Is it a name?
Or is it Japanese for "Damned great food" ?|||It seems true that Benihana is meant to mean "Safflower", as the menu of Benihana's includes the following:
http://www.benihana.com/menu/alcohol-fre…
%26gt;Benihana Herb Tea
%26gt;signature blend of 17 herbs from okinawa, including the benihana safflower
But technically that's read wrong: the kanji 紅花 for "Safflower" reads "benibana", not "benihana":
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%99%E…
Here's what Google Images returns for ベニバナ benibana and ベニハナ benihana:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en%26amp;q=%E3… (ベニバナ benibana = safflower)
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en%26amp;q=%E3… (ベニハナ benihana -- gives a lot of pictures of mushrooms, which are named ベニハナイグチ (紅花猪口) Benihana Iguchi (Suillus pictus))
So, my answer is, they intended to name their restaurant Benihana after Safflower, but read the kanji wrong. They possibly did it on purpose, though -- it's a famous story that the motor company Toyota started their business as Toyoda (the kanji is the same for both: 豊田), but later renamed it to the way it is today.|||It basically means a name of flower, used for cooking oil widely.
but seems like you relate it to the restaurant.
There is a named company that runs restaurants (Japanese food), Tokyo Japan.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%85%E…
And Miami, Fl. USA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benihana|||benihana DOES NOT = "[The] red flower(s)". Even though the character beni could be written as the Modern Chinese character meaning "red", the Japanese DOES NOT use it to mean "red"! The Japanese uses an archaic form of Chinese character to mean "red": 赤. 赤 is not really used in Chinese unless it's specialized vocabulary meaning "deep red, scarlet, crimson, etc..." while 紅 only means "red" in Chinese, not the other shades of [ the color ] red.
benihana = 紅花 [the characters are from Chinese] = safflower. Its scientific name = Carthamus tinctorius|||beni = red
hana = flower
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