Osaka Japanese Sushi and Steak House is located off of Harvard Street in Coolidge Corner. The restaurant offers hibachi seating, regular tables and a bar, which allows diverse groups of people to be able to enjoy their experience at the restaurant.

Before ordering meals, each guest is given the house salad with a spicy ginger dressing to begin their meal. The drink list offers many fun virgin and alcoholic beverage choices to go along with various meals.

The menu consists of Japanese-inspired foods, including sushi boats, hibachi meals, soups, salads and more. After the complimentary salad, we tried the avocado and cucumber sushi roll ($7.50). The vegetables in the sushi tasted fresh and crisp. The small and perfectly wrapped rolls were satisfying and a good appetizer to our main dishes.

The staff was pleasant and attentive to each table and their guests. The interactive atmosphere at the hibachi tables made the eating experience enjoyable, with the chefs throwing food into guests’ mouths, performing knife spinning tricks and using large fires to begin the cooking, which added to the restaurant experience.

Osaka creates a fun atmosphere that makes the eating experience more like an interactive performance.

To begin, the chef walked out dragging a cart full of a tray of raw food that was to be dinner for about six people at the hibachi table.

We ordered the chicken hibachi ($16.95), which came with the house salad mentioned above, fried rice and mixed vegetables. The food was amazing. We were worried about how well cooked everything would be since it wasn’t being cooked in your typical stovetop, but the rice was delicious, the chicken was soft and well-cooked and the vegetables were covered in the most incredible teriyaki sauce.

Throughout the whole “show,” our favorite trick was the chef making a tower out of onion rings and then setting it on fire, or what he said was the “volcano.” We both agreed that the tricks that involved fire were a bit scary but fun nevertheless.

Overall, this meal was outstanding. Osaka is a great place to go when you want to go out to a nice restaurant with family or friends. We both came to the conclusion that this was a little pricey but definitely worth it due to the deliciousness of the food and the experience that went along with it.