Escape to Japan

Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.

We love hibachi restaurants, it’s a show and a dinner all in one. The dinner is provided by the chef who slices and dices your food with lightning speed on a flaming grill. The show is provided by Nancy trying to use chopsticks. Eating her food with them has been challenging, especially the soup!!!

In one of our many travels as the Dining Duo around the area, we stumbled upon a beautiful standalone restaurant and put it on our list of places to review. One night we decided to “escape to Japan” and headed off to JMK Nippon in Rockford.

The building that houses the restaurant is beautiful. The Japanese style architecture is complimented by the oriental landscaping around it. While walking up to the door you are greeted by a trickling waterfall surrounded by lush foliage. This is a Kodak moment.

Once inside, there are two walkways around their koi pond. To the right leads to the sushi/café side and to the left is the hibachi dining room with approximately 24 hibachi grill tables. We went to the left side to have a dinner and a show tonight. This dining room was a work of art. Massive wood carvings adorned the walls, there are cases with samurai memorabilia, and even an indoor Japanese garden. They pulled out all the stops decorating this beautiful dining room.

Nancy’s keen eye spotted two incredible deals on the menu. One was their senior citizen specials ranging in price from $14 to $17 and the Dinner for Two ($44). We went with the latter which consisted of hibachi steak and chicken served with scallops or shrimp. We chose Nancy’s favorite, the scallops. This was served with a shrimp appetizer, onion soup, salad with ginger dressing, veggies (onion & zucchini), and steamed rice. We upgraded to fried rice for $3.50 per person.

The onion soup was a very mild broth with pieces of mushrooms and crispy onions. This soup was presented differently than the other hibachi restaurants we have gone to. There were no noodles, but it was very tasty. Our opinion split on the fried rice. I didn’t like it as much as Jim did. I thought it needed more taste and asked for teriyaki sauce to zip it up a bit. The ginger dressing on the salad was delicious.

Here is how a dinner for two with the Dining Duo works. Nancy hates zucchini so she picked each and every piece out and gave it to me. I am not fond of scallops, so she ate them and I had the steak. We both like chicken, so we split it up and that made a perfect dinner for the two of us.

Jim’s steak was tender, flavorful, and cooked perfectly. The mushrooms that adorned it was a nice touch. My scallops were perfectly browned and delicious, but I have to admit, they were thinner and smaller than I have had before at other hibachi restaurants. The chicken was juicy and very tasty.

We know it depends on your cook, but our hibachi show was somewhat subdued. We had the traditional onion volcano and that was it. The chef didn’t throw shrimp around, didn’t toss eggs in the air, or make the fried rice into a beating heart.

The price for our dinner for two was $62.01, “escaping to Japan”, priceless…

FYI: This restaurant is handicap accessible. Reservations are a must if you don’t want to wait around until there are enough people to place at a table.

Jim’s take: This is a beautiful restaurant that serves delicious food at reasonable prices.

Nancy’s take: The only complaint I have is that the cook could have salted the foods more, but on the plus side, they did give me a fork!!!

Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at: thediningduo@gmail.com

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