Arakawa Japanese Restaurant

My oh my oh my. Arakawa Japanese Restaurant at RACV Royal Pines on the Gold Coast was fantastic. The company was also great, but the food and entertainment level was great.

 

Arakawa Japanese Restaurant

 

We decided to get a set menu, and chose menu one, which was $59.00. You can take a look at their menus here.

 

 

 

First up was the kaiso seaweed salad with house dressing:

 

 

After the salad came the pumpkin miso custard. It sounds like it shouldn’t be nice but it was amazing and I want more:

 

 

 

So much care goes into cooking each item and flipping it at the exact right moment. I was watching our chef go back and forth between things and turn individual ones moments later if need be, just to make sure that they were cooked at the right moment.

 

 

 

My favourite course was next: seafood! We had king prawns and wild harvest scallops with pumpkin and zucchini. My only complaint is that I wanted more zucchini because I am zucchini mad. (Would zucchini mad be a good blog name?)

 

 

The most filling part was the seared bean sprouts with mushrooms and peppers. From the way the chef set out the plate, I think we were supposed to have chicken on one side and beef on the other. But we were hungry, so here it is with the chicken thigh:

 

 

And here it is with the beef tenderloin (cooked to your own specifications, of course):

 

 

 

Of course, part of Teppanyaki is the show. Not one of us at the dinner together got a photo of the flames going sky-high, because I think we’re all secretly firebugs who were staring at the wall of flame in front of us with awe. The eggs. Well, there’s a lot of skill in throwing eggs into someone’s mouth, but a lot more skill involved in catching it. I think mine went in my mouth and then bounced out, because I have skills.

 

 

The fried rice was a little disappointing. It was nice enough but tasted very plain after all the other courses. I ended up tipping my sauces into the bowl to mix it up and make it taste like something a bit more interesting.

 

 

After the fried rice, the cooking was over and the chef left us a thank you message as he turned to attend to the next group of bloggers.

 

 

The rest of the food was prepared in a kitchen and brought out to us by the waitress. Our post-fried rice dish was miso soup with silken tofu and wakame. I didn’t eat the tofu because frankly tofu freaks me out, but the miso soup was kind of nice and calming after a crazy fun dinner.

 

 

Last, but very far from least, was the mango sorbet. Living in a diabetic household, we don’t eat dessert stuff often and while this was very nice, it was hard to me to finish as it was very sweet. Probably not a problem for anyone who doesn’t either have diabetes or live with someone who has it.

 

 

The verdict: go there! Our chef was cheeky and fun, the food was great, the atmosphere electric and the company impeccable.

 

Have you ever been to teppanyaki? Which of the courses above would be your favourite?