Some restaurant names need a little explaining. Bamboo Grassy comes from a chant at the Tohka Ebisu festival celebrated in Osaka and Kyoto soon after New Year: Shobai hanjo de sasa mottekoi! Or “Business is thriving, fetch the bamboo grass!” Owner and Chef Asao Naganuma must be hoping his restaurant’s name and location—in Ebisu, neighborhood of the god of commerce—bode well for business.

Unlike many teppanyaki restaurants, Bamboo Grassy’s patrons do not cook their own food; burnt-metal teppan plates wouldn’t really go with the comfortable interior. It’s probably a good thing, as Naganuma undoubtedly does it better, and when you’re messing with expensive items like shiitake mushrooms sandwiched between fois gras and Wagyu beef (¥4,200), you don’t want to take any risks. (In a caramelized sherry vinaigrette sauce, the “sandwich” was, by the way, heavenly.) But you can see Naganuma at work from every table, we were told, even if you’re not sitting at one of the four prized counter seats in front of him.

If the shiitake sando was our “happy ending,” reaching that climax was non-stop pleasure, if less extravagant. A ball of kimchi encased watercress and several types of raw fish (¥930). Teppanyaki vegetables (¥400 each for four pieces), including eggplant, lotus root and leafy maitake mushrooms, were each cooked just enough to get the juices flowing, then dipped in salt or one of three sauces—miso, mustard and soy, or ponzu with nuts and onions. Tender sea bream wrapped in shiso leaves with a dash of plum sauce (¥950) was followed by okonomiyaki (¥1,400). Unlike most varieties of this savory “pancake,” the Bamboo Grassy version is more like a crepe, with thin dough wrapped around yakisoba and cabbage, coated with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonaise, served in a square shape like a galette. Much lighter than regular okonomiyaki, it didn’t bloat our stomachs, leaving space even for something as rich as fois gras.

With many elegant moments, a daring wine selection matching Japanese and international flavors would have been welcome, but the Robert Mondavi house white (¥750 by the glass) was a fair accompaniment in the places where draught beer (¥680) was too pedestrian. Our beer of choice was—of course—Yebisu, and our toast was to Ebisu, for adding one more blessing, Bamboo Grassy, to his thriving neighborhood.