Encore Teppan

Since my parents are moving back to Diamond Bar I suggested we try this new place. We came in on a Wednesday at about 2:00pm for lunch. At this time the place was completely empty but it was kind of nice having being seated immediately at the teppan table by the friendly staff. We ordered shrimp tempura and a tuna roll for appetizers which was a great start. The tempura came with some kind of ginger based dipping sauce which was different but tasty, even my Mom liked it and she’s not that big a fan of ginger.
Next up our chef, William, comes out to prepare the main course. Starting of with a spatula drum solo and giant flame burst as a beginning to the food ritual about to happen, we watch as he gets down on the teppan grill.
Very friendly and down to earth, we chat with William as he’s performing his culinary art.
The vegetable fried rice was first, great light taste that wasn’t too greasy like some fried rice can be. I had the filet mignon rare, which was grilled to perfection by William. Perfectly tender and juicy, this steak was delicious, and what put it over the top was the mustard dipping sauce they give you. Zesty with a mild spice to it that goes great on the stake or chicken which my mom had. Grilled onions, peppers, zucchini and mushrooms were also part of the lunch specials as well as miso soup. My Dad had the New York steak medium, which he liked. I’m not a fan of New York steak or medium grilled meat but I tried it and it was actually pretty good.
The overall experience was great. Great service (I never ran out of iced tea) :) friendly staff, delicious food, and great prices. $ 15 for the Filet Mignon lunch, not bad at all. I will definitely be coming back here soon, as well as Mom and Dad.

The food was good and the staff including the manager very gracious. I would recommend and will be back!

Had a great dinner here courtesy of Chef Michael — dinner was delicious. Atmosphere was nice and clean, and the staff was friendly. Overall, the experience was comparable to Benihana, but without the wait. That said, we did have an hour wait despite a lot of available seats — it seemed they were short staffed, with too few chefs for the teppan area. Maybe it was an off night, maybe it really is a staffing issue. Regardless, hopefully it will be resolved by the next time I get around to going.

Love this place. Food is outstanding and so is the show. It’s local and easy to get too. I highly recommend it. I had the chicken and shrimp dinner and it was wonderful.

Our first time here for their grand opening. It was different than I thought it would be it has a more modern feel not some stereotype Teppanyaki place.
As soon as we walked in we were greeted by the host who was very nice wish I would have caught his name. We were seated very quickly and we were helped by Ernie. Very nice person and had a gentle tone that made our experience better. He was very nice in showing us to their separate area where we could even have some type of large gathering.
Our chef’s name was William and this is where it got the five stars he was very personable, didn’t just do
His job but went out of his way to have a full conversation with myself and my fiancé. Don’t seem to get that at the large chains from previous experiences. He was attentive and made sure our experience was Unilocal 5 star that is for sure!
The food was great we ordered the spicy chicken and the teriyaki chicken. Make sure to ask for the Diablo sauce it’s very yummy! The courses were great but the overall experience is what we were sold on and I know if you are looking to try a new place this is that place.

My husband and I live in Diamond Bar where there is a shortage of good restaurants. This review is written based on our second visit. They greeted us quickly, but we arrived early. We did tappan last time, so sat a table the second time. The service is professional and friendly. The food is good. I ate the poke salad (spicy) and my husband had lobster and filet. They have a Grand Opening 20% discount offering right now, so take advantage! They also offer a sushi (bar) and sport bar. They have several beers on tap and bottled with two big screen TVs. This restaurant has a lot of potential. Try it out!

I love this place! I took my dad here for his bday and have been taking lots of my visitors here. No long wait line and lunch special everyday including weekends! One time that we had to wait longer and the manager gave us free tempura for all my guests. The price is very reasonable and the service is great. I come here periodically. Just remember to make your reservation ahead of time. Everything is done online. They even text you to remind you 30 mins before your reserved time. This place is Highly recommended!

Awesome!!! More up scale than I expected. All the servers were very respectful and patient. The chefs put on a great preformance. Theres this really cool ice mountain of alcohol. Kind of a hole in the wall place. They have «rooms» for private parties. We came here for our friend’s birthday and they sang happy birthday & gave ice cream.

Read the previous reviews and they were mixed so decided to try them our for a birthday celebration since it’s close by. When I called to reserve, they asked me the name of the celebrant but when we arrived they asked us again, thought there was a little surprise for the celebrant. Oh well…
Lunch specials are yummy and reasonable. Their sushi selection is quite extensive and they had fresh tuna and delicious Escolar. My son swore best sushi hands down.
Angel cooked our lunch and he was very funny and entertaining. The food is solid good for the price, the place is clean and service was excellent. Will definitely try them again.

