Full disclosure: I love Otani. Since high school, it’s been my traditional birthday dinner restaurant. (It’s also my traditional I’ve-had-a-bad-day-and-don’t-want-to-cook-dinner restaurant. The prices allow me to do both.) If it’s your birthday, they take a Polaroid picture of you and post it on a bulletin board near the door. Every August, I’m on there.

In addition to the sushi menu, the hibachi menu offers a wide range of meats in hibachi or teriyaki styles. My personal favorite is teriyaki shrimp, but there’s always a good number of people ordering the steak as well. Each meal comes with a broth soup, house salad, rice, mixed vegetables and noodles. Don’t worry, they have boxes.

But it’s not just the food that brings me back again and again, although it is a significant factor. It’s just so much fun! You’re face-to-face with your chef, who doesn’t just make a meal, he performs. Very sharp knives flash as they twirl and clang inches from your dinner plate, eggs bounce into chefs’ pockets and hats, and it’s hard not to laugh with the person you’re seated beside as you both rear back before a giant flame as the chef announces with a relish, “Fire!”