My daughter (23rd B-day) wants to go to one of those japanese steak house where they cook it up in front of you. The two in the Oly area have yelp reviews all over the place.
Fujiyama by the Oly Mall http://www.fujiyamasteakhouse.com/
Fuji Japanese Steak House on Martin next to I-5 Guns old location. https://www.yelp.com/biz/fuji-japanese- ... se-olympia

Dan's a Fujiyama whore, if I remember correctly.

And moved to WaGrubs...

Benihana is the only place I really go for tepanyaki, but not sure where any are outside of seattle

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Not to be a downer, but according to Yelp, neither are all that great.

One has 67 reviews for a total of 2 & 1/2 stars out of 5.

The other has 120 reviews, for a total of 3 stars out of 5.

Yelp isn't the be all and end all, but 200 reviews is a good sampling.

For what it's worth, Fujiyama was the 3 stars, so if those were my only two choices, I guess I would hit that.

chuck a little drive but Samurai's Japanese Steakhouse near roy y junction.

Is that the one in Spanaway? If so, it at least has 150 4 star reviews.....

+1 this place is legit

Samurai's in Spanaway is great

I'm a fan of Fujiyama. I designed that restaurant 10 years ago and still enjoy going there for family occasions. In all reality, the food is good, but it is the Chef that makes the dinner a winner or a loser. As with any hibachi style restaurant, the seafood will probably be a little overcooked, the steak a little tough and the chicken perfect. The fried rice with Yum-Yum sauce is where it's at.

When we go now we sit in the private dining area (unless we are there for a function). This is the same food, but without the show. They prepare it in the back kitchen and it's faster, less formal.

They all taste the same. I go to samurai and order mine with double fried rice, its crack

I've been to Samurai's in Spanaway probably 3 times.

I generally love this style of food. I'm not sure if my personal tastes have changed, but I've not really been impressed with Samurais. The food just takes oily and bland. YMMV.

Go there, support the business. Few good restaurants around here. But for $30 per person I've been underwhelmed.

If I was worried about cost I would get the dollar menu at Mcydees. It's my daughters choice. Signs point to Fujiyama for distance. The hibachi places have gotten fairly generic. Service is the tie breaker.

I was going to recommend Sakura in Tacoma but I see online that they have been bought by Samurai.

I've also enjoyed Mandolin. They have more variety than the other places. I've only had the sushi once but it was good.

Samurai must have been hit hard by the lcb. They made a Vietnam war vet that was wearing a Vietnam hat spend 3 minutes to pull out his ID on his birthday. It pissed me off so I piped up and basically told the woman to pull her head out of her ass and show the man some respect. They also limit you to 3 drinks. And charge for refills on soda. They don't get tipped when I go, I give a tip to the chef and thats it.

Ended up at Fujiyama. Japanese restaurant, and no sushi? WTF. I'm now officially burnt out on these hibachi places. The food is all the same like mcydees, and all the the cooks do the exact same schtick. Onion volcano turns into a choo choo train, and egg shell caught in the hat. My daughters rice, and my sake was not brought out till we were almost done eating. We also got sat with two baby maker families. These type of restaurants suck for families with little ankle biters.

ETA: MRC, the waitress couldn't just look at my ID for the military discount, it had to be procured, and taken to the manager/owner for proof. Never in almost 30 years was that required.