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Jack Rendulich
Chef Lio Lin prepares a meal while (left to right) Ashley Williams, Linda Johnson and Annie Williams enjoy the show at Osaka Sushi Hibachi Steakhouse. In the background, Chef Tim Jiang, one of four chefs at Osaka, works another station.
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Jack Rendulich
Chef Sam Lin scrapes steak onto a plate after preparing it with the hibachi style of grill table. Hibachi chefs use the Teppanyaki-style of preparation, cooking foods quickly on an extremely hot, flat metal surface.
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Jack Rendulich
Chef Lio Lin prepares a meal while (left to right) Ashley Williams, Linda Johnson and Annie Williams enjoy the show at Osaka Sushi Hibachi Steakhouse. In the background, Chef Tim Jiang, one of four chefs at Osaka, works another station.
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Jack Rendulich
Chef Lio Lin squirts a stream of sake to a waiting diner.
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Jack Rendulich
Chef Lio Lin entertains the station with whirling utensils.
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Jack Rendulich
Chef Lio Lin and his “little friend” spray down the grill with water. It’s all part of Osaka’s lively show and meal, rolled into one entertaining outing. Some guests like the hibachi style of cooking even without the show and can order meals in the front room, which does not have the hibachi stations.
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Courtesy Algoma Central Railway
The dining car offers a full breakfast and hot or cold lunches, as well as snacks and beverages.
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Courtesy Algoma Central Railway
It might not be on china plates and crystal stemware, but eating in the dining car on one of the Algoma Central Railway trains always means great views in motion.
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Courtesy Algoma Central Railway
The trestle on the way to Agawa Canyon is a favorite spot along the route.
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Courtesy Zeitgeist Arts
A trendy, tasty restaurant and movie theaters with wonderful, comfortable seating in the same building make for an agreeable match with special events at Zeitgeist Arts in Duluth.
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Courtesy Zeitgeist Arts
Beverages – with or without a kick – can be brought into the Zeitgeist movie theater.
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Courtesy Zeitgeist Arts
The Zinema at Zeitgeist Arts in Duluth.
Small squeals and occasional laughter came from the other diners as our section awaited arrival of our evening’s chef at the Osaka Sushi Hibachi Steakhouse in Duluth. Watching both the culinary skills and dramatic antics of your chef, after all, is a big part of the experience at a hibachi restaurant. And so is observing the other guests.
All around the region, establishments offer combination opportunities to make your meal into more. Dinner and a movie or dinner and a play are just the beginning. Try dinner and a train ride, dinner and a boat tour or, at Osaka, dinner and a knife-twirling, flame-sparking, sake-shooting chef performance.
The entryway to the Osaka restaurant attests to the amusing event a meal there can be. For many occasions, the staff snaps an instant-print image that the guests sign with sentiments about their enjoyment.
Given our Northlander reticence to make spectacles of ourselves, one might think it would be tough to feature a restaurant where flicking food and shooting sake at guests is part of the meal. But business is actually booming in the evenings, says Vicky Cao, manager at Osaka. The restaurant draws families for celebrations, businesspeople, students, large groups and couples interested in the hibachi style of grill-table cooking and of witnessing the preparations.
The Duluth restaurant opened in 2010. It was definitely something different for the town, though there are two other sushi restaurants.
“They knew the sushi already,” Vicky says of local people, “but the hibachi is kind of a new style (in town).”
Dinner time, when hibachi meal prices average about $22, without beverage, tends to be the busiest for that back room of the restaurant where there are eight stations with multiple seating. Many days a less-expensive lunch hibachi is also available. The restaurant employs four of the specially trained chefs and they are assigned to two stations each.
The chefs will prepare dinner for just two diners, but the preferred way to enjoy the meal and the show is to be seated with six to eight others at the station.
Some couples come in, Vicky says, and explain, “We don’t have a big group, but we still like to enjoy the show.”
That’s no problem, she adds. You can be seated among strangers, giving you the chance to meet new people over dinner.
“It’s nice when they talk to each other, when they talk to the chef.”
The evening my husband and I were there, the station across from us seated a family group. They obviously enjoyed the joke of seeing if the grown-ups could sustain the count of incoming sake that the chef shot out of a condiment bottle. When the younger family members agreed that they, too, would enjoy some sake, the chef switched to a baby bottle – and a no-octane water beverage – much to the group’s amusement.
The chefs are respectful of shy guests. You can decline – though you might have to say it twice – to try to catch the tossed food tidbit or sake in your mouth.
Not all of the antics involve interaction with diners. Our chef used a rubber chicken to deliver the eggs for the meal and a little man to deliver the water for washing off the grill table. (I will leave the details to your imagination – or to the photo in the slideshow.)
Vicky recommends reservations for hibachi dining – just to organize the start of each meal/show – but drop-ins are not a problem, though you may need to get a beverage and wait a bit. There is seating on the front side of the restaurant offering sushi, tempura, hibachi (without the show) and other Asian dishes.
Osaka Sushi Hibachi Steakhouse, Burning Tree Plaza, Duluth. 218-727-3222. www.osakaduluth.com.
A meal in motion
There are many opportunities in the area to make your meal mobile – and I’m not talking about chowing down on fast food in the car. Several of the region’s tour boat and train tours offer special eating options.
During their regular season, Vista Fleet cruises in Duluth often feature dining while touring the harbors and Lake. The Pizza Sightseeing Cruise is just under $25 for adults and under $15 for children, serving up a menu of pizza, salad and a cookie. The Great Lake Dinner Cruise (just under $40) is a three-course dinner that last summer was catered by Savories and featured stuffed chicken breast with herb cream sauce, garlic roasted potatoes and candied carrots for the main dishes. Next season the pizza and dinner options will be nightly on the same cruises, with pizza on the top deck.
