Aka Teppan

I’ve been dying to come try out their sizzling plate because it reminded me SO MUCH of the Pepper Lunch in Hong Kong. Ohhhh, the delicious scent of the burning hot sizzling plate that fills up the entire food court.
We came here for lunch on a weekend, and they had delicious lunch specials! I got the peppered beef with rice and corn and my friend got the salmon with rice and corn. We were surprised when they served us a plate of dumplings as appetizers right before we received our meal. Fried dumplings for a surprise are always a nice and surprising treat because we already had a special for lunch.
CAUTION: the sizzling plate is literally sizzling — meaning, you should probably wait for your food to cool down before you put it in your mouth, or else you will probably burn your tongue like I did.
Food overall was 3 stars, it wasn’t as delicious as Pepper Lunch, nor did it smell as delicious, but cool place to check out in Markham!

Went here for a weekday lunch with a couple of friends. I have been here before a couple of times and the food has been consistent.
We were promptly seated when we arrived and given water. There is a lunch menu on weekdays with a few options and it comes with 3 gyoza (dumplings). You can also add 1.50 $ for a drink, salad, or soup.
I ordered the lunch special which was curry beef with rice. This place is known for their sizzling plate rice which is similar to a food court restaurant in Hong Kong called Pepper Lunch. The food arrives on a sizzling plate and you mix it yourself and the meat continues to cook while mixing. The portions are average but the sizzling plate really keeps the food hot while you are eating it.
Overall, I would definitely return again in the future when I want some sizzling plate rice/​noodles!

You remember that scene in Eddie Murphy’s «Nutty Professor» when they were on the dinner table and the mom was clapping «Hercules, Hercule, Hercules»
That is the exact emotion I felt when my curry beef tepanyaki showed up. Smoking on my table and the meat still red getting cooked in front of my face.
I swapped my rice to udon-​best move as it was nice and chewy and the curry taste was an amazing sauce to compliment the noodles.
The ambience is not anything but you do feel like you had a quality meal at a very fair price. My bill was less than $ 15. Definitely would recommend this to any one in the Markham area.
P.S– I was full so not first hand experience. Their dessert menu looked DOPE AF.

This is another go-​to restaurant for friend meet-​ups.
After trying many items on the menu at Aka Teppan (I come here often haha), I’d recommend the:
* GRILLED CHICKEN — RICE [Hot Plate]
I always order this with cheese; remember to pour the cheese bits while it’s sizzling hot! Melted cheese, yums!
* GRILLED CHICKEN — PASTA with herb sauce [Hot Plate]
I like their grilled chicken so I tend to choose it. I tried this way back when it first opened and it wasn’t that good but recently I came and they definitely improved a lot. It’s yummy and saucy! :)
* MINI BEEF PATTY (3) with cheese inside
These mini patties are so good! Comes sizzling hot each time.
* SHABU SHABU with beef
Try the Hokkaido Milk broth! Sounds weird but tastes good: D

The food is quite tasty, but the portions are a bit small.
Black Curry Beef Udon: It was overall quite good. The texture of the udon was good, soft and chewy, but the curry didn’t really have a bold taste to it. The beef tasted normal and you can cook it to your desired doneness.
Salmon Herb Cream Pasta: It was also good, and more flavourful than the curry udon in my opinion. It had a strong creamy garlic taste. The salmon tasted normal as well.
Okonomiyaki fries: Just like a standard Okonomuyaki fries. Sauce and mayonnaise pretty tasty. Good addition to the meal
One thing that I wished they did and wouldn’t let me do was substituting the spaghetti noodles from the herb and cream pasta for the udon instead. That would have been really good!

This is an interesting place, it does teppanyaki on a hot plate right in front of you and mix it yourself. Cheaper than going to a full out teppanyaki place.
I had the Spicy mentaiko beef udon this is udon noodles with some seaweed sprinkled on top, some kimchi and beef in a cheesey sauce. The udon was good but the flavors were a bit strong for me.
Also tried my friend’s supreme beef teppanyaki rice. I think I enjoyed this more and it felt less buttery than the udon.
Overall If you want to try something different its pretty good. I just didn’t like that I smelled like teppanyaki the rest of the day.

