Shabu Zone

FOOD

Dinner is especially interesting for beef lovers. Certified Akaushi Wagyu Chuck Tender, Angus Top Blade, Shabu Zone Rib Eye and Akaushi Wagyu Beef Round join cuts also served at lunch, including Prime Chuck Eye, Special Prime Rib and Wagyu beef belly. The belly is the richer, marbled choice, while the wider dinner list lets you compare several cuts rather than repeat a single tray. Thinly sliced Hampshire pork loin and pork belly, chicken breast and boneless lamb leg give the pot choices beyond beef.

Broth determines much of what you’ll enjoy with those meats. Kelp-and-bonito dashi keeps the meal close to its Japanese starting point; miso has a chicken-broth base with ginger, garlic, seaweed and onion. If you favor a richer soup, pork-bone tonkotsu is another option. Sukiyaki combines soy sauce, mirin and cooking sake for a sweeter, savory pot, while shoyu offers a clear soy-seasoned broth.

For a hot-and-sour soup, tom yum brings together lemongrass, lime leaves and galangal with lime juice, palm sugar and tomato. Shrimp paste and fish sauce add savory flavor beneath the sourness and chili. Weekend mala uses Sichuan peppercorns, dried chilies, star anise, garlic and ginger; the spicy original house soup is another chili option. Vegetable broth is available for a meat-free base, so choosing a soup doesn’t have to mean choosing meat or heat.

The seafood selection gives a mixed hot pot plenty to work with. Blue crab, mussels, short-neck clams and swai fillets are joined by squid rings and pineapple-cut squid. Dinner adds tiger shrimp, scallops, oysters, octopus and whelk.

Udon, egg noodles and vermicelli let you make the soup a noodle meal, with dumplings and pork-and-shrimp wontons available alongside them. Rice cakes come plain, with cheese or with sweet potato. For vegetables, baby bok choy and napa cabbage can share the pot with taro or pumpkin, while enoki, shiitake and wood-ear mushrooms offer several choices within the mushroom selection. Dumplings and udon can make the pot a fuller meal, while the greens and mushrooms give you plenty to add between trays of meat.

The house-made sauces are worth a little experimentation. Ponzu offers citrus, sesame gives a creamy dip, and wasabi-coconut is a less expected choice beside the beef and seafood. Sweet corn sauce even keeps little pieces of corn in the bowl. The house sauce combines soy, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, scallion and garlic; Thai suki sauce brings chili, cilantro and lemon with oyster sauce. There’s enough choice to try a different dip without changing your soup.

Kimchi, shredded green onion and thin slices of sweet-sour pickled radish accompany the cooked food, with the radish available for wrapping around meat and sauce. After the hot pot, watermelon and honeydew offer fruit, while ice cream choices include red bean, mango and coffee. Coffee ice cream after a pot of tom yum? That sounds like a good finish.