We used to go to a restaurant called Hibachi. It was located within the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. It may have been more formally known as the Hibachi-Japanese Steakhouse. More than a few birthdays during my formative years were spent at a now closed teppanyaki grill. The format is now ubiquitous and carbon copy restaurants exist all over the place. One of them that happens to have a franchise near me is Benihana.
Tonight as I ordered spicy tofu as an entree it reminded me a lot of all the times we went to visit the Hibachi. Just down the street we had walked to a bookstore. It might have been a Border’s books I don’t exactly recall the name. I do recall eating at the Hibachi. It was a lot more about the experience of driving to the plaza area. Just getting in the car and driving toward downtown was an experience. It would inherently involve battling traffic and driving by very nice houses and even a museum. The entire process of getting to the plaza and parting was memorable.
Shops and all sorts of other things were around the area. They even had some Kansas City’s famed fountains. That is one of those things where i know they were famous, but I never really appreciated them all that much. I think someplace in my office a polaroid photograph exists from one of the trips. For me all of those photos were taken before the advent of digital cameras. That might be way the entire experience remains so fresh in my memory.
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