The food was good but not surprising. Very buttery but makes sense because of the hot plate. It would’ve been nice if there were more veggies. Reasonably priced.
Very big plus is the service. Very nice and courteous. Server forgot to put in our drink order and when we asked, they acknowledged the slip up and made one for us on the house.

Tried this for the first time on one of the warmest weekends of the beginning of spring. I came with a friend and we both ordered lunch specials which come with dumplings.
There was a really big hype when this place first opened and I could see why it was such a big thing. It’s a unique idea and the idea behind cooking your own meal on a sizzling plate which can’t be done at home.
I ordered the black curry beef udon and I really enjoyed the texture of the curry on the chewy udon. My friend got the black curry beef rice and she thought it wasn’t bad but the rice was rather dry.
Overall an interesting idea but wouldn’t go back often. Maybe we’ll come back to try the dessert!

Came here at around 9pm on a weekend so it wasn’t as busy as usual and didn’t have to wait for seating. The server we had was super nice, he was very friendly and kept saying thank you to our table which was a nice surprise for us. Everyone else was also really nice and whenever we needed anything they were quick to bring what we requested.
Ordered the usual supreme beef with rice and extra corn. Even though some may say the beef portions are small, I thought it was a good amount. It was a good ratio with the rice imo. If you enjoy sauce, I would recommend getting extra sauce for I think $ 1.
Also ordered the cheesy Japanese style rice cake, the rice cake was not as soft as I would have liked it, but the cheese sauce was delicious. A bit like nacho cheese but with a nice spicy kick to it.
Ended with the sesame ice cream parfait which was good as well, the only thing is that it might be a bit messy to eat.
Overall, have been here a few times and would return.

The food looks impressive in photos and that’s about it…
I was interested in coming to this restaurant when one of my friend posted a short video on Facebook.
Environment:
The restaurant is located at First Markham Place, which is well known for a lot of great restaurants and very crappy parking situation. My tip is to just don’t bother looking for a place near the restaurants during peak dinner hours and park beside where Cineplex used to be. Trust me, even though it’s more walking, this will save you so much time and frustration.
The restaurant itself is pretty small, and it’s more like a casual dine out as opposed to a full meal. The seats are limited, so it’s better to come early and with a small group. It smelled so good when you first step into the restaurant.
Food:
We ordered a rice with beef and a pasta with smoked duck breast. The wait was about 15 minutes until we finally got our food, and it wasn’t during peak hours, so probably expect longer for dinners. Immediately I noticed that the meats were very little, as you can see from the photo.
I had the pasta: the cream sauce was great, very flavorful, the duck breast tasted like duck bacon, but it was good too, I just wish there were more of them. My friend got the beef with rice: she commented how the beef tasted like those beef rolls you use for hotpot, and the inside of the rice was cold, like it came from the fridge, so she had to scramble the rice on the pan to make it hot.
Service:
Just your average Chinese restaurant service quality. But we were led to a corner seat even though there were other seat available, because they wanted to save those for larger groups. I mean I completely understand why they would do that, but it still didn’t feel great to us as customers.
I feel that overall the portion was not great, because of the lack of meats and average taste overall, the cool pan wasn’t enough to win me over. I could have went somewhere else and spend the exact same amount but get a more satisfying experience.

I remember coming here when it first opened a few years back. However, my first visit was disappointing because it was overpriced and was a small portion.
I came back here recently because I saw the sign outside the door (while walking by FMP) for set lunch menu for $ 8.50 for a choice of teppanyaki and side of dumplings. To me that was a pretty reasonable price.
It was ooookay, still don’t think it compares to Asia, but it sure does remind of Pepper Lunch! I still don’t understand why there’s always long lineups outside this place.

