Shabu Village, Brookline

Once again, I've lost the ability to come up with a creative title for my post. But I hope you'll forgive me because I'm about to tell you about the best alternative to Shabu-zen in Chinatown. Well, not even an alternative, I would certainly go to Shabu Village before venturing to Shabu-zen.

So on Saturday night, Leah and I decided to go to dinner. Leah suggested that we check out a new Shabu Shabu house that'd just opened on Harvard Street between Beacon and Comm Ave. So we set off to look for the restaurant and found it located right next to Duk Bao (a pretty well known Thai restaurant in Brookline). For those of you who have never tried it, Shabu Shabu is Japanese hot pot. (or even think of it as fondue). Basically, you're given a pot with boiling broth to which you add veggies, meat and really, whatever else you want. So it's a cook it yourself kind of deal. Now you can share a big hot pot for the entire table or you can get little individual ones by sitting at a bar. When i was growing up, my parents made the best hot pots at home and would add all kinds of great stuff, like shrimp, snow crab, etc. But now I like having my own little pot so your beef or pork doesn't contaminate my chicken.

So we were seated immediately at the Shabu bar. Score one for Shabu Village, unlike at Shabu Zen where it's impossible to find parking and you'll wait at least an hour for a table. Score 2 for Shabu Village, the people there are really really nice. (as Leah commented on many times). Personal score 3 of Shabu Village, the owner is Taiwanese, and it's nice to hear Taiwanese being spoken in Boston, you don't hear it very often. Oh, and you always know an ethnic restaurant is a good place if you see lots of the given ethnicity eating there, which was also true of Shabu Village.

We looked over the menu, which had a large selection of hot appetizers, but we went immediately to the dinner sets. I noticed that the prices were pretty much in line with Shabu Zen, so i ordered a chicken dinner while leah got a double meat combo of chicken and beef. We were given our individual pots of broth, and then got the ingredients to make our personal dipping sauces.
Here you'll see garlic, thai chilis, japanese bbq sauce, and green onions. Then you're given a little bowl of soy sauce and you mix everything together to suit your own tastes (like the one below- sorry for the bluriness).

Next we were given a big plate of veggies with napa cabbage, watercress, etc, and this looked exactly like what they give you at Shabu Zen, too. Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic until after we'd added everything to our broth. Here's a pic of it cooking away.Ok, so one tip about eating shabu. You can't dump everything into the water at the same time. First, it lowers the cooking temp really quickly, so you'll just be sitting there forever waiting for stuff to cook. (believe me, i learned this as a kid) Second, you wanna eat stuff as it cooks, rather than scrambling to eat it all before it sits in your pot too long and overcooks. So patience is key.
Here are our plates of meat. Kinda pretty huh? This is my chicken plateAnd here's Leah's combo plate.Lastly, and some may regard this as the best part, come the noodles. We both ordered the udon noodles which you drop into the pot last.

Then you get to have a tasty noodle soup cause the broth has absorbed all the flavors of the veggies and meat that you cooked earlier. The dinner ends up being a lot of food and by the time I'd finished it all off, I was stuffed!! The great thing about Shabu is that it's also a really great bargain. My entire dinner cost a little under $12. (well not including the tax, tip and tea i drank.)

So in conclusion, I'm thrilled that we now have a great little shabu house so close to my home. I'm also happy cause now i don't have to make the trek to Chinatown, wait for at least an hour and be treated not so nicely for dinner. Instead, go to Shabu Village, where there's parking, the service is great and the food is just as yummy as Shabu Zen.