Japanese teppan dining with views of Kanazawa

Icho chef cooking up din dins for me and mum

We're totally spoilt for choice for places to eat in Kanazawa, but if you're after a special night, something a bit different than your regular izakaya, yakitori or conveyor belt sushi joint, I'd recommend the Icho teppan grill on the 29th floor of the Nikko Hotel in Kanazawa. (thanks Dustin!) Teppanyaki is a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook the food. At Icho, you sit around a bar with the teppan grill in the middle watching chefs cook up your dinner.

Mum and I went for some sunset dining (in all honesty we were just too hungry to wait until later) Make sure you take the glass lift to the 29th floor, not for the acrophobic like mum though..

There is a variety of set menus to choose from ranging from one that'll blow your budget with courses that'll take you a week to get through to less extravagent ones. We opted for the latter, a ¥10,000 pp (about £60) set menu without the fish but with sirloin steak cooked to your liking.

After a few wonderful delicious a la carte starters, I was beside myself with excitement when the chef appeared loaded with ingredients and started cooking our dinner right there in front of us.

My dinner at Icho, 3 wonderful dipping sauces for your steak.

Meat can be expensive in Japan so I have hardly eaten any since I moved here but these sirloin steaks were to die for! We were wondering exactly how we'd tackle them with the chopsticks that were laid out for us but in true Japanese style they were cut for us into delicate little pieces and were we given dipping sauces to try with the steak. Very unique.

The views of Kanazawa from the restaurant are also stunning, it's so nice to see the city from up high and to get your bearings. I'll let the piccies speak for themselves.

If you're a bit strapped for cash and dining in the restaurant is out of the question there is a bar on the same floor called Vol de Nuit that serves cocktails from 5.30pm onwards (cocktail hour) at around ¥700 a pop, ooh la la..