Review of Bonzai Japanese Steak & Sushi

I'm new to gluten-free eating, so this was one of my first restaurants to ask for accommodations. To my surprise, our server, Shu, seemed very familiar with what I needed. Although her accent made her a little hard to understand, I could tell she knew exactly what she was talking about. She explained that I could order from the hibachi menu but that it would not be cooked in front of me as part of the show for the rest of my group. It would be cooked in the kitchen on a separate grill without soy sauce which contains gluten. I could only have white rice because the fried rice has soy sauce. She also made sure that I had the gluten-free soup. She brought my salad without dressing (which apparently had gluten) so I asked for a bit of avocado to use as dressing. She kindly brought me almost half of a sliced avocado! I mashed it up with salt and pepper and was good-to-go.

Our hibachi cook was also good because he didn't accidentally forget that I couldn't eat the food that he was cooking. For everyone else, he would playfully throw bits of food for them to catch with their mouths or he would put food on their plates. At one point I was about to try some sauce that had been put on a plate in front of me and he saw out of the corner of his eye. I couldn't understand him very well but apparently he was warning me not to eat it because it had soy sauce in it. I appreciated that.

The gluten-free chicken hibachi was good. The chicken was tender and juicy, but the flavor was not as good as I remember it being when I've had it with the yummy soy sauce and fried rice. Afterward I asked Shu if I could bring my own gluten-free soy sauce next time so that I could not miss out on all the flavor. She said that I could definitely do that without a problem.

I plan to go back! The hibachi show is wonderful and I had a great time.