When in Japan during Winter, it is almost impossible to not have at least one Shabu Shabu meal. Especially when you stay in Kabuki Cho area, there are many shabu shabu restaurants that offer very affordable eat all you can buffet with a time limit. The usual price does not go beyond ¥2,000 for a 90 mins buffet time limit.
The restaurant is located on the 5th floor of one of the buildings in Kabuki cho so it might be quite easy to miss it but they put up many posters as well as advertisements at the ground floor to inform customers about their offering.
The restaurant is not particularly big but can house 20 – 30 people with both their booth seats and non booth seats.
You can eat for 120 mins but the last order for the buffet is at the 90 mins point and there are 3 different options. The most basic option with chicken meat and all vegetables is at ¥1480, the 2nd tier which has pork included is at ¥1980 and the last tier comes with beef as well at ¥2480. There is also a drinks buffet at ¥500 for non alcoholic drinks and ¥1000 for all drinks including alcoholic drinks.
There are 8 kinds of soup base for choice at an additional cost of ¥300 and you can choose up to 2 kinds of soup base. The free soup base is the basic kelp soup. The payable soup choices include Korean style, sukiyaki style, citron, tomato, mala and chicken.
We chose the chicken soup and the sukiyaki soup. Personally, I loved the sukiyaki soup base as it help to provide the meats with a seasoned taste while the chicken soup is quite bland. As there is not much choices in terms of dipping sauces for shabu shabu, the items cooked with the chicken broth is quite bland whereas the one cooked with the sukiyaki base taste good
The pork belly provided is of very good quality
The pork shoulder meat is the more lean cut but is also very good quality meat
The vegetables provided included enoki and shimeiji mushrooms, bean sprouts, radish, Chinese cabbage, leek, tofu, carrot, chive, mizuna, cabbage, udon, Chinese noodles, vermicelli and rice. There are also some side dishes like kimchi, salted cucumbers and edamame. The drinks buffet also included things like Calpis and oolong tea and green tea on top of the usual soda.
Overall, the food provided is fresh and of very good quality and if you eat relatively fast, 90 mins is more than enough to get your money’s worth of food. They can be quite short handed so it is good to order as many items as you need at any one time you get a server to take you orders. The food however takes a short time to be served as your order is keyed into the kitchen immediately. The service is polite and prompt so having a meal here is really comfortable.
Address: Japan, 〒160-0021 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Kabukicho, 1 Chome−17−13 新宿ピックペックビル 5F
Operating hours: 1 pm to 5 pm and 6 pm to 11 pm
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 