Benihana

"If all the fun dinner spots in your regular rotation are feeling tired, we know what you need: an evening at Benihana, complete with an electric blue fishbowl and a flaming onion volcano. It’s probably been too long since a hibachi chef squirted sake in your mouth, because New York isn’t really a hibachi town. But Midtown is home to the city’s only Benihana, and the cavernous two-floor restaurant can seat you and your 11 friends tonight, or any other night. Come for dinner and a show—our favorite part is when they use their spatula to make a beating heart out of fried rice. video credit: Willa Moore All you have to do is sit back, drink that sickeningly sweet fishbowl, and make friends with the couple sitting across from you, who are both really good at catching the vegetables in their mouths. The food is generally bland, but in a city without many hibachi options, you take what you can get. Plus, you're not here for impressive food. You're here for the impressive performance. Food Rundown Benihana Onion Soup Tastes like onion-accented hot water. Did it have more flavor when you were a kid, or were your tastebuds underdeveloped? Benihana Salad The carrot-ginger dressing doesn’t taste like carrot-ginger dressing—it doesn’t really taste like anything. But a little soy sauce goes a long way. Hibachi Chicken There are a lot of options—chicken, steak, shrimp, plus more—but whatever you order you can expect it to be bland yet somehow aggressively salty, and more fun to watch being made than to eat. And that’s okay." - Willa Moore