[Irvine] [Japanese] House of Shabu Shabu

House of Shabu Shabu
5394 Walnut Ave
Irvine, CA 92604
(949) 654-9400

It was a cold night. I wanted something hot and soupy. Shabu Shabu! Our favorite Shabu Shabu Bar is all the way in Santa Ana. We didn't feel like driving that far. Then we thought of House of Shabu Shabu in Irvine. We've been there once before. It was just alright. But that was a while back. Maybe they've improved?



They offer all you can eat shabu shabu now. It's $17.95/person if you just want regular beef, chicken and pork. For $24.95, you can order kobe beef, rib-eye beef and lamb. Some appetizers and sushi rolls also came with the all you can eat.



Vegeatable

Our waiter brought us the vegetable plate first. There were napa cabbage, enoki mushroom, carrot, some green leaf veggies, and udon noodle. It was a small plate. I love vegetable and I wanted more. When I asked for another vegetable plate, they told me it would be $2 per plate. What? I thought it was all you can eat. Apparently, it was all you can eat for all the meat, appetizer, and sushi rolls, but not the vegetable. Why? That just didn't make sense to me.


Spicy Salmon Roll / Spicy Tuna Roll

Next came the rolls we ordered. Spicy Tuna Roll was decent. Spicy Salmon Roll.... what salmon? It didn't really taste like salmon roll to me. It was more like spicy California roll made with imitated crab without avocado.


Gyoza

Pork Gyoza was on the oily side.


Ponzu / Goma Sauce

I think the dipping sauces are probably the most important element in shabu shabu since all the food was cooked in plain water with no flavor. Shabu Shabu Bar by far has the most delicious ponzu and goma sauce. House of Shabu Shabu probably has the below average sauces. Something about their ponzu and goma sauces was just off. The ponzu was way too sour, and goma, I don't know, just didn't taste right. Their hot drop was pretty spicy, which I like though.


Boneless Short Rib Beef

It took them a long while to bring us the meat. We had to ask our waiter couple times for it. Our waiter was super busy and working really hard so we don't blame him. He did asked the kitchen a few times for our meat. It was the kitchen staff that was slow. The beef was alright. Not as tender as the fattier cut. Well, we were the one who picked the cheaper option so no complaint there. The meat was fresh, and they did gave us a lot on that first plate.


Crunchy Roll

We ordered another spicy tuna roll, but was brought a Crunchy Roll. Our waiter apologized and said he heard it wrong. We decided not to waste food and just took the Crunchy Roll instead. The tempura shrimp was cold and not so crunchy anymore. This was just ok. The spicy tuna roll was better.


Pork

We ordered a plate of pork when we first place our order. They didn't bring it to us until 1 hour later. When we first saw the plate, we were like "What? They gave us so little of it and we waited for so long". Then we cooked it, ate it, and thought "So glad they only gave us a few pieces." The pork was so dry. It just didn't taste good at all. I don't know if it's the quality of pork, or the way they cut the meat was wrong. But the pork we had at other shabu shabu places had always been really soft.


Boneless Short Rib Beef

We ordered another plate of beef. The beef looked a bit different than our first plate, but tasted the same.


Ice Cream

That was all we ate. I could eat more, but didn't want to. It already took us 2+ hours because they were really really slow on bringing the food out. I did enjoyed my pina colada ice cream at the end.



House of Shabu Shabu was ran entirely by Koreans. The owner is Korean, the kitchen ladies are Koreans, and our waiter is Korean. Half-Korean Dr. P talked to the kitchen ladies with his broken Korean, and they were really nice and sweet to us. Nothing against that, but maybe that's why their sauces taste not as authentic? The price is cheap for all you can eat. I guess this place is more about quantity, not quality. Next time I think I rather drive a little further and pay a little more for much better shabu shabu.

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