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| - On my never ending quest to find the best Japanese steakhouse in Charlotte, hubs and I ventured into Kabuto on a random weekday evening.
At first blush, this particular Kabuto isn't necessarily impressive from the outside or inside. When you walk in there is a room with a decent sized bar and a smattering of tables for the sushi eaters or hibachi haters - you choose. Since I was in the mood for a show, we choose to have the whole "experience" of hibachi and we led in the back room with eight or so double hibachi tables.
The menu is standard Japanese hibachi, running $15-$23 for your choice of protein(s). The accompaniments support the shoveling of food: clear/green onion soup, ginger salad, shrimp appetizer (2 shrimp) fried rice, vegetables, noodles and your choice of proteins. So...where did Kabuto falter a bit? The service was pretty solid, the hibachi show was mildly entertainment, but the food...was uninspired. Don't get me wrong, it was fine. But when I see a talented hibachi chef using big pads of butter to cook all of my food, it turns me off. Thus the food tasted like bland butter, not the crispy, tasty, fresh hibachi I love (where they typically use oil).
My other minor beef is that the food came out all at once - there was little to no pacing. So, everything butter laden was dumped on my plate. Meh. I'm giving this Kabuto three stars because our server was super attentive and the food was fine, but not great. However, I don't think I'll be back considering I enjoyed the whole experience at the other Japanese steakhouse just down the road.
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