Fighting For a Good Meal at Shogun - CLOSED

New Shogun

25521 Muirlands Blvd.

Mission Viejo, CA 92691

Being with Katie means that their is never a lack of birthdays. She has three siblings, and they all have significant others. With her parents added that is a total of ten birthdays a year that need to be celebrated. That does not even include my own family. Luckily, most of the birthdays are spread all through the year so we are not bombarded with lots of presents to buy all in one month. It is February, so that means Katie's mom Lynn is ready to blow out the candles for the 28th time! Where will she pick to eat though? That question is answered when we arrive at the New Shogun.

Of course almost everyone in our party of 11 asked why it is called New Shogun, and what happened to the old shogun. Not sure what happened to the old place, but this New Shogun has been flooding my mailbox with coupons for the four years I have lived in Mission Viejo.

New Shogun is located in a small shopping center that features a CVS Pharmacy and Antonucci's Italian Restaurant that we reviewed sometime back. New Shogun is a teppan restaurant. The best way to describe teppan to someone is to tell them that it just like Benihana. Food is prepared on a large, table sized grill, while the chef makes a show of slicing up the meats and veggies. Let's see if the show is worth the price of admission.

Before the show got started our order was taken, and the soup and salads were brought out. With each entree ordered you get both soup and salad. The soup was a Miso one with tofu. This soup was served steaming hot, and had an average taste. Nothing stood out for me with this soup. Just something to take up time waiting for our meals. The House Green Salad was next. This is your typical green salad served with a tangy ginger? dressing. The salad was better than the soup, but that is not saying much. The dressing at least woke up our taste buds.

The chef opened his portion of the show by forming rice balls and flipping them in every one's mouth. Here you see  Emily's failed attempt at her first try. If you look closely enough you can see the rice flying by her right ear. Fail! She did get it on her second try though. Good job Em!

Of course no teppan show would be complete without the obligatory onion volcano. Behold the onion in all of it's blazing glory!

Here are some random pictures of our guy grilling the meats and vegetables. The chef we had this night did all of the requisite routines, but he was not big in the personality department. Kind of felt like he was just going through the motions. I am sure it can get tiring doing the same thing over and over, day after day, year after year though.

I snapped this picture of Katie's plate before the vegetables and bean sprouts were added. She ordered the Shrimp with Yakisoba Noodles. She liked the shrimp here, but felt this plate was too salty, and the noodles were too hard. After the bite I had of this, I would tend to agree.

Here was my finished plate. I went with the Filet Mignon and Shrimp. The chef asked how I wanted my steak, and I said medium rare. I should have just answered that I wanted it like everyone else, because all the steak was done at the same time. It was more on the medium well side, but it was still tender enough to eat. The shrimp were okay. A little on the chewy side because they were over cooked. They really piled on the vegetables here. I was going to take pictures of every one's plates, but they all pretty much looked the same with the all of the veggies placed on top of the steak and shrimp.

I would sum this place up by saying that it is a poor man's version of Benihana. The restaurant seems a little dated, and maybe in the need of a makeover. The prices of course are on the high side for the amount of food that you receive. The combination dinners are in the $20 to $40 range. Also be advised that fried rice is an extra charge of $3 per serving. I will stick with the steamed rice on our next visit. If you take this place for what it is, you will enjoy your time here. The food is a secondary thought at Shogun. The main attraction is the chef's presentation of the food, and how he interacts with the guests. The New Shogun is not a restaurant that you will come to eat weekly. The food will not blow you away, but it is fun once in awhile in a large group. Now that Lynn's birthday is done, only eleven more birthday dinners to go! Looking forward to each and every one of them!

Out of five swords, (because the term Shogun is a military rank in Japan, and most of the military men back in the day had swords), five being best to zero being worst, New Shogun gets 2 swords.

For more information on New Shogun, click here: http://newshogunrestaurant.com/