Also in Duluth, the North Shore Scenic Railroad schedule regularly includes a Pizza Train (half a pizza each, reservations suggested) and an Elegant Dinner Train with area restaurant chefs preparing meals served in the company’s Lake of the Isles Dining Car (reservations required).
Perhaps the Lake region’s most intriguing railroad experience doesn’t specifically include a meal, but while riding on the Algoma Central Railway out of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, you can certainly wander to the dining car to enjoy a bite to eat and still take in the spectacular scenery.
In fact, says Michael Morrow, manager of passenger marketing, many passengers who choose the 228-mile round-trip Agawa Canyon Tour Train or the Snow Train in winter take a snack or a meal in the dining car along the route. The dining car offers full breakfasts, hot and cold lunches, sandwiches and beverages.
Sometimes special activities or events can focus on food or beverages. Such is the different kind of road trip offered by the North Shore Brewery Tour 2013 organized by Sleeping Giant Brewery Co. The proliferation of microbreweries along the western shore of the Big Lake makes the tour possible.
The tour bus starts at Thunder Bay’s Sleeping Giant Brewery Co. on Friday afternoon, January 25, and then proceeds down the shore. The second stop is at Castle Danger Brewery in (where else?) Castle Danger, Minnesota. The tour then continues on to Duluth, where over the course of Friday and Saturday, there are visits to three Duluth breweries: Lake Superior Brewing Co., Fitger’s Brewery and the newly opened Canal Park Brewing Co.
The escorted trip costs $480 per person. Each participant gets two nights at the Holiday Inn & Suites Duluth Downtown, a “Brew Crew” tour shirt plus a growler of beer and a souvenir glass from each brewery.
Vista Fleet Cruises: 323 Harbor Dr., Duluth. 877-883-4002. www.vistafleet.com.
North Shore Scenic Railroad: 506 W. Michigan St., Duluth. 800-423-1273. www.northshorescenicrailroad.org.
Algoma Central Railway: 129 Bay St., Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. 800-242-9287. www.agawacanyontourtrain.com.
Sleeping Giant Brewery Co.: 946 Cobalt Cr., Thunder Bay. 807-631-7837. www.sleepinggiantbrewing.ca.
Castle Danger Brewery: 3067 E. Castle Danger Rd., Two Harbors. 218-834-5800. www.castledangerbrewery.com.
Lake Superior Brewing Co.: 2711 W. Superior St., Duluth. 218-723-4000. www.lakesuperiorbrewing.com.
Fitger’s Brewery: 600 E. Superior St., Duluth. 218-722-8826. www.fitgers.com.
Canal Park Brewing Co.: 300 Canal Park Dr., Duluth. www.canalparkbrewery.com.
Dinner theater, live & on screen
For many years, whatever restaurant has anchored the lower level of the Fitger’s Brewery Complex in downtown Duluth has mounted a series of dinners followed by shows. When Midi Restaurant took over that space, it also continued that tradition.
For some performances, usually put on by Change of Pace Productions in the Fitger’s Theater after the meal, the price and the menu may change, depending on if it is a Friday or Saturday dinner show or a Sunday matinee. Earlier in 2012, for the show “Ole and Lena’s Wedding,” the menus featured tuna hotdish, pickled herring, lime Jell-O with fruit and – thank goodness – chicken with dill cream sauce and raspberry layer cake.
March 2013, the restaurant and theater company will team up for “Bullets for Broadway – An Interactive Musical Comedy Mystery.” Just as advertised, the production comes off as a “life-sized game of Clue,” according to the promotions, and the audience tries to guess whodunit.
The meals and performances will be Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from March 8-24 and cost $40 for the Friday evening meal/show, $45 for the Saturday evening meal/show and $35 for the Sunday matinee brunch/show.
Zeitgeist Arts in Duluth offers a great combo opportunity with Zinema 2 movie theater and Zeitgeist Arts Café located in the same building. (There’s also a live-performance theater.) The combination has allowed for special cinema events to please the palate and the movie buff.
On December 16, an afternoon Holiday Smorgasbord Sunday starts off with the first half of the three-hour “Fanny & Alexander,” the winner of four Academy Awards and the 1982 final film of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. “It follows the ups and downs of the Ekdahl family in early 1900’s Sweden and touches on the struggles and joy that make up not just the holiday season, but life itself,” according to the film promotion.
Halfway through the evening will feature an intermission to indulge in an actual smorgasbord, modeled on the one in the film. After dinner, it’s back down to the movie theater for the second half of the film. (The nice thing about Zinema 2 is that you can bring wine or beer into the theater. Beware, though; getting too comfortable may mean snoozing through the film’s second half!)
There are also plans for other dinner and movie events, reports Marketing Director Andy Bennett. “We will be doing a dinner and a movie package for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.”
Similar events on those days in 2012 were highly successful, with the Valentine’s dinner and a showing of “The Apartment” selling out. The Mother’s Day brunch with a Gene Kelly film and Father’s Day brunch with a John Wayne movie also were popular.
The third entity in the Zeitgeist complex is a live-performance stage. There may be future opportunities there, too, Andy believes.
“We feel we’re in a unique position here, since we have these three separate entities – café, cinema and performance theater – all under the same roof and, essentially, under the same management. We regularly meet to find ways to partner together and create more buildingwide events.”
So look for even more future options to have dinner and … some fun.
Midi Restaurant: Fitgers Brewery Complex, Duluth. 218-727-4880. www.midirestaurant.net.
Zeitgeist Arts: 222 E. Superior St., Duluth. 218-722-9100. www.zeitgeistarts.com.