hibachi restaurants Archives

58 Teriyaki Grill

March 9, 2016

58 Teriyaki Grill is one of the great restaurants in Chattanooga to get delicious teriyaki, hibachi, or Thai food!

A few weeks ago, Philip and I visited Thai Chili in Ooltewah. A reader suggested 58 Teriyaki Grill, which I’d never even noticed even though I travel Highway 58 a few times a week. This past weekend I decided that I was craving chicken teriyaki. Our choices were 58 Teriyaki Grill and Teriyaki House (in East Ridge). Since 58 Teriyaki Grill was closer, we decided to go there.

When we walked in, we immediately noticed a sign to order at the counter. We were quickly greeted by a very friendly cashier/server, Hope. I immediately knew what I wanted – chicken teriyaki. Philip started to order hibachi steak, but then he noticed the Thai menu to the right of the regular menu. Hope urged him to order something off the Thai menu, so he decided to order pad-see-ew with chicken, which he just tried for the first time when we went to Thai Chili. We also ordered a couple of spring rolls.

We seated ourselves in the dining area, which is dimly lit but very nice. Straws and chopsticks are in a glass on the table (BTW: one of my bucket list items as of last week is that I must learn to eat with chopsticks). Hope brought our drinks along with forks and napkins. Our spring rolls came out quickly and she warned us that they were very hot, so we waited a few minutes to eat them. They were extremely crispy and filled with cabbage and noodles. They were simple and delicious.

Our entrees came out almost immediately after our spring rolls. My teriyaki chicken was served with a simple fried rice (the only detectable vegetable in the rice was corn) and sautéed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, and cabbage). The vegetables were very tender and lightly coated in the sweet and sticky teriyaki sauce – I would have liked more carrots and broccoli, though. The chicken was cut into perfectly bite-sized pieces and browned until just a little bit crispy before being coated with that wonderful sauce. It was fantastic. The rice was nice…as I said before, very simple, but with a good texture and flavor.

Philip was given the option of ordering his pad-see-ew mild, medium, or hot. He went for medium. At first as he ate it, Philip commented that he thought that the spice made it a little more interesting than what he had at Thai Chili, but as he continued eating he started sniffling and remarked that if he were to order it again he would probably go for mild because it became so spicy that the spice distracted from the flavors of the dish. He loved the flavors, though…I think pad-see-ew really has replaced Panang curry as his go-to Thai order.

Hope came to our table several times to check on us and make sure that we had everything that we needed. She was extremely bubbly and helpful and thanked us profusely for coming in (and she didn’t even know I was a food blogger!). As we walked out Philip gave her a Chattavore card and we met the daughter of the owner, who also thanked us for coming in. They told us that they hoped we’d be back, and we will. The prices were good (right at $20 for my teriyaki – $5.99, Philip’s pad-see-ew – $9.99, and two spring rolls – $.99 each), the place was very clean and nicely decorated (I was especially intrigued by the reservations-only Thai lounge!), the people were so friendly and welcoming, and the food was delicious. Definitely worth a trip.

58 Teriyaki Grill is located at 4762 Highway 58, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37416 (in the same strip mall as United Grocery Outlet). Ignore the hours on the menu I’ve included below; Hope told us that they are open Monday-Friday, 11:30-2:30 and 4:00-9:00 but they are open 11:30-9:00 on Saturday. You can call them at 423-296-2899. They don’t have a website, but you can like 58 Teriyaki Grill on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@58Teriyaki).

For the menu, click here and here.

Little Tokyo Express (Hixson, Tennessee)

November 25, 2015

Little Tokyo Express is a quick, tasty, casual, and reasonably-priced hibachi-style restaurant located in Hixson, Tennessee.

A few weeks ago I blogged about Soho Hibachi in Hixson. Someone commented on my Facebook post that she liked Soho but preferred Little Tokyo Express. We’d visited Little Tokyo several years back (before Chattavore sprang into existence) and as I recalled we liked it fine, but for some reason we hadn’t been back. We decided that it was time to go back and give it another try.

Little Tokyo Express is located on Hixson Pike in a building that used to be Wendy’s. It’s pretty basic inside, but clean and well-kept. The menu is limited, which is always a good thing: a regular menu with about ten items, a children’s menu, and a menu of sides. You order at the counter, get your drinks from a fountain, and are given a number to put on your table for the food to be delivered. The cooks are located right behind the counter, so you can see everything that they are doing as they are prepping your order (if you are so inclined, anyway).

