Teppanyaki (鉄板焼き, teppan'yaki?)

Teppanyaki is a type of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle (teppan) to cook food. Although it is viewed in the western world as Japanese cuisine, it is not popular in Japan except when used for okonomiyaki.
The word "teppanyaki" is derived from teppan (鉄板), which means iron plate, and yaki (焼き), which means fried or broiled.

Typical ingredients used for teppanyaki western style are beef, shrimp, scallops, lobster, chicken and assorted vegetables; Soybean oil is typically used to cook the ingredients, and for Japanese style are noodles (Yakisoba), cabbage with sliced meat or seafood (Okonomiyaki) which are cooked using regular vegetable oil, animal oil from fat or a mixture of both. In Japan, many teppanyaki restaurants feature Kobe beef. Side dishes of mung bean sprouts, zucchini (even though zucchini is not a popular vegetable in Japan and rarely found in the market), garlic chips or fried rice usually accompany the meal. Some restaurants provide sauces in which to dip the food; usually, in Japan, only soy sauce is offered.

The originator of the teppanyaki-style steakhouse is the Japanese restaurant chain Misono, which introduced the concept of cooking Western-influenced food on a teppan in Japan in 1945.[1] They soon found that the cuisine was even more popular with foreigners than with the Japanese, who enjoyed both watching the skilled maneuvers of the chefs preparing the food as well as the cuisine, somewhat more familiar than more traditional Japanese dishes. As the restaurants became more popular tourist spots with non-Japanese, the chain introduced changes increasing the performance aspect of the chef's preparation, such as stacking round slices of onion in the shape of Mt. Fuji and lighting alcohol, usually vodka, contained within on fire, producing a flaming onion volcano. Non-tourists in Japan rarely eat at teppanyaki restaurants that feature western type of food as most of the ingredients are not part of the Japanese dietary system. The teppanyaki widely frequented by the Japanese are those which feature Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba or Monjayaki which are very popular in Japanese cuisine.