Restaurant of the Week: Tokyo Wako

This week's restaurant: Tokyo Wako, 4480 Ontario Mills Parkway (at Franklin), Ontario.

This teppan grill restaurant is in a minimall on the south side of the Mills. A fire pit near the entrance provides a place to warm up if you're waiting to be seated. I don't know if that's ever the case in this economy: A friend and I were seated immediately on a Tuesday night around 8 p.m. and the restaurant was mostly empty.

The interior, however, is enormous: a large sushi bar and dining area as well as a large teppanyaki room. And it's lovely too, even if the koi "river" (a la Tokyo Tokyo) was dry.

The special is worth trying: For $29.95, two can have the full teppan experience with both chicken and steak, plus soup, salad and rice. The results were pretty good, too.

But one has to ask: What is the point? Benihana does the exact same thing. And I mean the exact same thing. The grill seating, the soup, the salad, the shrimp appetizer, the vegetables (zucchini, onion, mushrooms and bean sprouts), it's awfully familiar. Ditto with the chef's tricks, which mostly involve randomly knocking various implements and containers against the edge of the grill, and making the de rigeur onion volcano.

The food at Tokyo Wako was fine, the decor was a cut above Benihana and you can probably be seated faster. But how about a bit more wako?

View the menu here.