🚀 go-pugleaf

This is about Benihana and I place my text at the top (as I have done
optionally for 21 years, though lately it is unfashionable) because the
quoted part is included for optional reference.

I have not researched Benihana recently but I remember when the guy (the
son) launched the chain, and _at the time_ (I don't know if today's Web site
reflects this, it may have been written by people not yet then born) the
firm presented different faces in different countries.  In the US it was
"Benihana of Tokyo" and in Japan, "Benihana of New York," where it was
received, I understand, as a US innovation.  (This was described as very
clever in the restaurant-business world at the time.)

A little like the way certain styles of pizza thrived among southern-Italian
immigrants to the Northeastern US much more than in Italy, and later got
reintroduced to Italy after the second world war, where they were
enthusiastically received as an "American" specialty and proceeded to
conquer Italy.  (John F. Mariani details this in his classic 1989 essay
_Everybody Likes Italian Food,_ with a touch of pride.)

Max

"axlq in California" in news:c675l4$khg$6@blue.rahul.net...
> Let me clarify what I wrote earlier:
>
> Benihana pioneered the "performance cooking" kind of venue, but
> it DOES have its origins in Japan, from a restaurant started by a
> Samurai descendant after WWII.  His son moved the the U.S. in the
> 1960s and started the Benihana chain, with the idea of combining
> food preparation with entertainment.
>
> This is described on Benihana's web site at
> http://www.benihana.com/benihana_history.asp
>
> I think it took a long while (like until the 1970) before this
> performance cooking became widely known and popular.  It WAS
> pioneered by Benihana, but the concept started in Japan, but didn't
> become popular in Japan until after Benihana popularized it in the
> United States.