Dining Out:

Don’t let the quiet exterior of Sakura Japanese Steak & Seafood House fool you. Inside, there’s a party going on. In fact, there are three parties going on. Let me explain.

With a seating area of more than 10,000 square feet, it’s probably the largest restaurant in La Cañada Flintridge. It’s divided into three distinct zones, so depending on who you talk to, Sakura could be considered an elegant sushi restaurant, a lively teppanyaki grill or a casual shabu shabu joint.

The first area one encounters is the beautiful wood-lined, three-story-high atrium. A sushi and cocktail bar bisects the circle with tables around the room’s perimeter. It’s a very nice place for a romantic date. At the opposite end is a huge room filled with 16 teppan grills and overhead fans. A teppanyaki chef stands at attention at each grill surrounded by a gaggle of chattering diners.

Between these two areas sits the long table of round hot plates meant for steaming bowls of shabu shabu and sukiyaki broth. It’s a difficult task, but you must decide upon entering which area, and therefore which food, you’ll choose.

We chose the shabu shabu table. I couldn’t help but feel a little left out of the fun as I gazed upon what looked like a pool hall of sizzling grills and laughing diners. The chefs were chopping with flare and the grills would occasionally torch up into fiery glory.

But we came for the Japanese hot pot, a healthful and delicious Asian tradition dating back to the 13th century. A communal broth is placed over a fire, then thinly sliced pieces of meat held by chopsticks, are swished around in the broth (“shabu shabu” loosely translates as “swish swish”) before being popped in the mouth. Over the years, fancy extras and dipping sauces were added. The broth, typically made from water and kombu kelp, is often punched up with garlic and other flavors today.

Our hot pot entrees ($12 to $20) were delicious and fun to eat. In addition to the wide pan of bubbling broth, we were presented with a generous plate of paper-thin slices of rib-eye steak and a platter of extras including cabbage, tofu, enoki and brown mushrooms, glass noodles, slices of fish cake (kamaboko), and an unfamiliar herb that had the wonderful bite of dandelion greens.