I decided on the teriyaki chicken. All orders come with fried rice, but you can add noodles if you prefer for an uncharge. You can also order your meal with mixed vegetables (broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, and onions). I ordered mine with mixed vegetables. The chicken was well-browned and tender, coated with a light, sweet and savory sauce. The rice was well-seasoned and had just a few peas and carrots in it. The vegetables were well cooked and lightly seasoned, except for the onions, which could have used a few more minutes of cooking. They were still a little crunchy and had a bit of a raw onion bite to it. I didn’t eat very many of them.

Philip ordered the steak and chicken. He also got mixed vegetables and rice. If we had realized before we ordered that we could have gotten noodles, one of us would have ordered them to try, but I didn’t know until I saw that the couple who ordered before us had noodles on their plates. His rice, vegetables, and chicken were essentially the same as mine. The steak was cut into thin slices that were about 2 inches square. Like the chicken, the steak was lightly browned on the outside and was also very tender.

Here in the South, the white sauce or “Yum-Yum sauce” is very important. So far, I have not found any white sauce at a restaurant that quite measures up to the white sauce served at Typhoon of Tokyo (or the white sauce that I make myself), and I’ll be honest…Little Tokyo’s doesn’t quite either. It’s good, but a little sweeter than I prefer; it had a good consistency. I mixed a little soy sauce into mine to make it a little more salty and a little less sweet. That worked out well. They are very generous with the white sauce, as they have lidded containers of it next to the register as well as pump containers on the counter with the forks, napkins, etc. where you can serve yourself more if you need it.

For teriyaki chicken, a steak and chicken meal, and two waters, our meal was $17.87 before tip….not a bad deal for the large portion of food that you are given (to-go boxes are readily available near the counter if you need them). The staff was friendly and the food was tasty. I’ll admit that Typhoon is still my favorite but I would definitely go to Little Tokyo again. Little Tokyo Express in Hixson, Tennessee serves good food at a good value.

Little Tokyo Express is located at 4516 Hixson Pike, Hixson, Tennessee, 37343. They are open daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can call them at 423-874-0500. There is a Facebook page that appears to be for Little Tokyo Express, but the information is not accurate as the website points to a restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Soho Hibachi (Hixson, Tennessee)

October 26, 2015

Soho Hibachi is a popular hibachi and teriyaki restaurant that provides tasty food and quick service on Highway 153 (near Target) in Hixson, Tennessee.

As I type this, I am lamenting the fact that tomorrow is the last weekday of my Fall break. I love my job, but the chance to stay up late then sleep in (8 a.m. is sleeping in for this old girl) and hang out doing whatever I want is pretty much my favorite. On top of that I visited the Small Business Development Center earlier this week and got several ideas for building this blog thing into something larger than life.

Anyway, it’s Thursday right now and tomorrow we are going apple picking at Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge, Georgia. We decided to go grocery shopping today so that we wouldn’t have to do our usual Friday night shopping trip after our day trip. Before we shopped, we decided to eat a late lunch at Soho Hibachi since it is right next door to Aldi, where we do as much of our shopping as possible.

I’ve been hearing good things about Soho for a while, but we generally only go to that little plaza on Friday nights when it’s pretty crowded, and if you know anything about me you know that we avoid crowds like the plague. It definitely wasn’t crowded when we got there at about 2:00 on Thursday afternoon so we waltzed right up and placed our order.

They have a lunch special of two Japanese spring rolls for $1.50. We generally order spring rolls, summer rolls, or egg rolls at any restaurant where we dine that serves them. The spring rolls came out quickly. They were small, wrapped in very thin spring roll wrappers and fried until shatteringly crisp (and mouth-searingly hot!!). They were vegetarian, filled mostly with cabbage, and were very good but not exceptional.

When ordering you are given two menus from which to choose: hibachi or teriyaki. The lunch special is chicken, either teriyaki style or hibachi style, for $5.95. I am a fool for teriyaki, so I chose teriyaki. You can choose steamed white or brown rice, fried rice, or noodles. I decided on the noodles. The chicken was white meat chicken, cut into thin strips and seared till brown along with broccoli, zucchini, and onions, then tossed with a sweet but not overly so teriyaki sauce. It is definitely not the thick and sticky sauce that you get at a store and was quite delicious. The noodles (udon, for the record) were a little chewy, well-seasoned, and delicious, mixed with wilted Napa cabbage.

