Capital Steakhouse

My husband has always been a steak and potatoes kind of guy, and there aren't too many good Japanese restaurants that serve that type of food. Luckily, we found Capital Steakhouse just down the road from the Courtney Housing gate. The restaurant is actually adjacent to the parking lot for our tower building, and you can often smell their take-out garlic chicken cooking during the day. The food is awesome, and the portions are (finally)big enough for a Marine- we often go here after my husband returns from field exercises! In our opinion, Capital is one of the best restaurants of the Courtney area!



Capital Steakhouse is a teppan yaki style restaurant. In Japanese, teppan yaki refers to meals that are cooked in front of you on a large flat metal cooking surface built into the table. Like most good teppan yaki restaurants, Capital offers steak, chicken, seafood and combination entrees, as well as a side of potatoes, stir fried bean sprouts, and a choice of bread or rice.



I usually treat myself to the steak, which is probably the most popular entree. Capital offers two cuts of meat: usually tenderloin and sirloin, but sometimes they vary. The small dinner is pictured here, and it's usually the perfect portion for me. My husband, on the other hand, could probably eat twice as much steak so he usually orders the large or a combination meal.



My friend Christina tried the barbecue chicken on this particular outing. She loved it, and I can say frome experience that it's delicious! The barbecue sauce is very good, and the chicken is always tender and juicy.



They also offer a wide selection of appetizers. Our favorite is the cheese sticks, which are fried cheddar cheese in panko with a honey dipping sauce, but there is something to fit every taste. They also offer a fairly good selection of cocktails, including their delicious Pineapple Mai Tai, a rum and pineapple juice drink that is served in a whole pineapple.



Capital is also very reasonably priced compared to other restaurants like it. The food is great, and you'll pay just over half of what you would at Sam's or Captain's Inn. My husband and I usually get out for around ¥5,500 for a huge dinner, appetizers, and drinks. They have a nice, relaxed atmosphere, too.

Their phone number is 098-973-4016 (Uruma Branch), and the staff speaks good English. Lunch is served from 11:30 am until 4:00 pm, and they are open for dinner until 11:00 pm, last I checked, but I'm not sure since we usually go early so we can walk in the housing gate.



To get there from Courtney, simply turn left out the housing gate, and it'll be immediately on your left. There is parking both in front of the building, and a small lot around the side, marked by the sign pictured above.



From McT, take a right out the gate onto Route 8. Continue until 75, and take a left. Continue through 3 stoplights, and it'll be on your right. The signs are a bit harder to see from this angle, but if the front parking is clear, you'll be greeted by this odd statue or a chubby Buddha face.


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If you live on Foster or Kadena, or like to wander down there during mealtimes like me, there is another branch of Capital Steakhouse on Route 23. It's located right next to Zion Church and in front of Delicious Sushi.

Nigiri Uminai Sushi: aka the ¥105 Sushi Go Round

When I lived in Okinawa as a kid, I thought that Sushi-go-Round restaurants were the coolest thing in the world. What an inventive idea! I love being able to see my food before I choose it, and sushi is already one of my favorite foods. Coming back to Okinawa as an adult slightly changed my perspective. I visited an old favorite "Kaitenzushi" (the Japanese word for Sushi-go-round) restaurant in American Village, and it was a lot more expensive than it used to be (when my parents were paying!). Plus, it takes about 40 minutes to get there from my house, and I tend to forget I'm hungry until I'm ravenous.

I thought we would never go to a Kaitenzushi restaurant again, until my husband and I heard about the ¥105 Sushi Go Round. Not only is it less than 10 minutes from Courtney AND McT, but it's cheap, and has really good sushi!



The full name of this restaurant is Nigiri Uminai. The first word, Nigiri, is the name of the style sushi that has a piece of sashimi sitting on a little ball of sushi rice. The second word, Umi, means ocean. To be completely honest, I have no idea what the last part of it means. If anyone speaks more Japanese than I do, please feel free to let me know! To keep it simple, I just call this place Nigiri Sushi, for short.



Like any sushi-go-round, Nigiri Sushi has both a bar area and booth tables organized around a moving track full of individual plates of sushi. You are free to grab whichever plate catches your eye, and at the end of your meal, your price will be calculated by tallying the number and type of plates on your table. There is also ice water and hot green tea available at your table, via tea packets and a hot water spigot at the table.



If you sit in the bar area, a sushi chef in the middle of the tracks can take special requests for you, and make them right in front of you. If you sit at the booths, however, there is a really neat touch screen computer system that will allow you to special order sushi, drinks, desserts, and even some assorted side items. Everything is written in both Japanese and English, and its really intuitive. Even better, when your order is ready, it wheels out to your table on a little race car!

This is a great family friendly restaurant to go to. It's better if everyone going likes sushi, but there are a few other things available as side items. They usually have small bowls of soba, fried chicken pieces, potato wedges, and some assorted dessert items. There are a few things on their menu that are a little more than ¥105, but they are still fairly cheap. We usually leave completely stuffed for under ¥2,000 for two adults, including a few sodas.


Directions:

From Camp Courtney, simply take a left onto Route 75. You'll cross through 3 stop lights before seeing Nigiri Sushi and the Tsutaya movie/music store on the right.

From McTureous, take a right out the gate onto Route 8. From there, continue straight for a while. Take a left onto Route 75 just past the KFC and Lawson. Drive one block north, then turn into the Tsutaya parking lot on the left, and Nigiri Sushi will be at the far end of the parking lot.


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