I Love U Shabu-Shabu

iamthewitch.com would like to wish everybody HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010! Thank you so very much for the support and patronage all these years. *BIG HUG*

Hot off the shelf, this is a brand new restaurant that just opened its doors last Saturday. Situated just next to IOI Mall, location is definitely not a problem to I Love U Shabu-Shabu restaurant (perhaps their name might be! *LOL*). Saucer and I were scratching our heads thinking of what to eat one night, and this place came to mind.

*Note: Pardon the grainy/poor pictures, as this was an impromptu dinner and I didn’t have my trusty LX3 with me. Photographs here were taken using Sony Ericsson K530i.

I Love U Shabu-Shabu,  Puchong

Upon entering the brand new premise, I was greeted with a vast space with tables and a kaiten belt full of food! Not something that I would expect from a steamboat place. Very tidy and clean. Tables are all situated next to the kaiten belt, for the convenience of customers. On the belt, there are plates and plates of all the steamboat items that you want, ranging from noodles, eggs, fish balls, vegetables, meat balls, and even scallop!

Raw food on kaiten belt

Seats at I Love U Shabu-Shabu

Of course, other than the items on the belt, this impressive spread greet you right at the entrance! Fresh seafood ranging from prawns, mussels, crabs, squids, clams and scallops! Lots and lots of them! And they’re refilled promptly. From the beginning til the end of my meal, I never saw this table running out of stock.

Fresh seafood

Mussels and clams

Other than the seafood, they serve BBQ meat as well, such as lamb, chicken, beef and pork. Not to mention some fried snacks like the spring rolls, noodles, rice and nuggets. Well, if you ask me, of course I won’t be paying attention to these food when I have a whole table of seafood waiting for me! *LOL*

Range of cooked food

Before long, I started to grab a plate and picked out my favourite seafood.

My plate

What I love about this shabu-shabu concept compared to the normal steamboat is that everyone has an individual hot pot. These pots are powered by induction cooker, so they’re really safe. Also, by having individual pots, you don’t have to worry about hygiene (eating other people’s saliva ), and you get to pick your own soup base! There are 4 to choose from: ABC soup, chicken soup, herbal soup or tom yam soup. Me being a fan of spicy food, chose the tom yam base. The pot starting boiling in no time! Look at the bubbles!

Boiling hot pot

Another thing I love about this restaurant is that food is always within reach. Seriously. Just reach out your hand and grab something off the belt without even having to stand up. Isn’t that cool? *lazy* Other than reducing the crowd walking on the floor trying to grab food, this concept is also more hygienic. You just grab whichever plate of food that you want off the belt, then you cook and eat them. As opposed to having a giant buckets of balls at the counter where everyone fights to get his/her food. These cute plates on the belt are also covered! What a fine touch, I must say.

Boiling food

Without further ado, I put in my favourite food and watched them boil. Although I was truly excited with the concept and the food selection of the restaurant, I thought they needed to improve on the soup base though. The tom yam soup tasted very similar to that of Maggi tom yam stock that you can find from the supermarket. Also, it would be better if they have more variety of soups, such as kimchi or porridge!

Saucer enjoying his food

In the middle of our dinner, Saucer noticed that there were chicken wings at the counter in front and went to grab some. These wings were good! I think they’re honey-glazed BBQ wings, and they’re really yummy. Needless to say, they’re out in no time. But fear not, we waited for another 15 minutes and saw them being refilled.

Yummy honey chicken wings

Wait, so far I’ve only been talking about seafood, cooked food and fish balls! How about meat? Shabu-shabu will not be complete without some thinly sliced meat, don’t you agree? And true enough, there are waitresses carrying plates of thinly sliced meat around the restaurant, offering them to the patrons. The choice includes lamb, beef, chicken and pork.

Pork slices

Beef slices

I love this concept! The meat tray always came from the kitchen, and you could tell that the meat was newly sliced, from the dry and smooth outlook of it. Try leaving them on the table for a while and you could see the meat losing its vibrance and starting to become watery. Therefore, I believe there is a reason why they don’t place the meat on the buffet counter and leave it there. It will definitely become soggy and watery. Just ask the waitress to bring you the meat whenever you want to.

The meat slices were so thinly cut that it required only 3 dips in the boiling hot pot before it’s completely cooked. Delicious! For dessert, they have some Chinese pastries on the buffet counter, as well as ice-cream! Who doesn’t love ice-cream? Sadly, I was too full until I couldn’t even eat the ice-cream! How bad is that. *LOL*

For the opening promotion, I Love U Shabu-Shabu is giving a 10% discount off their price! The normal rate is RM26.80 nett/person, so after discount, it’s RM24.12 nett/person. I think it’s reasonable, considering the nice environment and hygienic food preparation. I would definitely return, especially if they have more soup base variety in the future.

I Love U Shabu-Shabu
No. 7 & 9, Ground Floor,
Jalan Merbah 1,
Bandar Puchong Jaya,
47100 Selangor.

Tel: 03-8076 8570

Email: iloveyourestaurant@yahoo.com

Popularity: 47%