The 40-Year-Old Virgin|Benihana Encino — Dinner With an Audience

A teppanyaki table is a terrible place to be nervous. You sit shoulder to shoulder with strangers, a chef stands two feet away with knives, and there is nowhere to hide a bad silence. That is exactly why the production put Andy and Trish's first dinner here, at the Benihana on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, just east of Hayvenhurst.

The restaurant is still open, still doing the same thing it has done since Rocky Aoki built the chain's format in the 1960s: the onion volcano, the egg spun on a spatula, the shrimp tail flicked toward a pocket. Every guest gets the same show. The comedy of the scene comes from Steve Carell trying to have a private conversation inside a public performance, and any diner who has attempted a first date at a communal grill knows the feeling before the film explains it.

Book the counter, not a table. Ask for the corner seat. Then watch the room instead of the chef: eight strangers, one flame, everyone politely pretending they are alone.

Location per published Los Angeles filming-location guides. Photo: Ventura Boulevard at Hayvenhurst, Encino (Wikimedia Commons, panoramio archive).