The table clapped and cheered, yelling “Hi-o!” at the chef.

It was official, the friends were ready for the rest of the show, which includes cooking an entire meal right before the customer’s eyes as well as a few tricks along the way.

“I like the atmosphere,” said Shiener, a finance senior. “I think it was a good place to come for my 21st. It’s a good place to celebrate.”

The Ukai transformation

Ukai, 2167 W. Grand River Ave., in Okemos, has been operating in Okemos since 1993 and in the last year has opened two new locations — Ukai in Lansing and AI Fusion, a sushi restaurant and teppanyaki grill in East Lansing.

Despite the poor economy and an evident drop in people’s expendable incomes, director of operations Song Su Kim said the restaurant is continuing its success.

“We are kind of a destination location, so people are going to go out regardless for birthdays and anniversaries and things,” Kim said. “So we have seen a dip, but not to a point where I would say it’s drastic.”

Business was slow when the restaurant opened at 4 p.m. Friday, with about four customers at one grill and waitresses folding napkins, idly chatting and preparing for the night ahead.

However, by 5:30 p.m. the phone was ringing continuously with customers hoping for reservations and a steady stream of people walking through the doors. It wasn’t long before the restaurant was full, the sound of spatulas clinging and the sight of flames defining the atmosphere.

Heather LaForge, who has waited tables at Ukai a little more than a year, said it gets so busy Fridays and Saturdays, that the restaurant has to stop taking walk-ins. So the best bet to eat there on a weekend evening is to make a reservation.

Although the restaurant can be pricey, Kim said the final bill all depends on what a person orders — and especially on the meat they choose. He said an average price of a meal, without drinks, is $13-$15 per person. The amount of food is comparable to the price, he said.

“I’ve had one person out of all the years that we’ve been open (who) left saying ‘Oh I’m still hungry’ and he was huge,” Kim said, laughing. “And I’m thinking, ‘Dude, I could feed you three of those and you still wouldn’t be full.’”

In addition to the meat, a meal at Ukai comes with miso soup, a thin, salty soup made from fermented soy beans, a ginger house salad, vegetables including zucchini, onions, mushrooms and bean sprouts and a side of steamed rice. For $2, a customer can upgrade to fried rice.

The meats they offer include chicken, New York strip and filet mignon steaks, lobster, shrimp and scallops.

“People misperceive it and say, ‘Oh, it’s so expensive in there.’ Well, then they come in here and they order the most expensive beer, they get the Grey Goose, they get the lobster and the sushi,” Kim said. “You are probably spending $80 for two people, but you can walk out of here for two people for 25 bucks — that’s with tip.”

One of the best scenarios for a student to come to Ukai, though, is on a date.

“This is a fantastic date place,” Kim said.

“You can go on a first date and you don’t know what to talk about — well you are staring at a chef the entire time and so it’s really unique in the sense that you don’t have to sit there through awkward silence moments.”

Hibachi — it means grill

As waitresses in colorful kimonos walk around the restaurant that is sometimes referred to as a Japanese steakhouse, one might guess there is a Japanese history with the hibachi grill that may even date back thousands of years.

But, as it turns out, the hibachi grill is an American concept.

“It’s very Americanized. There’s nothing Japanese really about it, and that’s God’s honest truth,” Kim said, laughing at the irony.

“If not 99.9 percent, (it’s) 100 percent Americanized. There’s been a lot of restaurants that have been doing it before Benihana, but Benihana is the one that really made it popular.”

And though it might not be an exclusively and historically Asian art, there is a lot to master in terms of being a hibachi chef.

Any chef who cooks at Ukai is trained in house, and training typically lasts about 10 weeks. And believe it or not, Kim said the tricks are not the hardest thing to learn.

“You have got to be interacting with people and they are going to be asking you the same questions over and over,” he said, adding that many of the redundant questions include how long has the chef been doing this, do you have to go to school for this, how much do you make and can you come and do this in my house?

“All these questions that you have to answer while you are cooking, that’s the hard part.”

Hsieh said he received encouragement from his friends before taking the job at Ukai 15 months ago. And sometimes, a Hibachi chef’s work is never done.

“You have to practice every day and night,” he said. “Even when I come home, I practice at home.”

The four chefs at Ukai literally play with fire. They fling shrimp into customers’ mouths.

They toss bowls into their hats, wowing the tables and making people laugh. They transform onions into volcanoes.

There’s bound to be some disasters.

One personal disaster that sticks out in Kim’s mind from his cooking days includes a cute girl, some lobster and an ambulance.

“I will never forget this. This young girl came and she was so excited to have lobster. I was cooking and I remember I was like 21, she was really cute I remember, so I was showing off,” he said.

“She was eating it, (but) she kept coughing and grabbing her throat and I was like ‘What’s going on?’ and she’s like ‘I don’t know, everything is really good.’”

As it turns out, the girl was allergic to shellfish and didn’t know it. Kim said he remembers feeling terrible about the situation.

“I thought, ‘Well, we’re closed, the restaurant is going to shut down forever,’” Kim said, adding that the girl called to apologize the next day and everything ended fine.

An awe-inspired party

As Hsieh continued to entertain the birthday crowd, where shots of sake and beer were flowing, he began to marvel them with a few tricks.

Hsieh geared up and attempted to toss a shrimp into the mouth of each person at the table. Sometimes the shrimp landed in its destination, other times it was very close. But it didn’t seem to matter to the group.

Soon, it was time to cook the meat.

“Wow, look at all that meat,” said finance senior Adam Gordon, as Hsieh poured out mounds of shrimp, steak, chicken and lobster onto the grill.

It’s this show, and this reaction, that keeps customers coming back, LaForge said.

“I really like to say people don’t come for the food,” she said.

“They come for the experience.”