Tokyo House in My House

If you are from the Youngstown area than you know about the restaurant Tokyo House. It is the best restaurant if you want japanese hibachi. It doesn't even compare to any other hibachi restaurant for one simple reason, orange sauce. What is orange sauce you say? Well, you might be familiar with shrimp sauce a common condiment at hibachi restaurants, but this shrimp sauce, or orange sauce as it is called there is unlike any you will ever taste. You pile it on your rice by the jug, there is no such amount as too much orange sauce. It is like heaven on rice, and in a former pot smoking life it is also amazing on just about anything else, from ham on toast to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Krispy Kreme donuts (yes I've tried it on many a food, but other factors were also at work in those days.) There was probably a 2 or 3 year span where I went to Tokyo House at least once a week and sometimes twice. Yes, it is an amazing place.

I've cooked hibachi style dinners for myself and my brother but never really thought to make my own orange sauce. I thought it might be almost sacrilege to try and make it one my own, but my trips to the Tokyo House are becoming farther and farther apart, so I guess I need to figure something out. So this week I finally looked up a recipe for shrimp sauce to see how it would compare to the famed orange sauce. I found it on allrecipes.com, a great website for recipes by the way. It had the same consistency and look to it however not quite that obsessive inducing flavor that the one at the Tokyo House has. It was good but nothing thats going to keep you up at night with grease smeared lips and bloated stomach wondering when the next time you are going to eat it will be. I will certainly work with the recipe because I do think it is close, however it was definitely too sweet. So here is the recipe and I'm sure I will mess around with it and update at some point with what I come up with, and try it yourself if you're in the mood.

Shrimp Sauce (for now, orange sauce to come)

1 cup mayonnaise

3 tbs white sugar

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

2 tbs melted butter

3/4 tsp paprika

3/8 tsp garlic powder