No one here.
Excellent experience Great service and good food. Entertained by the chef.
When I asked for the bill our waiter says we have dessert coming 2 what Selection ice cream do you want. That’s a nice surprise. What a treat this place is so nice

Updating my last review. I went here just me and my fiancé the second time. I convinced him because the beer selection is good here. We got the chef to ourselves. No annoying column blocking off half our party. Chef cooked my filet perfectly. Great dinner and great leftovers for the next day!

when a restaurant is packed, i can understand if you ask people to wait and will get seated only when all parties have arrived. but when the restaurant is COMPLETELY EMPTY, and NO ONE was waiting, does that make sense? not to me. i was standing right in front of the hostess for a good 10 mins waiting for my friends to get there. i asked her if i can sit first — ‘no, we will sit you all together so we can turn on the grill’ — so you can’t lead me to my seat first and then turn on the grill later when they arrive? this was VERY lame. again, the place was COMPLETELY EMPTY. just me and her and some other workers chatting around in the end corner of the restaurant.
now, when i called and made the reservation, i said this is a birthday celebration and it would be great if they can do anything special. the girl went ahead and even asked for the name of the birthday girl, when i got there she also said ‘oh yeah! birthday for xxxx right?’ when the chef came, we told him ONCE AGAIN when he asked if there’s anyone there celebrating — nothing. we didn’t get anything. not even a ‘happy birthday!’ then why the hack even asked?
food was average. the portion is not as big as other teppanyaki places. no dry chili or jalapenos, just some weird chili paste. service was –5 if you ask me, my water was filled at all times, that’s about it. the girl had no smile.
the only good thing about the place is the décor. and it’s overall pretty clean — maybe cus it’s still kinda new. i would definitely not be coming back, there are plenty of other better choices out there.

If you are looking for a show like most teppan places than look else where. There is no ENTERTAINMENT here at all! It is literally someone just cooking in front of you. They do not talk to you or look at your party much it is my 2^nd time here the food is really good but it takes foreverrrrrrrrr… The service is great all the staff is super friendly and very attentive! Just don’t expect to be wowed by the teppan just sit at a regular table lol!
It has been an hour and a half since I wrote the review and we are still here…

We came here for a birthday party and our experience was blah. We came in and they had our reservation and we were seated very quickly. The staff was very friendly and quick to help with any need.
I ordered the teriyaki chicken. It came with a soup, salad, shrimp, fried rice, and the chicken.
I am not a big soup fan so I did not like the soup. It tasted like Brazilian mate. The salad was fine, very simple. The fried rice was delicious! It was made right in front of us and it tasted fresh! The teriyaki chicken was mediocre. The chicken tasted rough to me. Th I seasonings and dippings sauces that were given were only fair to me. I could of used a lot more teriyaki sauce on my chicken.
This is where it went downhill for me. Although the food and service were at about par, this brought it down into the negatives. While we were eating the table behind us started yelling mouse. A MOUSE was running around inside the restaurant and ran right by all of our feet. It was crazy inside the place for about 2 – 5 minutes while all the staff was running around chasing a mouse. They finally caught it in a big metal bin and took it out. It was a huge no no for me and because of this I wouldn’t return.

*first visit*
This was my first visit on Valentines day, but went they’re busy to day with a friend. The stage were friendlyand service was good.
Definitely like the atmosphere here and nice interior design. There may have been understaffed on cooks for that valentines day as the food took about 20 minutes, but it was the a hallmark holiday going on and was semi packed so I can’t really complain there.
The fried rice was good and came with misogyny soup, but the lobster/​steak was kind of light. It didn’t seem like it was worth getting the lobster and steak as portion were small for the price as it didn’t seemed like I even got a entire lobster tail worth of meat.

Came in on a Wednesday afternoon. The place was really quiet for lunch time.
When we walked in, I was really surprised with how nice the interior was. Very good first impression.
The waitress was really nice and helped us out right away. We ordered the shrimp lunch special and the combination roll special. The lunch special came with miso soup, veggies, rice and the shrimp. It was $ 13 and a pretty good price for what you got. The combination roll special came with 3 sushi rolls and that was $ 16. Both I thought were pretty reasonably priced for the amount of food you got.
Overall it was a good experience and next time I’ll definitely be back for the teppan experience!

