Shabu Shabu Ya on La Brea

Excuse me please... (taps knife on wine glass). Ting - ting - tinggggg.

I have a question. Why is Shabu Shabu so expensive?

I've pondered this extensively: there is no actual cooking provided by the eating establishment. There is only prep work. They cut up meat and vegetables, bring a pot of boiling water to the table, make you cook it yourself, and charge a 300-400% mark-up on the ingredients. It's twice as expensive as Korean BBQ, and they don't even marinate the meat. What gives?

Before we get started here, I should probably let you know that I've never had Shabu Shabu before now. I've always meant to try it, but never got around to it... there were always these pesky little sushi joints getting in my way. Well, a NEW Shabu Shabu restaurant opened up within walking distance from me, so I figured, why not give it a shot? All the other restaurants within walking distance have proven to be complete and utter dining failures, so maybe this one would seem great in comparison.

Then again, maybe not.

Everything about the new Shabu Shabu Ya on La Brea was right... tasty food, fun eating experience, nice environment, super friendly service. Well, everything was right except one thing: the price. Suddenly you put a price on something and the value of everything else goes down immensely.

$107.25 for 2 people (no alcohol, mind you), is not exactly what I'd call a bargain. Especially when both of you leave hungry, talking about where you'll get "dinner" after having that oh-so-expensive cook-it-yourself appetizer in rather humble environs. I won't lie, I felt a little duped.

If we can ignore price for a moment, I'd like to show you what we ate, because it was pretty good and pretty fun.

Like any down-home Japanese restaurant, Shabu Shabu Ya makes sure to stock "the leading brand in the Marble Soda category," Ramune. Yes, there really is a Marble Soda category, and you really should check out the Ramune fact page for some other interesting translations, such as high techniques and making the bottle into a "hand lantern." Ramune, which is like the Japanese Sprite, is a fun and fascinating drink - the top is stopped with a glass marble that you "pop" open with a special plunger device. The marble then falls down to the bottle's neck, where it rolls back and forth each time you take a sip, making a fun hollow scrapy sound like marbles on concrete. Want more of a challenge? Try getting the marble out without breaking the bottle...

After you play with your drink, it's time to play with your food. Our waitresses brought by a special mortar and pestle filled with sesame seeds: first, you crush the seeds into a sesame powder, then they top it off with a sesame dressing. Fresh!

Shabu Shabu Ya has a couple side dishes, such as edamame and miso soup. The edamame was OK, but actually tasted a little freezer burned. The meat dishes also come with an assortment of vegetables and udon noodles that you can toss into the boiler.


Now on to the meat of the matter. Shabu Shabu Ya offers three types of meat: regular beef, washugyu beef, and chicken. Washugyu beef is a cross-breed of Wagyu beef and Angus beef, and at $54 for a large, one would hope the genetics of such a marriage would create sparks in the flavour department.

It certainly looked nicely marbled...


But as we cooked up and ate each tiny expensive sliver, I couldn't help but wonder if this really tasted that much better than the regular beef, which is half the price. Good, but not life-changing, and certainly not the experience you'd get from real Kobe beef.


After the plate of beef, we weren't just appetized, we were starving. On to the chipper chicken...


They ask that you cook the chicken for 15 minutes, and to help pass the time, you get this cute little chicken-themed eggtimer. Unfortunately, they took it away before the buzzer went off - I was hoping it cock-a-doodle-doed, or chirped, or something. The chicken was pretty tender and tasted good in the sesame sauce, but it was also, pretty plain. I guess that's the point.

After the chicken, yep, you guessed it, still starving.

I don't have anything against Shabu Shabu Ya - it's a nice little place with very friendly people. But given my first experience, I can't imagine myself going back to Shabu Shabu Ya, or back to Shabu Shabu in general.

By the way, my debit card receipt showed up as "Sake House Miro," which means Shabu Shabu Ya is probably owned by the same people who own Sake House two doors down. If only they could apply the reasonable prices of the former location to the new digs, I might actually consider giving it a second try.

Till then, you'll probably just see me swinging by to pick up another bottle of Marble Soda.