Timsan's Japanese Steakhouse - East

I have to preface this review by letting you all know this was my very, very first Hibachi experience. Not once in my whole life had I sat down next to a hot as hell flat top to watch any chef of any kind prepare my meal in front of me. This sounds like something I should have done a hundred years ago, and even my husband was shocked to realize I had never gone to a Hibachi. He either forgot that I had said so a few times in our long relationship, or he assumed that it was something that I -- the food blogger-- would never have let myself miss out on.

Timsan’s Japanese Steakhouse on the East side of Green Bay welcomed our party of nine during a visit from some friends back home. We spent most of the day trying to decide where we wanted to go, but finally, we landed upon the closer of the Hibachi locations in the city of Green Bay for the easier travel. Timsan’s East is in an unassuming building that must have been a fast food location prior to it’s conversion. Driving by multiple times since I moved to Green Bay, I wasn’t very interested in trying it because of said outward appearance.

​On the inside, they’ve done their best to take the bones of whatever it used to be and turn it into a welcoming location. The bar area itself is dark in comparison to the actual hibachi table locations, but this was fine since we were only there for a short while getting ourselves drinks and a single sushi roll. Overhead lights beam down on the actual tables in the main part of the building, and it was under these lights that I experienced temporary paralysis under the spell of watching someone else make my food.

I knew from mass media to expect the onion volcano trick, perhaps a very boisterous but not so talkative Asian chef behind the table wowing us with incredible knife skills and dexterity.  Our chef, a white man in a Green Bay Packers toque, was incredibly conversational and even let me get behind the grill to cut a few of the appetizer shrimp for the table. I have to be honest when I say that I barely ate anything that actually got to my plate.

Were the crab rangoon sushi rolls we ordered absolutely delicious? Yes. It was a deep fried sushi roll stuffed with cream cheese and imitation crab with that weird yellow sauce on top. It met and exceeded the expectation, but I only remember because it was right before our chef came to the table.

All of the food after that became something of a blur within my experience as a whole. I nibbled throughout the displays, and even when the apprentice came out, I watched him as closely as I did the full blown hibachi chef. I learned that they have that grill up at 480 degrees, and the apprentice would be in his program for a full six months before he could work an entire table on his own. The amount that I learned just from sitting at the table made the rather expensive and luxurious experience as worth it for me as my leftovers were for my husband when we went home.

We got the couples special which was chicken, filet mignon, and shrimp split between the two of us. I nibbled from each as the chef finished them, but I may as well have had a full plate when we all decided to pick up and head back home. That big box I brought home made at least two omelets and then some for Rob and I later on.

Oh! Right. There was also a mushroom broth type of soup that came out to us during the period of time where we were sat at the table waiting for our chef. The pure umami of it was a delicious opener to the meal, and I finished the entire bowl.

I would like to return to Timsan’s for another hibachi experience to actually eat instead of spend the entire time so entranced that our group of friends created memes on the spot about me. While I got very few pictures of the actual food, please enjoy these pictures of me absolutely cheesing it and in the next frame being in such deep thought that my resting bitch face comes out.

Meme by the Bro Justin.