Shabuya

I had some errands to run at VivoCity, and thus, Lynn suggested we go for Shabuya's eat-all-you-can shabu shabu buffet. Unfortunately, the buffet is only valid for weekend brunch. Since we were already primed for shabu shabu, we went ahead and order off the menu.

We ordered the set meal for 2, and added an additional plate of mixed sashimi. Lynn doesn't like tuna sashimi (ironically, she enjoyed the tuna belly as much as I did at Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant), so I agreed to finish them for her, and she can have more of something else.

The food all arrived at the same time. We finished the crisp salad quickly, in order to make space for our meats. Lynn didn't care for the Japanese cucumbers, which I finished. The sashimi was cleared quickly too. The scallop sashimi was very sweet, and we both enjoyed it very much. Lynn gave half a slice of tuna a chance, and then pushed the rest to me. I found it ok. We thought it was funny that a two persons' serving of sashimi had 3 slices of each variety of fish. But since all the tuna came to me, Lynn had more of the others.

Our full table

Salad

Mixed sashimi

With the cold food out of the way, we attacked the steamboat with gusto. We ordered two soups - shabu shabu, and regular chicken stock. I was responsible for putting the vegetables in, while Lynn's duty was the meats. Our set comes with fish paste, chicken, pork and wagyu beef. The thinly sliced meats cooked within seconds, and it was so comforting to be swallowing those nice, hot slices of meat. Needless to say, the beef was the best. But the other meats were great too. The shabu shabu soup here is better than Restaurant Hoshigaoka's, less cloying sweet so that we don't get sick of it. By the end of the meal, the soup had became a nice, rich meat stock. We couldn't get enough of it, slurping the soup til we were bloated. The chicken soup was quite normal, I used it more for the vegetables.

The fish paste was interesting. I come from a family of fishball makers - my grandparents operated a fishball stall in the market and my mom and her siblings helped out and picked up the skills. This had resulted in me acquiring an attention to the textures of fishballs and fishcakes. This fish paste had a soft consistency, as if it was mixed with flour. However, the bounciness of the fish paste matched that of a fishball made completely of fish. Wonder if they mixed different kinds of fish to get that texture?

We were given choice of noodles or rice, and we both opted for udon noodles. The noodles went in last, cooking in the rich meat broth at the end. The result was well flavored noodles that had absorbed all the essence of the soup. We really loved it! The meal was ended with a nice cold chocolate mochi.

Three kinds of meats and fish paste

Vegetables, and udon noodles in the background

Mochi

Shabuya's weekend brunch is a much better deal. $39.80 for free flow meats. Lynn have been there and said that the resultant soup is almost too rich to drink. Too bad weekend mornings I'm usually occupied, but will definitely find a chance to go. Til then, I think the weekday set meal works for me.


Update:

We've been back twice for the weekend brunch now, 'brunch' happening at about 2pm and finishing about 4. You get to order food within 100 minutes, but they don't shoo you out after the time is over. So you can order some more at the end of your 100 minutes and take your time to finish. Do take note that there are pretty hefty charges for leftover meats, so don't be greedy.

Sashimi choices were salmon and tuna. Since Lynn don't do tuna, we attacked the sashimi with a gusto. The buffet selection for meat include wagyu beef ribs, premium black angus tenderloin, kurobuta pork belly/loin/collar, and chicken. All are thinly sliced and cooks to perfection very quickly. We love love love the wagyu - fragrant and oh-so-delicious. Black angus was leaner and less satisfying, but still delicious in a different kind of way. We only ordered pork belly and they were droolicious. Chicken was a hit and miss. One time it had the frozen chicken taste, the second time it didn't. Seafood selection includes tiger prawns, squids, dory fish slices, salmon fish slices, fish balls, sotong balls, cheese fish cakes and clams. The balls were normal, but the prawn and fishes were fresh. The cheese fishcake was surprisingly good, but not fantastic. Clams and squids we didn't order.

Vegetables available were chinese white cabbage, xiao bai cai, white radish, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms and pumpkins. Vegetables are usually quite normal, and Lynn isn't quite a fan of chinese cabbage stems and she don't like enoki mushrooms. But we both enjoyed the pumpkin slices, and I went absolutely gaga over the white radish. Cooked long enough, these little gems soak up all the beef flavors from the broth, yet retained their own sweetness. I was gorging myself with these.

Suffice to say we did not stop at one serving of each meat. We were crazy with the sashimi (some 4 servings of three slices each?), had at least 5 servings of wagyu, and I think 4 of the pork belly, and 2 of the remaining meats. Seafood we only had one serving of each. Vegetables we skipped a lot of them, although I did have two servings of radish all by myself. Lynn wasn't keen. Only one serving of udon that we could barely finish. The meal was finished off with a scoop of green tea ice cream each.

Love it so much that we went back again after one try. Second time coincided with the advertisement on Yahoo the day before. The result was a longer wait in line, but for some reason, the restaurant wasn't even full. But maybe because of the expected big crowd and the wish to impress, the meats and seafood was fresher than before. We were stuffed to the brim, and will be back again some day to get stuffed again, when the shabu craving hits.