Shabu: Hot Pot in North Quincy

Shabu is a Japanese style hot pot restaurant on Hancock Street in North Quincy. Hot pot style restaurants are when you have a pot of broth on a hot plate placed on your table and you order vegetables, meats, seafood, and other types of food that you cook yourself. The staff is very friendly and helpful, especially if it is your first time there; they explain the whole process to you. There are different types of broths you can choose from like, tonkotsu (pork based), kim chi, tomato and beef, regular, and other different options. Since it is Japanese hot pot, the flavors are a little bit lighter in comparison to Mongolian hot pot. You can also get combination plates that include a variety of vegetables (napa, spinach, watercress, mushrooms, taro root, a tomato, and a small piece of corn) on a plate with your choice of noodles or rice and your choice of meat or seafood. When you sit down they give you a dish of soy sauce with a choice of garlic, chopped scallions, hot peppers, and Chinese barbeque sauce that you can mix together. I highly recommend putting all the ingredients together; it makes an awesome dipping sauce! There are many different kinds of meat that they offer including lamb, prime rib eye, sirloin, chicken, and pork. The meat is sliced extremely thin so that it has a quick cooking time, around 30 seconds. The vegetables take a little bit longer to cook than the meat, but it’s at the most a minute or so. Shabu is a small restaurant with around 6 tables and a bar area with around 10 seats. During the summer time they have 3 tables outside that they set up so you can enjoy your food and the nice weather. At the Bar you can have your own individual pot, this isn’t actually a bar with a bartender, you have a waitress and order your food with him or her. At the tables there is a big pot for the table that has a divider so you have a “ying and yang”, having 2 different broths. They have a beer and wine license, so no hard alcohol, but they do offer a variety of Asian beers like Kirin and Sapporo. You wouldn’t really go to Shabu for a night of drinking, its main attraction is the whole experience of hot pot. My favorite thing to get when I go to Shabu is the prime rib eye combo and I also get sesame sauce to dip the meat in and it’s absolutely delicious! They also offer desert, they have friend ice cream and ice cream coated in a thin sugary substance that is quite tasty. Shabu is one of my favorite restaurants and I highly recommend everyone to go and try it out!

This is a picture at the bar with the tomato and beef broth, some vegetables, and the sirloin.

This is the Tonkotsu broth and the mixed soy sauce.

Here are all the different kinds of vegetables you can get. The vegetable combo is on the top right and other delicious options!