We only started reviewing the Benihana line of frozen foods about a year ago. Since then, we checked out their Yakisoba Chicken, their Hibachi Chicken Rice, and their Rocky’s Choice. But there are several dishes that have managed to elude us for all this time.
Well, wouldn’t you know it? We finally managed to locate the Benihana Yakisoba Steak, so we’re going to give this the ol’ Freezer Meal Frenzy taste test today. We do hope we find some of the other Benihana items soon, because we’re having a lot of fun tasting all this stuff. In the meantime, let’s see what this steak bowl is all about.
We probably don’t need to walk you through the whole cooking process here — it’s super simple. Pop it in the microwave for two minutes, stir it, then pop it back in for a minute and a half. There’s nothing complicated about this, though we admit we struggled a bit to peel back the film on top of the bowl — the glue is super strong. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
We did quite like the Yakisoba Chicken, and this meal is pretty much the same thing, just with steak instead of chicken. The thing is, this steak isn’t very good. It’s too soggy in some places and kind of dry in others. It also has this weird, almost-burnt aftertaste to it. We’re not sure what that’s all about, but we’re just not fans of it. The yakisoba sauce does improve the overall flavor, but not nearly enough to save this steak from mediocrity.
Our noodles turned out a lot better this time, though. When we tried the chicken version, we found that the noodles didn’t cook evenly, but that wasn’t a problem here. In fact, we really enjoyed the noodle portion this time around.
On top of that, you’ve got some onions, carrots, and zucchini. The zucchini is pretty alright, but we were kind of surprised by how flavorless the carrots and onions seemed. Again, the sauce helps a little bit, but not enough to let this meal rise above mediocrity.
This meal contains 460 calories and 1,230 mg of sodium. Both of those numbers are a bit high, and we don’t think this is a meal worth cheating on a diet for.
The Benihana Yakisoba Steak is kind of a disappointment. We said the chicken version of this dish is one of the better Asian-style frozen meals we’ve tried, and the steak version just doesn’t hold a candle to it. The word “mediocre” keeps coming to mind here, because that’s exactly what this is: a mediocre attempt at offering an Asian style noodle bowl. We do hope to eventually find Benihana’s other offerings, but we definitely hope they’re better than this one.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen meal, check out our package scans below.
