Dinner at Shabu Sai @ Orchard Central

181 Orchard Road #08-09 / 10/ 11 Orchard Central, Singapore 238896

Tel:  6884 6760

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shabusai.sg

It was a chilly evening because it rained the entire day, so when I met up with *Helen for dinner in town, we decided to go for Shabu Sai, for some Japanese hotpot that serves shabu-shabu and sukiyaki. The restaurant was spacious, so on the way to our seats we passed by the food counter and had a glimpse of the goodies we were to be having.

There were cooked food, mainly assortments of sushi and rolls. At SGD$24.99 per adult on a weekday night and SGD$29.99 on a weekend night, this shabu-shabu hotpot buffet concept was very worth it. The only catch was that upon entry, they informed that there was a time limit of one-and-a-half hours, meaning, you were supposed to wolf down your hotpot buffet dinner within an hour and a half.

Alright, we figured we could give it a shot.

Here was the counter laden with the vegetables and assortment of raw seafood - crabsticks, mussels, squid, beancurd, carrots, beansprouts, ramen etc.

Free flow drinks and soft-served ice-cream was at an addition of SGD$1.99 per pax, and we opted for that too.

We grabbed an assortment of mushrooms, vegetables, eggs, seafood and sushi back for cooking and consumption. The set itself consisted of three different types of meat - pork, chicken and beef. For each table, we could choose 2 soup base, and we chose Spicy for one, and Tonkotsu (pork bone) for the other.

While the soup in the hotpot was simmering away at its own expense, I tucked into the sushi - mainly salmon ones. Well, the taste wasn't bad, though texture was a little mushy but I did not expect much.

The soup was good and the vegetables were fresh. The meat was tender; I was already full but just had to eat more of the really succulent strips of beef.

Service was not efficient at all and one had to literally leave their seats to ask for soup refill whenever the supply ran low.

Finally, time for some palate-cooling dessert. The soft-served ice-cream came in vanilla flavour only, and there was hot fudge sauce, rainbow chips, raisins etc to add on. It was not bad - not too sweet, but lovely enough to make for a nice, simple dessert.