Teppanyaki Sagami, Yokohama Bay Sheraton: Order Both the Beef and the Seafood

We had both the beef and the seafood cooked for us. At a teppanyaki counter you are usually pushed to choose a direction — and there is a good case for refusing to.

A counter on the eighth floor

Sagami is the teppanyaki restaurant on the eighth floor of the Yokohama Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers.

Teppanyaki means sitting at a counter with the griddle in front of you and having the food cooked there. You are not waiting for plates to arrive from a kitchen you cannot see; you are watching the whole process happen. More of the evening is spent observing than eating.

That changes the pace of a meal. There are long stretches where nothing is on your plate and you are simply watching a piece of beef rest.

Beef, and things from the sea

We ordered both.

What makes teppanyaki interesting is that the two are handled in completely opposite ways. Beef gets its surface sealed first, then heat is worked slowly into the centre. Seafood is finished fast, specifically so that heat does not get all the way in.

Two contradictory judgements, made one after the other, on the same piece of metal. Watching that switch happen is most of the appeal.

The seasoning is subtraction, not addition

Every time I eat at a place like this I notice the same thing: the seasoning is light.

Light is not a criticism here. The whole format assumes you are eating the ingredient itself, so very little is added on top. Covering it in sauce would be easier, and they are deliberately not doing that.

Which means the format does not survive mediocre ingredients. Turned around: a restaurant that serves this way is telling you it is confident in what it bought that morning.

Practical notes

• Restaurant: Teppanyaki Sagami, 8th floor of the Yokohama Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers, Yokohama.
• Format: counter seating, cooked in front of you.
• What we ordered: both the beef and the seafood, rather than committing to one.
• Seasoning: restrained. The dishes are built around the ingredients, not around sauces.
• Pacing: allow more time than a normal dinner. Much of the experience is watching.
• Note: menus, prices and opening hours change — check before you go.

If you are deciding between a steak place and a seafood place, a teppanyaki counter is the answer that refuses the question. You can have the argument settled in front of you, on the same griddle, in the same hour.

The photographs in this article are our own photographs rendered in an illustrated style; colours may differ from reality. Details are as of the visit.