I must admit, I’ve always found the idea of cooking your own food at a restaurant curious. “Hey,” the eatery seems to saying, “You know the two advantages that going out to a restaurant gives you over making something at home: cooking expertise and the ability to relax on your rear end while someone else does the work? Right, well, we don’t give you either of those things.”
That said, there seemed to be something slightly more fun about Benihana’s “Be the Chef” class, in which the Japanese chain offers customers a chance to step behind the teppanyaki table and learn the ins and outs of cooking, seasoning, dicing, spatula spinning, shrimp-tail flipping and all of the other familiar theatrical elements that go into a meal there.
The package includes an hourlong training lesson with one of the restaurant’s chefs, followed by a dinner that you prepare using what you supposedly just learned. For you and three friends, the cost is $140; for you and seven friends, it’s $250.
My lesson begins at the West 56th Street location. I’m given a white apron and tall red chef’s hat that may or may not have allowed me to vote for the new pope.
I’m introduced to my teacher, Rupak Acharjee. He’s Bangladeshi and has been working at the restaurant for more than a decade. We step behind the flattop grill around which diners sit as their food is prepared.
Acharjee trained for six weeks before he was ready to work the dining room alone. Chefs must be able to competently perform five to six “tricks” before they’re allowed to cook for customers.
Tony Nemoto, Benihana executive chef, says he gets about 10 suggestions a year from employees for additions. Anything dangerous, such as knife spinning, is vetoed.
Acharjee explains that the dinner begins by the chef greeting the diners then cleaning the grill — wait, what? Now I have to clean, too? If I hand over an extra $20, will I be allowed to take out the trash out, as well?
Turns out, cleaning is easy and involves wiping the 500-degree teppanyaki table with a wet towel. Today, we’ll be preparing the Splash ‘n’ Meadow combination, which includes appetizers, fried rice, steak and shrimp.
First up are the appetizers. The grill is oiled, and zucchini, onion slices and shrimp are slid onto it.
Acharjee doesn’t say so, but I’ve eaten at enough teppanyaki places to know that the idea here is showmanship. Customers don’t just want a meal; they want to be entertained.
One critical component of showmanship is noise. Lots and lots of pointless noise. Why just salt the zucchini when you can bang the metal shaker 30 times against the table’s edge? Keep your hands moving fast and when in doubt, bang whatever you’re holding against something else.
“The noise is like when you’re listening to music,” Nemoto says. “The rhythm makes the meal upbeat.”
The second component of showmanship, I have noticed, is banter. Nemoto says each outlet gets a copy of the “Benihana Ha-ha” book containing a list of potential jokes deemed safe for family audiences. For example, pour soy sauce and call it “Japanese Coke.”
Acharjee says his standby quip is delivered when diners ask him where he’s from. He replies, “The kitchen.” Cue laugh track.
I’ve decided that my go-to line will be, “And you thought you were sitting in the nonsmoking section!” after the ingredients on the table begin steaming and sizzling. It’s hacky, harmless and — note to self — can possibly be followed up with a dig at Bloomberg.
The third component of showmanship is visual gags and tricks. The first of the lesson is the classic onion volcano. Acharjee shows me how to carefully remove individual rings out of an onion slice, then pile them atop each other, with the widest slice at the bottom, to form an onion pyramid. Water is then squirted inside and steam pours out of the top, like a volcano.
The real crowd-pleaser is the shrimp-tail toss. Headless shrimp are laid on the grill, then halved and the tails cut off and put into a separate pile. One by one, the tails are placed on the end of the spatula and flipped up in the air, landing on top of the chef’s hat.
I give it a try, but fail miserably. I’m not quite sure where my tails end up (table 47?), but not one makes it into my hat. Oh, well.
Then it’s on to the rest of the meal, which presents less of challenge. Steak and more shrimp is placed on the grill and seasoned. Rice is tossed with a cooked egg and veggies.
In the end, I hardly feel qualified to cook a meal myself after a single lesson. I could probably prepare the food, but doing it with the same speed, skill and showmanship as the teacher just isn’t going to happen.
Perhaps I’ll look into more lessons from a celebrity. Comedian Tracy Morgan has said that Benihana is his favorite restaurant, and he drops into the 56th Street location regularly — though less regularly now. Word is, he installed his own teppanyaki table at his house, so he can prepare and eat the food whenever he wants.
I’d rather have him cook for my guests. I know my guests would prefer it.
reed.tucker@nypost.com