Best Japanese Restaurant of the Year

We were just craving for some good Japanese food in Chicago suburbs.

What I mean by Japanese food is something like home-style dishes your family makes at home. Probably some might have an idea of Japanese = sushi🍣 or Japanese = ramen🍜, but not really LOL We do love those and eat, but for that kind of dishes, we usually eat out.

So, we found this place called “Sozai Banzai” in Arlington Heights.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/sozai-banzai-arlington-heights (Yelp)

http://sozaibanzai.com/ (Sozai Banzai Website)

Yelp review – 4.5 stars with 133 reviews. Check!

Varieties of side dishes. Check! and yeah, Nikujaga (simmered meat, potato, carrot, onion)!!!!!!

I’ve never seen any other Japanese restaurants making Nikujaga. I don’t know why though.

This Nikujaga recipe is really different by regions and/or even family, so it could be just difficult to sell their Nikujaga to others??

In the Kansai region where I’m from, we typically use dashi over soy sauce and beef🐮 instead of pork🐷. Just like that.

A little trivia here:

It’s funny how people talk about the Nikujaga in Japan.

“If you know how to make good Nikujaga, you can get married.”

Oh and that is only applied to women LOL Sounds like many Japanese men love Nikujaga, and lots of them doesn’t know how to cook (or they think it’s women’s job – booooo) and Nikujaga reminds them of their family. Something like that LOL

Anyways, good to go!

So here we are.

Although I just talked about Nikujaga, I didn’t get one LOL

My husband got a cheese hamberg w/ demi-glace sauce + teriyaki grilled chicken combo. It came with a white rice, miso soup, salad, and two side dishes (kiriboshi daikon & hijiki).

This is it!! When you go to Western style restaurant in Japan, this is exactly what you expect. The portion and the potato salad (sliced carrots & cucumber & corns in it).