Kobe Restaurant- Tokyo Chic Meets Wal-Mart Parking Lot

Kobe Restaurant....One of the finest restaurant decor in Columbus happens to be housed in a place located in a Super -Wal Mart Strip Center. Located in a former Cooker restaurant, Kobe Restaurant delivers average Japanese steakhouse hibachi food with moderate to expensive prices. Walking into the newly renovated restaurant, I was taken aback by the Miami-esque outdoor lounge just off the front entrance. The comfy lounge chairs with the white fabric drapes and umbrellas surrounded stone fireplace where diners could gather The foyer with a glass waterfall in the background looked like the entryway of any contemporary American restaurant found in any major city. Overall, the look was clean and captivating with just enough touches of stainless steel decor. From the paper lantern art hanging from the ceilings to the bamboo wood walls, no detail was left unattended.
Dinner selections ranged from the normal hibachi fare of steak, chicken and seafood, all cooked by a knife skilled chef/entertainer/jokester. Each dinner entree included chicken broth soup accented with onions, house salad of iceberg lettuce and creamy miso dressing, a shrimp appetizer, hibachi vegatables and your choice of steamed or fried rice.
We started off with the Kobe spring rolls-- hot, crispy and delicious filled with hot pork and yseafood filling. The dipping sauce, accented with chilli peppers hot a nice combination of sweet and heat. We continued the fried fiesta with a sampling of vegetable tempura, a healthy helping of nicely fried vegetables beautifully arranged in bouquet like fashion. The tempura was light and crispy and covered with Panko breadcrumbs, an ingredient usually only found on shrimp tempura and not vegetable tempura.
For my dinner, I chose the ribeye steak hibachi dinner with fried rice. The hibachi show started and our newly trained chef [who claimed to have studied the art of stir-frying for 3 months] started the shrimp appetizer demostration by skillfully cutting off all the tails of the shrimp in record time and flipping all the remains into his chest pocket of his chef's coat. As he finished the shrimp appetizer, he moved onto the vegetables and meat, expertly flambing the vegetables in the process for a more grand show.
Overall, the ribeye was well cooked and flavorful... really made possible by the trio of dipping sauces that included a soy ginger sauce, a sweet miso sauce, and another sauce that tasted like diluted barbeque sauce. Overall, the food was filling and tasty but similar to any food that you would get in any hibachi restaurant in the midwest.
In light of the decent food, Kobe restaurant had great attendance for a Wednesday night with 8 tables of 6 people each filling the restaurant.

Kobe Restaurant
3884 Morse Rd
428-8880

Ratings (1 to 5 worst to best)
Decor- 5 globes
Service- 4 globes
Food- 3 globes
Repeat offender? -- only if I'm in the area and have a hankering of eating habachi food and smelling like it after.

Hawa Russia

No. It’s not a Chinese restaurant. No. It's not a Mediterranean deli. Don't let the sign or the décor at Hawa Russia fool you. Despite the Chinese architecture (and unfortunately the poor service), Hawa Russia serves authentic Russian food such as Chicken Kiev and Beef Vareniki on its menu. Located on 161 and Cleveland Avenue, Hawa Russia strives to deliver regional Russian cuisine at affordable prices.

Unfortunately, the affordable prices (entrees range from $8-$14) lend itself to sub-par food, seemingly hastily prepared, despite the long wait times. The beef and potatoes vereniki (dumplings) came out smothered with sautéed yellow onions with a side of sour cream. The dumplings were bland with hard, dried edges around each piece. However, the vegetarian borscht offered a more tasty dining option. Borscht, a traditional Russian beet soap with cabbage and potatoes was a cornucopia of vegetables. One diner sitting next to me claimed that the borscht was "the best soup he ever had."' The Pork Kebob came out nicely charred; however had a marinade as one diner described as "strange." The Chicken Kiev was nice and juicy with a good crust. The compliments ended there when the waitress came to tell a person within our party that the Red Snapper she had ordered was "bad" and that "there was [is] something wrong with it." We should have left the restaurant then. However, because the sporadic delivery of all of our meals, the waitress treated us to an array of frozen-then-thawed chocolate cakes and cream puffs to tide us over as we waited another hour and some for the rest of our good.
Although Haw Russia tries to put their best foot forward, it still although suffers from the trials and tribulations of new-restaurant syndrome with unknown traffic levels, questionable fresh food, minimal staffing, and inconsistent availibility of menu items. Overall, Hawa Russia has authentic food, but just needs Gordon Ramsey to whip it into a professional restaurant.

Rating: 1-5 (worst to best)
Food
Menu Selection: 3 globes
Taste: 2 globes
Presentation: 2 globes
Ambiance
Cleanliness: 3 globes
Décor: 2 globes (Chinese restaurant meets Russian cottage)
Service: 1 globe
OVERALL GLOBES: 2 globes

Our Fearless Pioneer

Shoba, the original pioneer for the Aroudn the Worl d Dinner Club, has so magnanimously
collated all of our restaurant visits in one calendar.

Her commitment is undying.


1.17.07 - Aladdin's Cafe (Middle East)
2.7.07 - Tropical Bistro (Polynesian Islands)
3.6.07 - Blue Nile (East Africa)
4.11.07 - Amazon Grill (South America)
5.9.07 - Bonefish Grill (Nordic countries)
6.13.07 - Udipi (south asia)
7.10.07 - Mozarts Cafe (Eastern Europe)
8.15.07 - Banana Bean Cafe (Caribbean Islands)
9.12.07 - Indochine Cafe (Southeast Asia)
10.9.07 - basi italia (western europe)
11.7.07 - Las Delicias Salvadorian (central america)
1.17.08 - Darbo (Africa)
3.11.08 - Mr Sushi (states along I-10)
4.18.08 - Nazareth (west asia)

AROUND THE WORLD DINNER CLUB

AROUND THE WORLD DINNER CLUB blog has started.

I thought this would be a good forum to keep track of all of the great restaurants and factoids that we learn during our monthly dinners.
Eventhough
a) some of the greatest restaurants may have been in sketchy neighborhoods across pawn shops b) scheduling conflicts have put outlook calendar in high speed and
c) we narrowed the group to an elite 6 member (invitation-only) crew,

we still have had great food, interesting conversation, and amazing brain-storming sessions for "ideas to change the world" in all the mom & pop restaurants we visit.

I need to go back and retrofit all the previous restaurants we have been to but the next entry will be of our upcoming adventure at Hawa Russia!