I am rounding up on this place a tad. There were a lot of dishes that sounded great but we didn't order them since it was just my wife and I. Speaking of the 2 of us, we were also the only ones in the entire restaurant from 5:30-7:00pm. Thanks to Mike C. for his review because I wouldn't have known of this place and apparently no one else does either.
It's a pretty big place, the furniture and atmosphere are nice. I think this used to be a teppenyaki place based on how they've creatively redesigned the designated area where past chefs flung egg shells into their hats. They also have a little bar area. We chose to sit in the smaller room off to the side since they had a TV showing baseball. The music was mainly K-pop with Britney and Taylor Swift thrown into the mix.
The menu is separated into "traditional" and "modern" sections. Some modern dishes that popped out for me were the seared beef belly salad and caramelized sea scallop that I'll save for a future trip. We ended up going with one of their sets called "Amber". There are 4 sets to choose from and they consist of 2 dishes and 2 beers that accompany those plates well. So "Amber" came with 2 bottles of Sam Adams plus the "Crispy Bulgogi" and "Tofu Kimchi". We also got an order of the fried chicken because the photos of it looked so damn good and that was the first thing our server recommended.
Their "Tofu Kimchi" was pretty spicy and my favorite dish. The menu description was unfair since it only said "soft tofu, kimchi, pork" so I was just expecting a bowl of everything mixed but the thin individually sliced pieces of tofu then topped with a good portion of pork and spiced up kimchi made for a tasty surprise. I initially thought that was going to be the most boring dish we ordered but that turned out to be the "Crispy Bulgogi" which wasn't really even that crispy and pretty dry. The fried chicken was awesome. The pieces were all dark meat, perfectly fried with crisp outsides and juicy insides. The dressing that it came with was really good too.
9 on the Plate would probably be a raging success if it were located on Spring Mountain but it might be a tall order in this shopping plaza even though Sen of Japan is also there. I wish them luck!