Philip decided to go for the hibachi-style filet mignon with fried rice for $9.25. The filet was cut into small chunks and seared on the hibachi along with broccoli, zucchini, and onions. Everything was seasoned well and cooked to a perfect texture. The fried rice was also well-seasoned, with carrots and peas, and cooked to a good “chewiness” level.

Soho Hibachi has a “serve yourself” condiment bar where you can get white (yum-yum) sauce, ginger sauce, duck sauce, Sriracha, etc. We tried the white sauce (of course) and thought that it was quite good-a little salty, a little sweet. Not as good as what is served at Typhoon of Tokyo, which will always be our gold standard for quick hibachi food, but good nonetheless.

The decor in Soho Hibachi was nice…simple, basic, clean with a few embellishments. The service was quick and professional and there were quite a few people picking up carryout orders while we were there. At $18.03 before tip, the price is competitive with other similar restaurants in the area. For a quick hibachi or teriyaki-style meal in the Hixson area, definitely check out Soho Hibachi!

Soho Hibachi is located at 5510 Highway 153, Chattanooga, TN 37343. There are open from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. You can all them at 423-877-8808. They do not have a website or a Facebook page.

MoMo Hibachi (Soddy-Daisy, TN)

January 5, 2015

MoMo Hibachi is a popular hibachi restaurant that serves great, inexpensive hibachi food in a casual atmosphere in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee.

I’m not really sure how MoMo Hibachi has been in Soddy-Daisy for at least a year or two and I have never been there. That doesn’t really matter, though. Saturday was the day. It was a terrible rainy day and we have been working on giving our kitchen a facelift, painting the cabinets and countertops (that, my friends, is a process!) so we didn’t want to venture too far away from home. We headed over to MoMo at about 2 p.m., when there was only one other table occupied.

We had a seat and the server brought us menus and took our drink orders. The restaurant is clean and fairly sparsely decorated and is somehow smaller than I had envisioned (El Metate takes up a large portion of the strip mall). We spent a few minutes perusing the menu, which consisted of appetizers, salads, fried rice dishes, and yakisoba dishes.
We decided to order some spring rolls, which came out very quickly. The spring rolls were light, perfectly fried, and stuffed with cabbage and a few carrots. They came with a packet of hot mustard and a couple of packets of duck sauce in those telltale takeout plastic packages.

Entrees come with a side salad, which is served with ranch, honey mustard, and ginger dressing; we both chose ginger. The salad was a pretty standard hibachi restaurant salad, just iceberg lettuce and carrots, but the ginger dressing was not the thick orange dressing that you find at Ichiban. It was a thin, very sweet gingery dressing and was very tasty though maybe a bit too sweet right at the bottom of the salad.

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted chicken, steak, or shrimp, so I decided to get all three with fried rice. The rice was well-seasoned and the meat cooked well and, again, seasoned well. I would have liked to have gotten a little more of the vegetables (zucchini and onions) and maybe some mushrooms too. However, I really liked the dish and it was a large portion for the price ($7.75) and I brought home leftovers. A bottle of “MoMo sauce” was brought to the table as well. It was the standard Japanese Yum-Yum sauce, sweeter than my Japanese White Sauce but very tasty.

Philip also decided to get the chicken, steak, and shrimp combo but he decided to get the yakisoba noodles instead of rice. His dish was very similar to mine, except, of course, for the noodles in place of the rice (the yakisoba chicken, steak, and rice combo was $7.95). The noodles were thick and chewy, very delicious. We liked them a little bit better than the rice. This will probably be the standard order for both of us when we go back, though I’ll probably order the steak from now on as it was my favorite of the three meats.

The service was good. There was one server working. While we were there, quite a few tables filled up and she managed to check on us several times, keep our drinks filled, and take our credit card when we were finished while waiting on the other tables. The food came out quickly and was fresh and tasty. The portions were good for the price.

I’d recommend MoMo Hibachi for a quick and tasty hibachi meal.

MoMo Hibachi is located at 9332 Dayton Pike, next to Soddy-Daisy Wal-Mart. They are open Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., and Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m. You can call them at (423) 332-3003. They do not have a website, but you can “like” MoMo Hibachi on Facebook.