Came here to check it out. Teppanyaki is one of my favorite types of cuisines, and one of my favorite restaurants is Kingswood in Rowland.
The food here is decent. Nothing particularly stands out.
Things that need more work: the chicken, which was a bit dry and required a lot of sauce, the scallops, which was overcooked, and zucchini, which was too salty. The portions are a bit small compared to Kingswood and the menu is definitely smaller too.
Excellent: shrimp and calamari were cooked very well. Filet mignon was the real standout of the meal. Cooked perfectly medium rare (although they didn’t ask if we wanted it cooked that way).
The price is pretty expensive. The service is a bit inattentive. The guy up front also originally wanted us to wait at the bar bc they didn’t have enough cooks even though there was a lot of seats open. We weren’t here to drink, and as such, It took way more convincing than Necessary to just tell them to seat us and that we didnt mind waiting.
This place still has a ways to go to catch up to Kingswood but it already blows benihana out of the water.

New place for good food. The wait was a little long, but the food was good. I will go hear again.

I was meeting up some friends at 12pm and for a second I thought the location was closed since there was hardly any cars in the parking lot. Luckily, the restaurant was just really slow, so my party of 3 was seated immediately.
Our server Tricia was really nice and attentive throughout our lunch and answered any questions we had about the food or lunch specials. Our chef went over our orders, the sauces, the food, and was always asking if everything was good so far. So in other words, service is great here.
I can definitely see how the restaurant layout is kind of weird since there’s just one big grill at the center of the restaurant. If you’re not planning on ordering anything off the teppan grill, they’ll seat you at the surrounding tables. Personally, I wouldn’t come with a party larger than 5 unless we were seated at the corner of the grill. If you come with a larger party keep in mind having a conversation will be extremely tough if they seat you all on one side of the grill, seated directly next to each other.
Food wise, the food is very flavorful. For $ 16 I ordered the lunch special which came with Beef Julienne and Shrimp along with miso soup, zucchinis, onions, and vegetable fried rice. I decided to get chicken fried rice for a $ 1 more. When the chef was done cooking our fried rice, I noticed I got a lot more rice than those who did not order the chicken fried rice. Anyways, my beef was cooked to perfection and my shrimp were gutted. The chef also asked if anyone wanted mushrooms with their protein. Waters were always being refilled.
The location serves really good food. I would just come during lunch time since like others did say, dinner pricing is almost the same to Benihannas.

This is my second time here and today we tried the sushi. It was very good! We had Roger as our sushi chef and it was such a pleasure to meet him. So full of life! We thank him for a wonderful time and some Ono food!
Love the beer art! Can’t wait to see it light up. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about you have to go see it.
The very first time was a vey cold day and we walked in and this place is very nicely decorated and they were very attentive and helpful. Both managers came up to us to make sure things were good. Our waiter had great manners and so polite. They even had someone moping the entrance. To keep it tidy.
I had a peach sake. It was so tasty! The beers on tap are good beers:). I am going to like coming here to say to everyone. Congrats! We met Jen and she is so sweet and and on point. She has a great personality and I see how hard she continues to work on making this place be the vision that they have collaborated on.. Much luck to you all.

My family and my boyfriend’s family came here to celebrate. My boyfriend mom’s and I have been interesting in trying this place because we frequent another Teppan place and wanted to compare.
Menu — the menu includes the Teppan grill and sushi or sashimi.
Food — we all ordered the Teppan grill. We all ended up getting some combination of filet mignon, lobster, steak, chicken, and shrimp. I did notice that the chef used a lot of salt. The fried race was also yummy but again, a lot of soy sauce. I wasn’t a huge fan of the chicken. My boyfriend wasn’t a huge fan of the shrimp but I liked the shrimp. He loved the flavor of the filet mignon but I though there was no flavor. My boyfriend likes the side sauces and I didn’t. Your meal comes with miso soup and salad. I thought the miso soup was very watery and the salad dressing was very gingery. Overall, there was nothing special about the flavor of the food.
Customer service — we had a friendly and sweet girl. She checked on us frequently.
Price — the menu was a bit pricier than we are normally used to for a Teppan grill. Some of the business’s competitors offer cheaper prices.
Ambiance — the place is dim lit and would be nice for a romantic/​intimate setting.
Overall, I wasn’t blown away by this place. Although we were celebrating something special, I did not feel like the place itself was memorable. I wouldn’t not return here.