Nothing too special especially given the level of service. I am personally a big fan of hot plate meals and throw in Japanese you have my attention. While the presentation of the food is very gimmicky the food tastes ok only. Depending on which you decide you could literally end up with something that is just bland or something thats got too much taste. Some of the more safer bets are the Supreme Beef which is more than likely the picture you have seen which lead you to this place. Appetizers are meh and on the pricy side when you see them; their signature dusted wings are single bone (yes single bone) «wings». For the $ 8 – 9 I’d rather have some full wings to me 3 of those «wings» equate to 1 real wing. There is a up side to this, their awesome desert dishes. From looking at it seems like the owners really should be in the desert business you can judge for yourself my review will mainly be on their food.
Hot plates — I would generally stick with the less saucier options staying away from the curry’s etc. Either the plate isn’t hot enough or the waitresses generally arent paying attention enough to bring the hot plate in time you end up with a hot plate that can barely cook the meat leaving you with meats that are uncooked which worries me a bit. Just make sure you start cooking the meats first but it becomes difficult when there is a thick sauce on the plate. Extras are where they get to up sell you here and are generally $$$ addon’s but hey when you want a raw egg you want that raw egg.
Shabu Shabu — very plain you’re a-​typical shabu shabu on the more $$$ side of the spectrum. In my opinion there are much better options and variety’s given the dollar spent especially when the soup base is rather bland. I would try it once but not really more than that I could literally pay a few dollars more for some real hot pot down the street. Same goes for Shabu Shabu the addon’s are generally more $$$ after adding an extra item you could easily pay for ayce hot pot.
Service — this is where this place falls short. Either they are unable to comprehend giving numbers to patrons whom are waiting or simply just dont care. On the ³⁄₅ trips I have been to Aka Teppan I have found angry customers complaining to deaf ears regarding how someone who literally just walked in off the street gets a table while there are at least 2 other parties waiting at the door? When patrons bring it up waitress’ either disappear or pretend like they don’t speak english. Management really needs to step in and take a look at how they are handling walk-​ins and wait lines especially when its so disorganized. I have seen the manager walk by amidst these issues and just ignoring them. The last thing regarding the hot plates would be the efficiency in delivering the hot plate if its cold by the time it arrives its no good the food they are catering is only good when fresh having it sit by the kitchen waiting for the waitress’ to play eenie meenie miney mo until they reach a decision on whom is bringing the dish out just doesn’t cut it.

My boyfriend and I both ordered the teppanyaki rice; he got the beef and I got the unagi. Portions were generous and presentation was nice! Everything tasted good as well but the unagi gets a little too rich at the end so I might opt for the shrimp or salmon next time.
I also noticed they had a really cool dessert menu but we were too full for dessert. Would definitely want to try the matcha panna cotta or sesame parfait next time though!

What we had:
Molten cheesy hamburg steak: very juicy, but the cheese was just okay, not much cheese flavour.
Supreme beef teppanyaki rice: really good, juicy, love how it comes out on a hot plate and cooks in front of you.
Salmon tataki salad with ponzu wasabi dressing. The salad was okay but the ponzu wasabi dressing I enjoyed a lot! Could drink this dressing like I drink nuoc mam.
Service was pretty good, atmosphere was nothing special but didn’t detract. Overall it’s worth a try.

I think food wise this place is average but it’s the creative/​fresh aspect in which the food is served that’s capturing all the attention. I had their supreme beef rice which is just pieces of beef that’s cut up and placed strategically around quite a large portion of rice with corn/​greens on top. The beef really wasn’t anything special to me, it tasted kind of like the hot pot beef that’s been marinated perhaps.
If you decide to add the egg they give you a raw egg and you crack it in after your meal has arrived.
For dessert I had their house tiramisu that’s like small plant that’s actually pretty good surprisingly. The cake was super moist and the cream was just perfectly whipped. I also had a green tea ice cream parfait which sadly was quite disappointing because it’s just two scoops of ice cream on top of a lot of corn flakes with a scoop of red beans on the side :/​I actually didn’t even finish that because it was so lacking compared to the tiramisu. Both desserts were 5.99 and the meal was 10.50 (including extra egg) which is average in the area but definitely there’s better if you aren’t specifically craving this.

