BANZAI THE GREAT TEPPANYAKI THEATER

DEAR DREAMERS

Japanese cuisine has always been at the top of my favorite food list. Although other cuisines take the top spot from time to time depending on my mood, Japanese cuisine most certainly frequents the top of my list. That being said, you might understand why I am truly fascinated and why I fancy Banzai, a Japanese buffet. Banzai, The Great Teppanyaki Theater, covers a wide range of Japanese food, from Japanese snacks to typical Japanese cuisine. This food post will mostly be filled with food photos but I cannot say for sure that I have covered everything that banzai has to offer.

Everybody say banzai!

This is everybody’s favorite place to have their picture taken in Banzai. The red and white lanterns gives the photo a nice effect.

Near the entrance are a couple of artworks which is also located beside the lanterns.

Here you can find a picture of a geisha, a koi fish, a tsunami and more.

You can find the plates beneath the tables.

I think that these look really nice. I’m not sure if these can be used or if they are just for decoration purposes. These can be found near the plates.

In Banzai, you can watch the chefs prepare the food step by step. I especially like their plating.

Welcome to the teppanyaki station. Here you can find steak sauce, wasabi cream sauce, miso butter with yellow mustard, spring onions and garllc chips.

Some fried rice and some more rice being cooked.

Now its time to grill some shrimp.

While the shrimp is grillin’, check out the fish teppan which is beside the ebi teppan. Don’t forget the squid teppan and tuna teppan.

Masks in frames.

After the grilling stations, you can pass by the drinks station and grab some iced tea, blue lemonade and more drinks. It is unlimited!

Let it burn! I find that the fire somehow makes the chicken look somewhat yummier.

Yummy ramen time! From left to right, you can find shoyu ramen, tan-tan men, miso ramen, chasyu ramen, tonkotsu ramen, katsudon and gyudon.

There are condiments beside the ramen station. There’s gomatare, ponzu sauce, gyoza sauce, spicy momeji, tongarashi (seven-spice chili mix) and spring onions.

Beside the sauce are the gyozas.

Gyozas include chicken gyoza, pork gyoza and the beef gyoza.

Check out the ebi tempura, tempura mori awase (mixed tempura) and the tonkatsu (porkoin or tenderloin).

Takoyaki is one of my favorite Japanese snacks. It is usually made of dough and filled with veggies and octopus —tako means octopus— glazed with sweet takoyaki sauce and some mayonnaise. For some reason, I usually get tired of the taste of the takoyaki after eating a few pieces but that feeling quickly subsides the following day. Although I think that it will not be so if it were authentic Japanese takoyaki involved.

Trying out takoyaki from Japan is one of my things-to-do-when-I-visit-Japan list. When we ate at Banzai, I thought I was pretty close to trying almost authentic takoyaki but boy was I way off the mark. They made the takoyaki look so good that I didn’t expect that I would have to finish off five balls of dough. It was literally a ball of dough with a single octopus —you can choose octopus, squid and crab meat— decorated with tokayaki sauce, aonori (green dried seaweed) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). I was pretty pissed after finishing the takoyaki because I already felt really full and somewhat bloated. It felt like a waste. I guess the smart move was not to finish them at all but I dislike wasting food.

Their sushi boat is just so cute!

Below the sushi boats are condiments for the sushi such as soy sauce and wasabe. Beside the condiments are soy sauce saucers. From afar, I thought that the chopsticks looked like some kind of tray but a closer look told me that they were just chopsticks piled up into a tic-tac-toe look.

The Japanese Caesar Salad station are divided into mixed greens, Caesar dressing, croutons, parmesan cheese and bacon bits.

Beside the salad station is the cold ramen station.

The left side of the cold ramen station has kani strips (crab meat), tamago strips (egg), nori strips (seaweed), tempura batter and green soba noodles.

Soba noodles are usually made of buckwheat flour. Aside from the green soba noodles, you can also opt for the other soba noodles which is mauve in color. I forgot to take note of the name of the other soba noodles, sorry.

After the cold soba noodles station is the fruits and pastries section.

They have watermelon, pineapple and more in the fruits station. They have cookies, sans rival cake and more in the pastries section.

Behind the fruits and pastry station are more desserts.

Say hello to the dessert boat.

Now say hello to the dessert stairs.

Unlimited yogurt, yum yum! You can choose from green tea flavor and plain flavor (I think it was vanilla) or mix them both by using the middle handle. Beside the yogurt machine is the snow cone machine and the syrups as well as the cups.

On the opposite side of the yogurt and the snow cone, are more pastries.

Some sprinkles for your yogurt or your pastries.

My first dish had takoyaki and Japanese Hawaiian pizza and chicken teriyaki pizza. Their pizza had the same small round orange toppings like the ones they use in california maki.

This is the ramen my sister got. It looks so yummy.

Their cold ramen tasted great! I really liked it. Their sauce was good too. By the way, there is a chef on stand by near the cold ramen station to help you prepare and arrange your cold ramen.

My mom drizzled some sprinkles and the snow cone syrup on her yogurt.

For me, I chose to mix the yogurt flavors.

This is the theater part where the four chefs perform. I was not able to take a photo of the part where they cook with large fires but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Every table had this stand that has a paper hooked on both sides of the stand. The other side talks about Banzai and its food. The other side has their price list of their eat and drink all you can. Monday to Friday is P699 for lunch and P899 for dinner. Saturday to Sunday and holidays is P1,088 for lunch and dinner. Kids below 3.5 feet eat for free!

REVIEW

Overall I liked the place and the food. I really liked the concept and I appreciated the plating of their food, it made taking pictures of the food easier. The ambiance was good and the place was well decorated. Adding an art room was a good move on their part, my family had a fun time taking wacky photos with the sumo background. I included the bicycle background on my next post but I did not include the other ones. Kudos to to whoever thought of including a cluster of Japanese lanterns to the place, it definitely completes the Banzai experience. My only regret and frustration is the takoyaki. I was not able to try all the food because I felt really bloated after eating the takoyaki. I was able to try a few other dishes but it was not enough. I was utterly disappointed. Don’t get me wrong though, I would definitely want to come back and maybe try more of the dishes. Next time, I will just have to steer clear of the takoyaki but hopefully, they would have fixed that by then.

NOTES
Banzai is located at the SM by the bay in the Mall of Asia complex in Pasay City. This post has a part two. I separated the posts because this one was getting too long. You can check out the part two of this post on my Lace and Pink Blossoms post!