Jinroku puts its grill to good use

The first wave of tep­panyaki restaurants in the United States focused on steak and seafood, a marriage most Americans in the 1960s understood. Why scare this new overseas audience with anything more exotic?

It took another 30 years for the second wave to hit, focusing on the more casual comfort dish okonomiyaki, what we would more likely describe as a Japanese-style omelet or pancake, while the Japanese refer to it as a pancake or pizza, with all the "toppings" that entails.

Jinroku’s first success was in Tokyo, and they’ve brought everything diners liked there to their casual open-air Waikiki location. Casual doesn’t always mean inexpensive. Although you can put together a meal of affordable appetizers and okonomiyaki, prix fixe dinner sets start at $28, going up to $62.95 for a steak and lobster teppanyaki combo. There are so many items on the menu, it’s hard to know where to begin, so the best advice I can give is to travel in a group, allowing you to share a variety of dishes.

Jinroku’s exterior looks deceptively grand. I was expecting a lavish, enclosed box, but it just opens to a nondistinctive street view. Diners have the option of table or bar seating across from the teppan chefs to watch meals in progress. It’s a real treat to see how they deftly layer their egg, flour, yam and cabbage pizzas.

You might be there specifically for okonomiyaki, but you’re going to have to start elsewhere on the menu because the pancakes take 20 to 25 minutes to cook through. After every dish on our table had been devoured, we were still waiting for the okonomiyaki and negi yaki, the latter a green version of the okonomiyaki, comprising egg and vast quantities of Tokyo negi, a giant cousin of the green onion.

The grill is put to use throughout the menu, starting with appetizers of a buta kim chee deluxe ($14) omelet red with kim chee, plus slices of pork, octopus, scallop and shrimp, and the Jinroku potato, a version of hash browns ($7.75), with its rough-textured blend of potatoes, bacon and onions, topped with cheese.

Sautéed mixed mushrooms ($7) featured shiitake, shimeji and slender enoki, the latter’s delicate thin stems registering as slippery as spaghetti in the light soy sauce.

Teppanyaki steak or seafood dishes might follow. These include prime New York strip ($32.75), prime filet mignon ($34.75), combination seafood ($28.50) or lobster ($38.95). There are also grilled chicken ($20) and salmon ($21.50). The Jinroku combination ($28.50) is a beautiful array of prime steak, mixed seafood and grilled vegetables, but this requires a minimum two-serving order, at $57. At that price you get what amounts to about six ounces of steak, two scallops, two shrimp, tako and sweet, tender squid, plus bean sprouts and a couple thin slices of kabocha, which is not a lot of food, but nice to pick at over drinks.

Okonomiyaki roughly translates to "what you like grilled," and true to its name, just about anything goes here. You can get your pizza with a single ingredient like pork ($13), beef ($14), shrimp ($14.50), curried potato ($15.50) or combination of ingredients. According to staffers, the deluxe pizza tama ($18.75), with vegetables, potato, bacon, cheese, squid, shrimp and scallop with the bright flavor of slivered red ginger, is one of the most popular offerings, although our waiter made sure to discern whether we like cheese. Not everyone likes their seafood with cheese.

Just about every ingredient available with the okonomiyaki is available for the negi yaki, but as much as I like green onions, I preferred the fluffier, juicier and sweeter plum-sauced okonomiyaki to the saltier, soy sauce-flavored negi yaki.

Perfect for summer weather, dessert consists of light milk pudding ($5) and shave ice with brown sugar syrup ($5 to $8). Don’t expect the range of toppings you’d find at a specialty shop, though sometimes something light, cool and refreshing after a big meal is enough.