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| - I REALLY wanted to be able to give this place 4, or even 5 stars, but I had to take one off because of the service. I'll get to that in a minute, because the food is worth being the main focus.
The entrance is a little confusing, as it sits right next to Red Thai. People kept coming in, thinking they were going into Red Thai, which is directly to the left of Shabu Fondue. Same hallway, different doors. It's weird.
We went with the ying-yang broth, and opted for the coconut curry and lemongrass. We figured the flavours would be complimentary enough, without being too similar or glaringly different, and we were right.
We ordered the Shabu beef, pork belly, baby bokchoy, Korean pumpkin, udon noodles, and shrimp. The star of the meal was definitely the Shabu beef, though I think the pork belly ran a very close second. The Korean pumpkin was surprisingly good, especially in the curry broth. I think I would have liked a little more noodle, especially for two people, but it wasn't too bad. The bokchoy was fine, definitely a good choice, and the shrimp was just sort of blah. Based on that, I think we may skip the shrimp and just stick to the land meats. The portions of the meats and veggies were more than ample, with the pork belly and beef sliced super thin. We left completely full, with no room for dessert, trying to decided who had enough room to finish the last piece of pork belly.
The key is to pay attention to the cooking times. When they say no more than 30 seconds, they mean it. Throw it is, fish it out. Don't let it sit in the broth and turn into a piece of shoe leather! Both the meats were so tender, and neither broth overpowered the actual flavour of the meat itself.
In the end, my lady friend decided she preferred the lemongrass to the curry, and I think I enjoyed the curry more, but then I'm a curry fiend!
Now for the reason I had to take a star off... The service. The service was awful. We were seated, handed water, and a menu, and that was it. After about 10 minutes the server came back and asked if we were ready, we said we still needed a couple minutes, and asked if we could order drinks. A few minutes after that, a different server (this one a dude) came up to take our order, and hand us our drinks. He seemed disinterested and distracted, and it's not like they were busy. We got there soon after they opened for dinner on a Sunday, and there were only us and 2 other tables, both of whom had already placed their orders. He rushed through our order, then left. Came back a little while later to get our broths going, said nothing, left again. Came back a little while after that to bring us the meats etc. Ran through the instructions ridiculously fast: Beefis15to20secondsbokchoyis30secondsnoodlestwominutes etc... Then left again. We didn't see anyone else until we were almost done with our meal, and I had to flag someone down to get more water. No one came to check on us at any point during our meal, and both of our drinks were completely empty. We had to flag them down to get our check, too. That they brought back pretty quick.
I've been to Red Thai next door (same owner), and the service there is always great. Not sure what was going on at Shabu Fondue, but I just wasn't impressed with the service at all. If the food hadn't been so good, I probably wouldn't go back, it was that bad. However, the food really was excellent, and we're excited to go back and try the different broths, and different meats.
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