Square Shabu

FOOD

Square Shabu builds its all-you-can-eat program around two tiers, but both start with the same essential idea: choose a broth, order thin-sliced proteins, and assemble the rest of the pot to suit yourself. The Deluxe menu supplies the core shabu-shabu meal; Premium keeps that entire selection and adds richer beef, seafood and a limited set of special dishes. Orders are open for 90 minutes, and everyone at the table uses the same menu tier.

The broth choice does much of the early flavor work. Sukiyaki brings a lightly sweet soy base, tonkotsu supplies pork-bone richness, and the signature spicy broth goes in a Sichuan mala direction. Tomato, house miso and dashi mushroom round out the Deluxe selection, while Premium also adds an herbal broth infused with goji berries. Because every place setting has its own pot, a table can move through several styles at once without blending them together.

Deluxe meats are deliberately straightforward and suited to quick cooking: Angus beef toro, brisket and eye round, along with pork shoulder, Australian lamb shoulder and chicken breast. The thin slices need only brief contact with the simmering broth, which makes repeated small orders more useful than trying to crowd the pot. Beef toro brings the fattier end of the lineup, while brisket and eye round give the table different cuts to alternate between as the broth deepens.

The self-serve side of the meal is where the pot becomes personal. Napa cabbage and baby bok choy can form the vegetable base, with broccoli, tofu, corn and carrots alongside king, seafood and wood-ear mushrooms. Clear noodles, udon and ramen let the meal turn more substantial later. Ordered hot-pot sides extend the combinations with shrimp, squid, clams, mussels, fish balls, tofu skin and bamboo shoots, while return trips to the station keep the pot changing as the meal goes on.

There is also enough cooked food to interrupt the boil-and-dip cycle. Garlic edamame, crispy tofu, kimchi, takoyaki and gyoza work as quick side plates, while skewers range from stuffed tofu and fish cake to squid, sweet pork sausage, panko shrimp and mushroom. The seasoned fish skin is a particularly useful change of texture and spice between rounds of meat, and the sauce station — including sesame, ponzu and chili-based options — gives each plate another level of adjustment after it leaves the pot.

Premium is where Square Shabu makes its clearest step upward. Premium ribeye joins American wagyu shoulder and wagyu brisket, while a one-per-person seafood platter brings jumbo shrimp, fish fillet, mussels and a choice of abalone or snow crab legs. A separate signature choice can be sweet shrimp sashimi, Japanese mackerel carpaccio, beef tataki or tako wasabi. Those additions do not turn the meal into a different format; they simply give the same personal-pot routine more expensive ingredients to work through.

Dessert stays concise after a meal built on repeated choices. Ice cream comes in strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, ube or green tea, and fried taro balls offer the warmer finish. That restraint is useful. After several broth refills, vegetable runs, meat orders and sauce adjustments, Square Shabu does not need an oversized sweets station to complete the experience.