At Nanjya Monjya, the focus is on teppanyaki (hotplate cooking), but you won’t see grinning cooks flipping your dinner 10 feet in the air nor will you hear the rhythmic tapping of metal spatulas on teppan (a.k.a. hibachi) or occasional bursts of applause from easily amused diners. Here they’re too serious about the food to put on some sort of show. As is the case with its sister restaurants in Japan and Singapore, the Bangkok outlet of this Japanese chain is a casual affair; the feeling is like dining outdoors on a friend’s patio—albeit a friend with a handsome income, who can afford a second floor deck and a glass wall waterfall. A warning: You may also need a handsome income if you want to dine at Nanjya Monjya. The clientele, which is nearly 100% Japanese businessmen, don’t mind, but just so you know, a bottle of soda water is B50, a small Heineken B160. (Ice is free, though.) When you look at the menu, the prices don’t seem unreasonable—B160 for tako wasabi (marinated octopus), B200 for jyo karubi (sliced marinated beef “rib”) teppanyaki or B300 for ebi and hotate shio (shrimp and scallop in salt) teppanyaki—but the portions are extremely small: The tako you could consume in a single gulp, the order of beef is all of six slices (plus a slice of pumpkin) and the seafood is four average-size prawns and three medium-size scallops. In their defense, what you get for your money is high-quality ingredients, pleasant atmosphere and attentive service by jean-clad waitresses. While there are plenty of other items on the menu—stews, grilled fish, sushi, and a wide assortment of fried items—and there are tables without a hotplate built into the center, you’re better off sticking to the stuff that you cook at your table. (Actually it’s those friendly waitresses who will do the cooking for you.) For example, our maguro (tuna) avocado salad served in a martini-shaped dessert glass contained uneven and sometimes chewy chunks of tuna. And our mixed tempura was disappointingly average. But the tasty teppanyaki meats (various cuts of beef, pork, chicken, seafood, etc.) rank up there with Bangkok’s best. Another reason to visit is to try their monjyayaki, a lighter take on the more common okonomyaki (a.k.a. “Japanese pizza”) that you eat right off the teppan with tiny spatulas. We sampled one made with pork belly and kimchi, and it was excellent. A final warning: The tables at Nanjya Monjya are relatively small, while the teppan are relatively big. This means that you’re sitting only a plate away from the hotplate, so close you can feel the heat from the moment you sit down (which is fine because the air-conditioning is set to “chilly”)—and you definitely don’t want to be wearing your best shirt. Corkage charge B500, B800 if over one liter.
