Bisuteki Tokyo, Cambridge

Hotel restaurants are often a side note, but Bisuteki Japanese Steak House has become an institution in and of itself. Over the last 40 years, nearly three million people have spent an evening here being entertained by chefs trained in the art of teppanyaki exhibition cooking. As guests whet their appetites on salad and onion soup, they watch chefs set their cooktops ablaze and flip morsels of meat and veggies through the dancing flames.

Nearly any combination of meats can be selected for a teppanyaki entree—steak and scallops, chicken and calamari, or even a pair of lobster tails that probably came from two different lobsters. Chefs use fresh seafood and free-range chicken and beef, all of which are also found in teriyaki and noodle dinners. In addition to cooked fare, there's a menu of raw sushi prepared as maki, nigiri, and sashimi.