Yes, and Philadelphia is a city that will tell you quickly if you are wrong about it. Philly has one of the largest and oldest Muslim communities in the country, and halal here is not a niche, it is infrastructure. What Philly has less of is halal Japanese. Walk Olney Avenue and you can eat halal at a dozen counters, and almost none of them are firing a hibachi grill. We are at 101 E Olney Avenue, a block from the Transportation Center. Here is what makes hibachi halal, and how ours is built.
The three questions that decide it
The word hibachi refers to a style of cooking, so it carries no halal status of its own. Whether the plate in front of you is halal depends on three decisions the restaurant made long before you sat down.
The meat supplier.Halal chicken, beef and lamb come from suppliers who slaughter to halal standard. This is a purchasing decision and it costs more, which is why most hibachi restaurants skip it.
What else is cooked on the grill.Hibachi runs on a single large flat top. A restaurant with pork on the menu has cooked pork on the same steel as your dinner, and no amount of scraping changes that for a diner who takes halal seriously.
What goes into the sauces.Mirin and cooking sake are standard ingredients in teriyaki and eel sauce. A halal chicken breast finished with a mirin-based glaze is not a halal plate, and this is the step most people never think to check.
Flame answers all three the same way at every location. The entire menu is halal. Pork is not served, stored or cooked anywhere on the property. Our sauces are made in house, not sourced from a distributor.
Those are the three questions worth asking any hibachi restaurant in Philadelphia: the supplier, the grill and the sauce. Most cannot answer all three.
At our Olney location
We are at 101 E Olney Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19120, at the Broad and Olney end. Olney Transportation Center is a block away, which matters more here than parking does. The Broad Street Line puts us within a straight ride of Temple and Center City. La Salle University is a short walk or a quick bus. Fern Rock, Logan, Feltonville and Einstein Medical Center are all close.
Hours are Monday through Saturday 11AM to 10PM and Sunday 11AM to 9PM. Holiday hours can shift around Eid and the major public holidays, so the Google Business Profile is worth a look before a long drive.
Two groups drive this store. Commuters coming off the Broad Street Line who want something hot on the way home, and students from La Salle and Temple who have discovered that a bento box is cheaper than most things on Broad Street.
Getting here, and the neighborhoods we serve
Broad and Olney is a transit corner more than a driving one, and that shapes everything about this store. Olney Transportation Center is a block away, which puts us within a single Broad Street Line ride of Temple, Center City and South Philly, and within reach of most of the bus routes feeding North Philadelphia.
On foot, La Salle University is a short walk. Logan, Fern Rock, Feltonville, Lawncrest and Einstein Medical Center are all close, and Cheltenham and the Montgomery County line are a short drive north.
Street parking on Olney Avenue is what you would expect, so if you are driving, allow for it. If you are on the subway, ordering online before your stop is the way to use this location. Everything is cooked when the ticket lands, so a pre-order means collecting on your way through rather than standing at the counter.
What to order in Olney
Chicken and Beef Bento, $13.85. Hibachi, vegetables, rice or noodles, a 4-piece California Roll, 2 dumplings and 2 spring rolls, in a box that travels on the subway.
Loaded Steak Fries, $11.85. Hibachi steak over fries. The one people photograph.
Chicken Hibachi, $9.85. Under ten dollars, two sides. The student order.
Brown Sugar Milk Tea, $6.49. Ten boba toppings, including crystal boba and coffee jelly.
How the plates are built: every hibachi comes with your choice of any two sides — fried rice, white rice, lo mein noodles or vegetables. Bento boxes arrive loaded already, with hibachi, vegetables, rice or noodles, a 4-piece California Roll, two dumplings and two spring rolls. Extra chicken is $2.95 and extra salmon, beef or shrimp is $3.95, which is usually the cheapest way to stretch one plate across two people. Individual sides run $2.95 to $4.95, and Yum Yum sauce is $0.50.
On the Broad Street Line the bento is the practical order because it closes and travels. For a group on campus, wings in 20 or 30 piece counts plus a couple of hibachi plates feeds more people per dollar than individual boxes.
Visit us
Halal hibachi a block from Olney Transportation Center. Flame Japanese Hibachi Philadelphia, 101 E Olney Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19120. 215-344-6444. Mon to Sat 11AM to 10PM, Sun 11AM to 9PM.
