicy mustard, and you can ask for as many as you like. After that, the meal is determined by what you have ordered.

The hibachi entrée or meat, which personalizes the meal, justifiably creates the varying degrees of cost on the menu. Filet mignon and scallops are the most expensive choices at around $16, followed by a four-way tie between shrimp, Norwegian salmon, red snapper, and rib-eye steak at about $14. Chicken is alone on the third price tier at $11.80 and vegetarians can walk away spending only about $10 for dinner. Mixing and matching any of these entrees makes it more expensive, ranging from $14 up to $19. If you feel the urge to splurge, there are two specialty entrees which feature the fruits of the sea: lobster, shrimp, and scallops ($26), or seafood and filet mignon ($29).

To complement the meal, Arigato offers three specialty drinks that sell for around $5. The Arigato special is comprised of gin, triple sec, orange and lime juice, and a sweet and sour mix. Plum punch is a blend of plum wine, Sprite, and sweet and sour mix and the Sapporo silver bullet is an imported beer from Japan. Desserts are pretty low-cost, at $2-$3, and those offered are vanilla ice cream, red bean ice cream, and green tea ice cream, orange sherbet, and chocolate cake.

There are some downsides to Arigato, despite the congenial atmosphere and intriguing techniques of its chefs. Overall, the food itself is satisfying, but not exceptional. Anticipating a good show, the restaurant has a full house most of the time, so reservations are recommended. However, since their chefs give a performance, for cost-effective reasons, the restaurant needs a full audience each time they serve. Consequently, until there’s room to sit or enough people to fill the tables of nine, you might be waiting, despite a reservation time. Dining with strangers is another issue entirely.

The main advantage to a meal at a Japanese steakhouse is the preparation, which can’t be conveyed through words: you just need to see it yourself. I suggest a trip out either if you’ve never been before or would like to experience a sophisticated element of Japanese culture.