Japanese Village with Kids – Eat it or Skip It? #yeg

We’re always searching for new dining experiences with the kids. We want to introduce them to as many types of foods and as many types of dining experiences as possible. Saturday is our ‘restaurant night’ and this weekend, at 6:3o, we decided to head downtown and try Japanese Village with the girls, as I hadn’t been there in years.

We came in, ordered appetizers and drinks, that arrived quickly. The tempura was lackluster, and had two prawns (with tails removed, the kids thought it was chicken and ate it happily) a piece of broccoli, yam and zucchini.

You know how you visit somewhere and have memories of your own childhood or younger days and the show just doesn’t live up? I think that’s what happened to us. The kids were mildly enthralled, but the ‘performance’ aspect of the show was kind of lacking, and there wasn’t much magic in the cooking.

Starting off the meal, we ordered the kids meals, and for us the chicken teriyaki, and New York steak. The steak was good, the show was fast, and the kids weren’t as enthralled with the cooking of food in front of them as I thought they would be. Starting with soup, salad and going on to vegetables and appetizer shrimp cooked in front of us, they tried everything put in front of them, finishing only the zucchini.

After the chicken was cooked and the rice was served, the show was over. There was a fast 30 second performance with some banging on the cooking surface, and it was time to finish the meal. I enjoyed Jamie’s steak, with wasabi butter and he enjoyed the chicken so we actually ended up switching our meals. The kids finished their rice, a bit of the chicken, and were getting a bit unsettled, so we skipped the ice cream.

At over $100 for a family of four, the meal was lacking in what we remembered for entertainment in the cooking aspect, and taste. The steak was cooked well, but flavours in all of the other food served was just okay.

Would we return? Probably not. Jamie compared it to visiting Edo and letting the kids watch the action from the food court. With the just-okay food, I likened it to something that you do once through your childhood and go back to bring your own children to have the food cooked in front of them. Our verdict? Skip it.