local flavor
Story By Shaila Creekmore, Photos By Dero Sanford

East meets West and North meets South at Fuji Japanese Seafood Steak House and Sushi Bar where making your dinner is also your entertainment.

Fuji’s opening in September 2004 brought not only the flavor of Japanese food to Jonesboro, it brought a style of cooking to the area that has been popular in northern states for several years. Unique to the Japanese steak house, customers may choose to have their meal prepared on a hibachi grill by a highly trainedchef at their table. This manner of cooking also creates an atmosphere where strangers sit together at the same table to watch the chef’s cooking show and eat their meal.

“It’s really nice that different people come together at the same grill and have dinner,” said Michelle Yang, who serves as manager. “The real interesting thing about our restaurant is the hibachi grill – people like to watch the chefs cook.”

While Japanese steak houses have been popular in the North, Yang said, their numbers have been limited in the South.

Yang took over as manager in June 2006 after the business was purchased by Houjiao Guo. Yang, who has worked in the restaurant business for 10 years, moved to Jonesboro from Alabama to run the restaurant. The steak house’s five chefs came from New York where they received their training.

The chefs learn their skills at a training school that also serves as a restaurant so they have the opportunity to practice their techniques on real customers, Yang explained. Once training is complete, the chefs find work across the country through agents that match them with Japanese steak houses. The chefs not only have to be good cooks, but good entertainers as well, and two of Fuji’s favorite chefs are “Ray” and “Jackie,” who are often requested by customers.

Although the restaurant does have traditional tables for customers, 80 percent of the diners sit at the grill for the full Fuji experience. Here, each meal begins with your drink order, soup and salad while the grill heats up and ingredients for each order are prepared in the kitchen.

The onion soup, prepared from the stock of chicken, beef and pork, is brewed all day with celery, carrots and ginger. The following morning, the broth is strained to filter any impurities and sliced mushrooms and onion are added. Salads are served with a choice of honey mustard, French or ginger dressing with the later being the dressing of choice by most customers.

Once the grill is hot, the chef brings the ingredients to your table and begins cooking a large bowl of rice with the flip of an egg into his hat and flash of fire across the grill. The rice is sautéed on the grill and served with all of the lunch and dinner selections. Yang said the restaurant serves 50 pounds of rice every day and up to 500 pounds in a week.

As the rice cooks, the chef adds fresh vegetables to the grill to sauté. Yang said only a small amount of oil is added to the grill to prepare the vegetables, making it a healthy eating choice. Cooking the food at your table also assures the freshest ingredients.

Along with rice and vegetables, diners can choose between chicken, steak, fish and seafood prepared on the hibachi grill. The seafood choices include calamari, shrimp, salmon, lobster and scallops. A number of combination dinners are also available.

Another unique feature of the restaurant is the sushi bar, which serves an extensive menu of sushi, sashimi and rolls. Yellow fin tuna, salmon, crabmeat, lobster, eel, shrimp, red snapper, mackerel and other fresh fish and seafood is available in a roll or a la carte from the sushi bar. A unique Southern dish offered at Fuji is a crawfish roll that combines spicy crawfish with crabmeat, avocado, cucumber and tobiko wrapped with special soy paper. Customers may choose sushi and sashimi as an appetizer from the menu or as an entrees served with soup and salad. The selections can be served at the hibachi grills as well.

Since opening, the restaurant has experienced significant growth that has prompted the need for additional seating and grills. The vacant space next door has opened as the first phase of the new Fuji expansion. Initially, the new space will serve customers while the older part of the restaurant is being renovated. Once completed, a total of 16 grills will be available.

“Customers were having to wait for a table on the weekend. I feel really sad to have people waiting in line on a table,” Yang said. “When they walk in, they will see a dramatic change.”

Yang said the restaurant will have even more of an Asian atmosphere with more of the Japanese culture being incorporated into the new design. The restaurant has been working with a New York designer who specializes in Asian restaurants and has imported several items from Japan to complete the decor.
Part of the new design will also include a change in the front entry with a larger waiting area and a bar. In February 2007, Fuji received its liquor license and plans to extend its drink menu with the addition of a full-sized bar that will serve wine, cocktails and domestic and imported beer, including Japanese beer and sake. The complete renovation is scheduled to be completed later this month.

Fuji Japanese Seafood Steak House and Sushi Bar, 2810 E Highland Drive, is open Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., and Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. For more information, call, 972-5585.