Kaze Shabu Shabu

Last night my friend and I went in town to try Kaze Shabu Shabu in Chinatown, Boston. We actually stumbled upon the place accidentally while looking for another shabu shabu restaurant and decided to give it a try.

Beth being adventurous...

The restaurant was very clean and our waiter was very attentive. That is until the end when he must have taken his break and some other waitress came by and snatched all our sauces before we were done eating...

most of the hot pot restaurants I've been to in the states tend to have slightly higher technology than Korea... mainly I mean that there is no open flame on the table, just an electric hot plate built into the table. Maybe you can see it in this photo...


We both ordered the beef with the free bouillon broth. This was good, though if I did it again, I wonder if it might be worth the extra $3.00 for the flavored broths, as this was a little bland... as to be expected with plain bouillon broth, I suppose. The price for the beef was $12.00 which seemed reasonable to me, especially as this included a big plate of vegetables (even if what I thought was a potato turned out to be radish...) and vermicelli noodles or rice, your choice.

Notice that here you can each order your own broth, and it comes in the same bowl with this ingenious bowl splitter. Americans aren't big on food sharing like Asia...

I noticed the sign on the wall that mentioned half price appetizers and $1.00 PBR after 9pm, so this might not be a bad place to come before heading out for the night. ...If you can fight the cold at this time of year, that is...



After here, I went to my favorite place to get some bubble tea down the street at New Dong Khanh. I can't vouch for all their bubble teas, but their avocado is amazing, they put a whole avocado, plus vanilla ice cream into the blender to make it plus the tapioca pearls.... amazing. :-)


Oh, and just for comparison's sake, here's a photo from over a year ago when Beth and Mommy visited me in Korea and we ate shabu shabu there... this was my favorite spicy mushroom shabu shabu. The beef is cut much thinner, the broth is pleasantly spicy (not burn your mouth of spicy) and it comes with a nice side of wasabi and udon noodles... not to mention the bokumbap at the end of the meal. Now, the question is... what's more authentic? The Korean or the American shabu shabu?? Anyone have an opinion?