Time to get your Shabu on!

It's become tradition that when Jackie visits, we go to Shabu Tatsu in the East Village. Ok, so it's only been twice so far, but we're seriously holding firm on this ritual and for good reason.

Some people don't like paying to cook their own food but I'm in interactive advertising so OF COURSE interacting with food is obviously of interest to me. The key to any kind of restaurant of this DIY nature is that you initially go with someone who knows the ropes. So, when you return, you can show other people what to cook first and how to cook it and thus the place goes viral in a matter of weeks. Oh wait, we're not building a viral marketing plan here, are we?

Anyways, we ordered the standard rib-eye and vegetables platter for the five of us - it comes with a nice little green salad with ginger dressing to start while the boiling pot of water in the table starts bubbling. We ended up dumping in most of veggies at once: cabbage, shitake and porcini (?) mushrooms, carrots and tofu. The key here is to really let them cook through in the boiling water before you begin to cook each thinly sliced piece of beef. The best part of the meal is plucking a really well-cooked mushroom, dunking it in the ponzu sauce, dropping it on top of the white rice and letting it soak in all of the delicious flavor while you cook a piece of beef. Eat and repeat.

HOWEVER, it gets best. At the end of the meal, you have this wonderfully beef and vegetable flavored broth that is skimmed throughout the meal. The waiter brings out little soup cups with salt and pepper at the bottom and you ladle the broth, along with the rice noodles that are cooked for a mere minute or two. So simple, yet so satisfying.

Finally, a little scoop of ice cream (obviously, I got chocolate, everyone else tried red bean or green tea) rounds out the meal. I can't wait for Jackie to return!