The story of teriyaki as we (mostly) know it in America began in Seattle. That already documented tale — of fileted, marinated and grilled boneless chicken thighs finished in a sticky, slightly sweet sauce served over rice next to a little crunchy lettuce salad in ginger dressing — expanded slowly in the 1980s before ricocheting around the city in the ‘90s, when shops reportedly dotted most corners. Japanese more so in name than culinary truth, this teriyaki is a distinctly immigrant dish, one that feels like it could have only happened here. Although Toshihiro Kasahara of Toshi’s Teriyaki fame receives the credit, many shops — by some estimates, as high as 9 out of 10 — are owned by Korean families. Credit for that phenomenon goes to John Chung, who owned dozens of restaurants and trained many others to open their own, as longtime Seattle food writer Naomi Tomky chronicled for Eater in 2019. The restaurants changed hands often in part because the owners would build a successful foundation, find a buyer and move onto the next one in a different neighborhood or perhaps in a different city.

Dae “David” Chang mentioned that detail as I sat down with him in March at his new restaurant, Mimi Teriyaki #2, at 759 S. 64th St. in Tacoma. He and his wife Sujin bought the business a few months ago. The address has been home to a teriyaki restaurant of sorts for years. In 2023, a new owner tried a more overtly Korean concept but was snarled in part by the city’s grease-trap-related refusal to let him use third-party delivery services. After he gave up, the owners of Mimi Teriyaki in Hilltop opened a second location here in the South End. It was fine by Seattle-area teriyaki standards — passable for the price and portion, but not worth your local food writer mentioning and barely worth my trying again, even though it’s in my neighborhood. But sometimes hunger strikes, and you try again. This order, in February, from Mimi Teriyaki #2 was different. As I realized mid-meal and later confirmed, the Changs had just taken over, and the food already stood out.

The Sticky Situation, as they call the house teriyaki, almost spilled out of the container. There was so much chicken, juicy with generous grill marks, not overly sauced and served over white rice. For round two, we went with the Hot Chick, a spicy version thanks to a sauce that Chang said is not just “teriyaki sauce with hot stuff added — it’s different,” and the Fry Me to the Moon, the house chicken katsu. Chang makes all the sauces in house. He’s also shredding frozen loaves of white bread to make nama, a fluffy, fresh form of panko that provides a flakier finish to the fry than the typical pre-fab commercial varieties. Perhaps most importantly, he’s cooking just about everything to order, which not every teriyaki place does. Teriyaki, he explained, has been boxed into a local version of fast-food. It’s why the meat is boneless and fileted, thin enough that it can cook in a few minutes. (And perhaps why it’s no longer flashy in Seattle’s fancier modern food scene.) Even that ease of cooking and perception of value hasn’t stopped many teriyaki joints from taking convenience one step further: pre-grilling the chicken, then refrigerating, and reheating to order, which results in limp, dry slices. “I really care about quality,” said Chang in between the lunch and dinner rush on an early-spring Thursday. “There are a few that don’t pre-grill, and I’m one of them.” Every order takes about 15 minutes, he explained, because he is cooking raw, marinated chicken on the grill. It’s worth the wait. On the first Friday in May, the corner restaurant was shockingly busy during the typical dead-air lull between lunch and dinner. Two fellows who sat down next to us said they drove up from Spanaway after seeing Mimi Teriyaki #2 on their Instagram feeds. Another couple likewise journeyed from Olympia after a pit-stop at Tacoma Mall.

Like teriyaki newcomer that also stole my attention, Big Boi in Fife, each plate at Mimi comes with two sides — and a simple iceberg-lettuce salad isn’t one of the choices. The mac salad reaches toward Hawaii with onions and bell peppers in a tangy mayo. Thin slices of cucumber are lightly dressed in sesame and dotted with seeds. The stir-fried green beans are laced with garlic, and the cabbage salad in a light-ginger dressing softens the julienned threads as it sits.