This place has been remodeled and is nice at first sight. First off I started at the bar or if you can call it a bar. It is few seats without much counter space due to the numerous bottle on display. Now to the teppenyaki which you cant really mess up. The food was good and I think all in all it is worth the $$. My only comment is that they should hook up a little more of the fried rice. I mean $ 3.50 for barely topped off bowl of rice. I am asian and like to eat a lot of rice duh

We dined here tonight and had a great experience. There was a bit of a wait to sit at the grill but we were given the opportunity to be seated immediately at a table. We decided to go that route and ended up having a server by the name of Denise. She was great. Drinks were served in a timely manner and the food came out nice and hot. I highly recommend going with the New York steak. Tender with incredible flavor. We absolutely will be coming back in the future.

Decided to try Encore last night. Ordered the filet mignon and chicken combo with brown fried rice. We ordered Edamame and a couple of their signature rolls for appetizers. Denise was our server. The food was delicious and our server was excellent, very attentive. Since this was a soft opening, it wasn’t very crowded so we got a table right away and didn’t sit at the grill. Next time we will try to sit at the grill and experience the show.
The only negative thing I have to say is that the ambience was lacking. It is beautiful on the outside but they failed to continue that theme inside. The previous owners space was so beautiful so I was disappointed at the lack of theme inside. Also, they only serve wine, beer and sake and they removed the bar area which we always enjoyed in the previous restaurant.
Try it out and see what you think, support our local restaurants, especially non– chain restaurants. Hate to see another local restaurant go under.

Was thinking about a place to eat with some of my friends and stumbled upon this place… are they even open? I guess they are still having their soft opening but the host sat us at our table and it’s a little weird that all the grills are connected but it’s a nice change up I guess. You get to meet new people if you’re seated near each other. The food here is better than Benihana but I didn’t get to see many tricks as I would at another hibachi restaurant… Maybe have your teppan chefs learn more tricks or maybe that is the trick?
Beer selection is okay, wine list seems fair but didn’t have any of the bottles that I wanted? No full bar, bummer! Sake list is pretty good if that’s your thing. The hot sake here isn’t very good. Do not buy. Mistakes were made.
Service here is good. Well I can only speak for my server Julie as she was very attentive and knew a lot about the menu options. Anyways, I ended up ordering the red alert & encore combination and understand this, when you order a steak at a teppan restaurant, it never comes out the way you want it. Medium rare was medium rare this time around! A+ there!
Overall, food is good, a little overpriced but that’s what is expected when you have food and a show.
… If that’s what I could call that?
The best part of the «show» was watching other customers flag down the army of servers that they have standing in a corner doing nothing… I even saw some employee on her phone… What?
Please train your staff to anticipate people’s needs or at least attempt to try and serve your guests. I feel like if my group had any of the other corner servers I would of left a completely different review.

Great food, service, and atmosphere. The servers were attentive and the chef was entertaining. We ordered a few dishes from the teppan grill and some sushi. Everything was delicious. We will definitely be back.

This is a fun and entertaining restaurant. The menu offers a great variety. If you’re into rolls this is the place! With a sushi bar and a wide variety, you will definitely need to visit more than once. The service is fantastic and the staff is friendly. Never once did I need to ask anyone for a refill or remove empty dishes from my area. Watching the chef prepare my meal in front of me was fantastic! The way they put on a show while cooking your food is great. Especially, the onion volcano. I’m sure there are other places such as Benihana’s but it’s awesome there is one right here in Diamond Bar. I’m just walking distance from my home and definitely plan on coming often. If you want to sit at the grilling area definitely make reservations. Btw– my first visit I ordered the Surf and Turf and Crispy Crunch roll. All was delicious!!!

I approve. It’s great to have a good teppanyaki restaurant in Diamond Bar. Service was good, chef was great, design is good. No complaints here. We had lobster, shrimp, chicken, and filet mignon. The boys loved it. Nice work!

We thought we would try out this new restaurant in DB. I guess our first mistake was going on New Year’s Eve. Positive first impression as we waited 5 minutes to be seated for a 6:30 reservation. However, that was the last positive note. Once seated we waited almost 10 minutes for our drink order to be taken. When the waitress finally arrived she had to yell across the grill to be heard, rather than walking around and speaking to us. One of our party ordered an $ 8 glass of Chardonnay. The waitress told her it was not chilled and would she like ice. Really? If you have to serve Chard with ice don’t serve it at all. If you are going to serve it with ice then don’t charge $ 8. Once the order was in it then took another 10 minutes before the drinks were delivered. When the cooking «show» finally started we were seated on the corner of the grill and only two of the party could even see what the chef was doing. Did I mention that they only had one Teppan chef for the entire restaurant. From the time we were seated until we had our first smidgen of grilled zucchini it was over an hour. The portions were small and unremarkable, Two of us had the filet and scallops. While the filet was tender and flavorful the quantity served hardly justified the price charged. It was more like an appetizer than a meal. The final annoyance was my wife ordered the noodle and chicken combo. By the time she received her meal everyone else was finished. She sat and ate her meal while the rest of us looked on. All in all the experience was underwhelming, overpriced and none of us will be returning again. Save your money and go to a Flemings or Roys for a much better meal and dining experience.

