Dinner and A Show – Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi

Jeff "Lee"* does five shows a night on an average Friday night. And they are shows. He stands over his tappanyaki
and cooks for 10 guests, with flash and flourish and quite a bit of daring do. Streamlined and choreographed, he executes every movement flawlessly, much to the delight and applause of his guests.

Jeff is a chef at Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi. And while he normally does his shifts at the Old Wake Forest Road location, he does pull shifts at Crabtree Valley Mall.

"Maybe at Crabtree, I do 10 or 11 tables," he said in between scenes of The Fire and Food show. "I'll do five or six tonight."

One recent Friday night, Jeff did dinner for the extended family unit on the occasion of Her Imperial Majesty le Grand Dame's "29^th" birthday (wink, wink) and he was flawless. As he moved through the various preparations, he chatted, joked and generally entertained the assembled. All things considered, he and his dishes came off quite well.

For the un-initiated, tappanyaki steakhouses originated in Japan in the 1940s, but didn't really appear in The States until Rocky Aoki, a Japanese wrestler who qualified for by did not attend the 1960 Summer Olympics, opened the first Benihana of Tokyo in New York City. Typically, chefs grill beef, chicken, seafood along various vegetables and rice while guest sit tableside and watch the whole thing happen.

Our group had a smattering of everything: Thomas the Intrepid had a combination, as did our new friends, Ryan and Joy. Her Imperial Majesty had chicken, while I had steak. Le Grand Dame had a perfect cooked piece of Tilapia, while my sister Mary Catherine and her genius child, The Magster, did chicken and shrimp, respectively. Das Kinder ate everything that came her way.

The dishes that come off the tappanyaki, while not terribly exotic in today's post Food Network sensibilities, are hot, fresh and delicately seasoned. Given the semi-rigidity of the format, Jeff and his colleagues do quite well.

While my foodie friends may scoff, a good time was had by all. And in a certain sense, Kanki, and all the other tappanyaki steakhouses are paleo, if only in a sort of Mad Men fashion. Call it kitsch but for me it works as least as well as Jeff does, which is to say, pretty darn well.

*Not his real name.

Kanki Japanese House of Steaks and Sushi – three locations

North Raleigh

4500 Old Wake Forest Road, Raleigh, NC 27609

PHONE:  919.876.4157      FAX:  919.876.7699

 
Durham

3504 Mt. Moriah Road, Durham, NC 27707

PHONE:  919.401.6908     FAX:  919.401.6843      TAKE OUT:  919.403.TOGO

 
Crabtree Valley Mall (Lower Level)
4325 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27612

PHONE:  919.782.9708      FAX:  919.787.4524

Cuisine: Pre-fusion Asian / Paleo Japanese

Rating: *** ½

Prices: $$$

Atmosphere: Tappanyaki steak house.

Noise level: Quite a bit, this is show business after all.

Open: Various, check individual location for hours.

Wake Forest Road and Durham locations:

LUNCH HOURS:  Sun Noon - 3:00      Mon - Fri 11:30 - 2:00    Sat Noon - 3:00
DINNER HOURS:  Sun 3:00 - 9:30    Mon - Thu 4:30 - 9:30    Fri 5:00 - 10:30    Sat 3:00 - 10:30

Crabtree Valley Mall location:

Monday - Thursday: 11:30am - 9:30pm
Friday & Saturday: 11:30am - 10:30pm
Sunday: Noon - 9:30pm

Reservations: Yeah, you should.

Other: Communal seating at the tappanyaki grills, Think if it as a way to make new friends.

We rank restaurants in five categories: 

***** Extraordinary – Intense attention to ingredients and preparation and devoid of pretense. Everything's right.

**** Excellent – Attention to ingredients and preparation; in down scale environs, something that’s true to its DNA.

*** Above average – Good but not great. Or, as Her Imperial Majesty says, "I'm not that crazy about it".

** Average – Will do in a pinch but not worth a journey.

* Fair – Don’t bother, as it probably has a help wanted sign in the window, which is always the harbinger of a bad time on the horizon.

 

 

Paleo Swedish – Koenigsburger Klopps

I once handed my card to a pastry chef from Durham.

"Paleo-culinary ethnography?" She laughed and walked away.

Yeah, well.
Paleo-culinary ethnography is what I call American food before it became fashionable – before the Food Network and even before Julia Child. I do try to take it seriously. I do own a dozen or so cookbooks that are older that I am. And I do stick my proboscis into them trying to excavate something interesting in order to turn back the clock. And in spite (or despite) of the levity I generate in the professional foodie community, I will endeavor to persevere.

Nosing about one of my 29 (wink, wink) year old mother's cookbooks, I happened on a recipe for Koenigsberger klopps – Swedish meatballs. This household has a fetish for nearly all things Swedish – both a Volvo and a Saab in the garage, a bottle of Absolut in the freezer, and Dux to sleep in upstairs – and this Pre-Eisenhower recipe works well steamed potatoes and green beans.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
  
• 1 pound ground pork
  
• ½ half of a large onion, grated
  
• 5 egg whites, well beaten
  
• 1/3 to ½ cup breadcrumbs
  
• Sal, pepper, and nutmeg to taste
  

Sauce

• 3 cups water
  
• ½ onion grated
  
• 4 bay leaves
  
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt
  
• 1 tablespoon of peppercorns
  
• 1 tablespoon of allspice berries
  
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
  
• 1 tablespoon flour
  
• 5 egg yolks, beaten
  
• 1 lemon sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon capers
  

Boil the first six sauce ingredients for 30 minutes, then strain and bring to a boil again. Add the meatballs in batches and cook for about 15 minute. When they're done, remove them from the water and onto a warming plate. Once all your meatballs are done add the vinegar to the water. The add the flour slowly, whisking the mixture. Slowly whisk in the egg yolks until thick. Serve the sauce over the meatballs.

Looking back at this recipe, it's easy to see why people of that generation didn't live all that long. A nice meal like this, topped off with an unfiltered Lucky Strike, is not exactly the way to make it to triple digits. Still, it does spin the clock backwards offering a glimpse of what America was like when life was simpler and we weren't so jaded; a time when men wore hats, women wore dresses and the world in general and the dinner plate in high relief specific didn't seem so dangerous.