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Photo Courtesy: OpenRice.com
This Mini Shabo-Shabo Restaurant is at the 2nd Floor of SM City in Baguio City, Luneta Hill
Is it really an "O" or a "U" |
I was supposed to take
the kids out for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant last September 30,2012. One of
the kids suggested Max’s Restaurant while my personal choice was David’s Tea
House. The Max's Chicken suggestion was vetoed at once since it was always Max's. RR, the
one who suggested gave a sneer but did not insist any further. Lara, the eldest
in the brood suggested to try something different and since we are up for
something Chinese, she suggested that we go to Shabo-Shabo restaurant. Cris,
readily agreed so off we went, 7 of us to the restaurant located in the second
of SM Mall Baguio City.
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| Each table has a boiler for the mix of the Shabo-shabo meal |
Shabo-shabo menu is
something new to me in the sense that I have not tried it. However, I am not
really new to it as I see a lot of diners who order shabo-shabo in my favorite Mandarin
Restaurant. I was just wondering what it is and what are they doing with their
orders. Well, it is about time to try it.
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| Cooking the different mix seafood shabo-shabo components |
When the menu was presented to me, I was quite dumbfounded. I
told the two leaders to select the menu as I am not really familiar with it. My
niece and nephew ordered mixed sea foods with finely sliced pork. Then I
thought the food was not enough, so I ordered some pork for grilling and
tempura. From ordering tempura, it started to dawn on me that shabo-shabo might
have originated from Japan. Slowly, I opened my cellphone and went into the net
and searched what it meant? Shabu in Japanese translates to swish, which refers to
the creative way of preparing raw beef and seafood at the
table. In other restaurants, they incorporate the Shaba. Shaba
is the Thai word for hibiscus, the tropical flower. Since the restaurant is
named shabo-shabo we surmised that the recipe is more Japanese influenced. The
absence of the hisbiscus flower indicates that there are no Thai influences in
the menu. The spelling is also quite different. Probably this is to
differentiate it from shabu which is a banned drug in the Philippines. The
store probably changed the spelling to shabo rather than shabu. I find the
spelling of shabu-shabu in the menu of Chinese restaurants that I frequent
however.
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| The grilled pork bits |
Well, how did I find
eating my first shabo-shabo? Well, I did find the grilled pork to be very good –
soft and tasty. On the other hand, the seafood mix we ordered was just
something ordinary like a stew for me. We were provided with food mix to cater
to our tastes and I just thought why not sour tastes to probably make it a
“sinigang” brew? I laughed at the thought.
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| The lean meat |
Most of the kids loved it but one of
my nephews whispered he did not like it. I chuckled at the pronouncement for I
too have the same reaction. When we were out of the restaurant, I told the kids
about how I felt about the experience, their answer was: “It’s still a good
experience so that in the next time around, we would be able to tell our
friends what’s in a shabo-shabo restaurant!” Sounds practical and justified!
Well, ask me if I want to go back to a shabo-shabo restaurant? Well, one
experience is enough and probably two is too much.Well, there is no such thing as a period in eating food anyway.
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| The shrimp tempura |
