Slaving over the stove

I've heard it more than once - if I want to go to a restaurant, I want them to cook my food! But not everyone feels this way. There are several types of "do it yourself" restaurants in Japan, like yakiniku and kushiage.

My family really enjoys these restaurants. They are a little different and my son loves how interactive they are.

We recently went to a seafood BBQ restaurant. Similar to yakiniku where each person grills their own meat, this restaurant has people grilling their own seafood.

We started by picking out our shrimp, clams, and oysters from water tanks. The shrimp were still alive, so we gave the honors of grabbing them with tongs to our son. He was determined to collect them and quickly came up with a plan. He looked for "lazy" shrimp and went after them with the tongs as fast as he could. He was glad that an employee came and skewered the shrimp after he collected them from the tank.

There was also a case with various sausages, octopus on a stick, rice balls, and more. Variety was definitely on the menu!

After paying, we were assigned a table, which housed a long grill. We didn't waste any time and loaded up the grill right away.

Our meal didn't take long to cook. It was fun to watch everything sizzle. Our son got an extra thrill when the clams and oysters popped open.

The wire basket is to prevent the shellfish from popping open
and splashing us with juice.  The table next to ours demonstrated
what could happen if you don't use the basket.  Oops!

We could have easily gone to a restaurant that prepared everything for us. But making our own food was much more entertaining.