Teppanyaki, is a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook food. It focuses not just on the food itself, but also the showmanship and the skills of the chefs. This style of cooking went back all the way to the 1940s Japan when a Japanese chain restaurant Misono wanted to introduce western-influenced food such as steak to the Japanese food scene.  They soon found the cuisine was less popular with the Japanese than it was with foreigners, who enjoyed both watching the skilled maneuvers of the chefs preparing the food as well as the cuisine itself.