So the food is good, service is great, but…
If you’re gonna imitate Benihana’s 99%, you might as well go 100%.
At least Shogun Gives us some Japanese décor.
And whats with the $ and change pricing?
Just round down.
You should lower prices to generate a buzz, otherwise we as customers see no point in dropping $ 100 on dinner to get a Benihana knock off, when we can go and get the real thing 10 minutes down the road.
Oh, and whats up with Latino Teppen Chefs everywhere??? This goes for Benihana and Shogun too!
Anyway…Good luck guys.

Great Service and the food was delicious! Better than Benihana anytime! The teppan chef was friendly and he gave a good show!

[ TIP ]:
1. Parking lot is of average size. Might have a hard time finding parking if and when they get busy.
[ FOOD ]:
1. We ordered two appetizers Agedashi Tofu ($ 6.50) and the Tuna Tartare ($ 9.00) both very delicious. Boyfriend said the tuna tartare was excellent and came with some beautiful lotus chips.
2. Had the two combo teppanyaki lunch special for $ 16.00, good portion and comes with miso soup and vegetable fried rice. Add chicken to fried rice for $ 1.00. I had their chicken and their shrimp while the boyfriend had the New York Steak ($ 13.75)
3. Chicken was a little on the dry side, but the shrimp was cooked perfectly and they were gutted. The flavor and texture were super on point. The boyfriend also loved his NY Steak. Our dishes came with a side of cooked vegetables that consisted of onions, zucchinis, and mushrooms. The mushrooms were a little too salty for my preference, but no big deal.
[ SERVICE ]:
1. Waters were consistently refilled, dishes cleared in a timely matter.
2. William, our teppanyaki cook was awesome.
3. Wait staff made sure everything was good.
Good service and good food, I do hope this place stays for a bit. :)

Reservation highly recommended. Called at 4:30 today and was told they are fully booked for today and can’t accommodate two people. Even I explained I can arrive anytime, feels like they refuse to take my reservation. A little disappointed, but I may try again next time.

Parental date night in Diamond Bar. Very friendly servers and chefs. Very attentive to service and satisfaction. Newly remodeled with a tasteful and modern décor we really enjoyed our dinner at this newer teppanyaki restaurant. I liked that they offer sushi and sashimi as well.
We dined as a couple seated around one communal teppanyaki (flat, solid, griddle-​style cooking surface). Her the chef cooked individual orders and more finely chopped ingredients, including rice, onions, zucchini and mushrooms. I was pleasantly surpised to see families with small children dining in — meaning the restaurant was friendly and amenable to their patience (and entertaining them!) and their palates.
We had —
2 Sapporo beers
Shrimp/​chicken (inc. salad, miso soup, grilled veg and rice)
Chicken/​steak (inc. salad, miso soup, grilled veg and rice)
With a Spicy Tuna Tartare appetizer (which was amazing!)
Total for dinner with a 20% tip was right around $ 100
Recommended. We will be back.

Great presentation and ambience. Wonderful staff with great hospitality! Everyone in diamond bar should come to this restaurant! Loved my experience and I hope this place sticks around.

Snuck in for their soft opening. The set up is different from any other teppan restaurant I’ve been to. All the grills in the main room are connected. As I look at the menu I see that they have a lot to offer. They have a large sushi selection that I hear is delicious but didn’t get to try. I ordered the Shrimp and Beef Julienne from the lunch menu which was $ 16. Basically any 2 items you choose will be $ 16 which isn’t bad at all. The chicken fried rice was on point. The beef was cooked exactly medium rare and the shrimp was flavorful. They also have a pretty decent selection of beer to choose from which makes for an even better time.

Best chicken fried rice ever! This place is so new, but food is delicious. I’d go here over Benihanas, Service is great! The server, Trish, was very quick and made our experience very pleasant. Definitely coming here again!