Shabu House!

9889 Bellaire Blvd

Located in the same shopping center as Juice Box, Fu Fu Cafe, and Cafe 101, this uber-trendy restaurant serves up shabu shabu, a Japanese hot pot. The small restaurant is really one big U-shaped counter with a pot of boiling broth to the right of every seat. The decor is modern and the service is touch-and-go.

Each seat your group occupies requires an order from the menu. Each seat gets a plate of bok choy, greens, corn, glass noodles, tofu, fish dumplings, a shrimp, two mushrooms, sesame dipping sauce and ponzu dipping sauce. All of this food is raw.

You then order one of the items on the menu and any sides you might have an interest in trying or bulking up on. I suggest the 8 pieces of very tender, very thinly sliced beef and a side order of the enoki mushrooms. As the water boils, you start putting stuff in. As the food cooks, you fish it out and dip it in either the sesame or the ponzu dipping sauce.

The broth is made from seaweed and is very light in flavor. My dad dumped a lot of hot oil into the broth to add flavor. I prefer to let the quality of the ingredients speak for themselves. The beef sung beautifully. The very expensive seafood plate came out with frozen scallops, frozen fish, and frozen crab--awful.

You have to work for your food at this restaurant. Efforts are rewarded with good flavor and an entertaining evening. It'll cost between $15 and $25 per person depending on the number of sides you get. Come early and with very few friends, or you'll suffer the waiting required of every patron who came after 6:30 Tuesday evening.