Through the magic of television, Frank Lin thinks he's giving his customers the excitement of watching their teppanyaki dinner sizzling at tableside, without some of the drawbacks.
Most teppan restaurants have the enormous flat griddles throughout the room.
At each one a dexterous chef flashes knives and jokes with customers sitting around the griddle as he prepares their dinners. Little Tokyo has only two of the big griddles side by side in the back of the restaurant. Over closed-circuit television, diners watch the chef from their tables in the front of the restaurant. With this method, Lin says, diners don't get splattered with grease, they aren't seated with strangers and they don't have to feel they should keep up with others at the table who are ordering expensive lobster or drinks. What's more, he, the owner, doesn't have such a big investment in those big griddles.