“A spot like this becomes home,” says Sheldon Simeon about Seattle’s Maneki — a landmark Japanese restaurant that has become a familiar welcome for the local Japanese community. Maneki is celebrating 113 years of business in Seattle, and manager Jean Nakayama can never get enough of welcoming four generations of regulars to her restaurant. “There’s a lot of people who think of Maneki as their own home,” she tells Simeon.
Over 100 years of business means Maneki has gone through a lot of changes, and some of its most defining times were the post-World War II years. One dish that came out of this era was sukiyaki — a traditional, “family-oriented” Japanese hot pot with thinly sliced beef, tofu, napa cabbage, and potato starch noodles. Simeon and Nakayama share sukiyaki as part of a wonderful spread at Maneki.
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