Nagoya Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi
Author: The Traveling Diners
The Traveling Diners
Nagoya Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi restaurant in Helena (2790 N. Washington) has been open for over 10 years. Having a bad experience with Sushi in Los Angeles many, many years ago, I had no desire to try Sushi again, so I never felt the need to go to Nagoya.
However, friends love Nagoya and wanted to go there; so, the Traveling Diners decided to try the restaurant – and we are delighted we did.
While the restaurant does have Sashimi/Sushi dishes, which we have heard are very good, we requested a seat at one of the Hibachi grills. Nagoya has a number of Hibachi grills that have U-Shaped seating around two grills that can seat 9-10 people at each grill. So, unless you have a very large party, you will likely share a grill with other diners. On our side of the grill, we shared with a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 young children) who were very friendly and fun dining companions.
All of the dinners include soup and salad. The soup was a mushroom broth and was okay – nothing special. Salad was an iceberg lettuce salad with a very good house dressing, but, in my opinion, they served it with far too much dressing.
We ordered a number of different entrée courses: chicken, shrimp and scallops, and steak. We each had a choice of rice or noodles with the entrees. All of our group had fried rice; our dining companions ordered both rice and noodles. Both additions were great!
All entrees except the steak were cooked with vegetables in a stir-fry style. Of course, in a Japanese Steakhouse, much of the fun is the show that goes with the cooking. Each of the Hibachi chefs is very personable as they cook and perform. I have always enjoyed that aspect of Japanese Hibachi grills!
The food was excellent! I love grilled shrimp and scallops, but scallops can be very difficult to get right; not cooked long enough is raw (not good for me), and too long and they become very rubbery. Our chef cooked them perfectly! The beef filet steak was quite large and cooked perfectly. Our dining companions ordered a New York strip steak that was cooked perfectly.
After the meal, we were offered a tempting array of desserts, but one called out – a fried tempura ice cream. We have tried “fried ice cream” at many different styles of restaurants, and almost all of them were actually ice cream rolled in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon – no actual frying involved. Our waitress assured us the tempura ice cream was actually fried with a tempura coating, so we ordered one serving. It was fried; it was incredibly good; it was enormous. Four of us shared the dessert and there was a lot to go around!
We left feeling like perhaps we ate a little too much – and took home enough to have for another meal the next day.
While our group focused on the Hibachi grill-style food, our dining companions had several sushi items along with the grilled food. The sushi looked very good, and our dining companions said it was excellent. The three young children also loved the sushi as well as the grill items.
We strongly recommend Nagoya! If you go, you may run into us there – we certainly intend to go back, probably often. I really need to try that steak!
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Image 1 Caption: Chicken stir-fry with fried rice
Photo Credit: The Traveling Diners
Image 2 Caption: The 3 young children enjoyed the show as much as the food
Photo Credit: The Traveling Diners
Image 3 Caption: The cooking can be very dramatic
Photo Credit: The Traveling Diners