I came here at 530pm on a Saturday and it wasn’t busy of course, but after 30 minutes, there was a line up! I didn’t realize how popular this place was and the restaurant is pretty small too! I wasnt impressed with the service however. We were seated and never got asked if we wanted a drink. At this time, it wasn’t even busy. It took a while to get the waitress’s attention too, so it took extra long just getting some tea.
I tried their most well known dish of course, the sizzling plate (with salmon) and luckily it came out relatively fast. The plate comes out sizzling of course so make sure you don’t touch it, duhh! There’s a paper cover (see picture) to make sure you don’t get splattering oil on your skin or clothes.
MAKE SURE YOU STIR THE RICE AROUND-there’s a huge chunk of butter hidden in the rice which I mistakenly took for as tofu. Other than being unaware of this, my plate was overly peppery. There was so much pepper that all I could taste was peppery hotness. Ugh, and I’m sure this dish wouldve been delicious if they didn’t overload my dish with black sprinkles of death. I just couldn’t eat it all because of this. Such a unfortunate experience.

Not a bad place to try some Japanese food that doesn’t involve sushi! Prices are decent and the restaurant looks clean and pretty modern. Me and my sister ordered the rice dish where they serve it in a sizzling platter so the meat cooks while you’re eating. I got the beef while my sister got the salmon. It’s great that they put a paper around the platter to prevent oil from getting on your clothes. I know a lot of restaurants don’t do that.
My beef dish overall tasted great but I wish there was more meat to it. My sister’s dish however had way too much pepper so she didn’t like hers as much. One warning to new people coming here, there’s a hidden chunk of cold butter in the middle of the rice so you have to break the rice apart and mix it in with the meat. I didn’t realize what it was until it was too late — taking a big bite out a chunk of butter is not pleasant. You’ve been warned!
Service-​wise, it was mediocre. The waitress sat us down and never gave us water. We had to try hard to flag her down for it. Ordering was also annoying because she didn’t really check up on us. Paying was surprisingly difficult too. The waitress just wasn’t on her game today. Lastly, this place only takes debit or cash. You can use debit only if your order is over $ 25 so make sure you have money on you!
All in all, it’s a neat place to visit once. Not sure if I would go again.

Unique.
Wait time wasn’t too long. Service is ok. Place is clean. It’s very hot inside when you sit close to the kitchen. For the price, the portion is not bad. But if you’re a guy (or a girl that eats a lot).You’re definitely going to want to order a side dish of wings or some sort of appetizer.
What I didn’t like? One time the rice was not properly cooked so it came out hard. After mixing the rice and cooking it on the hot plate the rice got even harder. I didn’t exactly enjoy the raw rice taste. Another time we came here the food was buried in oil. It was disgusting.
What I love about this place is that their food is delicious and it’s on a sizzling hot plate! Keeps the food warm all the way to the end. And their add ons!
We come here quite often so we’ve tried:
Dinner:
— Ox Tongue
— Supreme Beef
— Salmon Pasta
Lunch special:
— Japanese Curry with Udon (Beef) ($ 8.50)
— Atlantic Salmon Teppan Yaki-​Rice ($ 7.99)
— Tom Yum House Special Chicken Yaki-​Rice ($ 8.50)
My ultimate favourite: Ox Tongue
Bf’s fav: Supreme Beef
Recommended drink: definitely try their Oolong Green Tea Latte

I’ve been to this location a few times, since sizzling hot plates are definitely one of my favourite kind of meals. There is a bigger variety of items to choose from compared to the downtown AKA since that location is newer than this one.
For an appetizer we got the Chicken Wings with Wasabi Seasoning which were cut in half and served with sliced carrots. The wasabi powder that was sprinkled on top was really good!
Duck Breast Pasta with Herb Sauce — the herb sauce was recommended by the waiter and went really well with the dense, drier duck breast meat.
Supreme Beef Rice — one of my go-to’s since when cooked it’s not too dry or tough (as compared to the bland salmon and chewy duck breast) and it goes well with the flavours. Also, rice on hot plates have a better texture than spaghetti, in my opinion.
One plate in itself is close to $ 10 but keep in mind that it’s not super filling.
Also, ask for a stamp card for loyalty perks. Every $ 20 spent you get a stamp which could accumulate to free food/​drinks at Aka Teppan! :)

Probably not going there again. The food tastes good but it may just be the MSG as my dad and I was practically knocked out by the time I got home.
The seating is also very tight and uncomfortable.
The food itself tastes good but as I said. It was likely due to MSG.
The presentation and safety paper around the hot plate was a nice touch.
The lack of credit card wasn’t that big a deal because the price isn’t too expensive but it is still inconvenient.