Shabu-shabu Tonton — Restaurant in Osaka

For those using 小红书 and seeing the high rating here, I grew up in Japan and have tried sukiyaki / shabu shabu many times, so read on for my honest opinion.

The soup base has very little flavor for what I'm used to. I read other reviews saying that the sauces helped with the flavor, but I have to disagree. The soup base had a flat profile with almost no depth of flavor - it was basically sweet and salty water. As the soup base evaporates, the staff will add soup base, but this just causes the salt level to increase to an almost unbearable level that will end up hurting your mouth. At the end of the meal, my mouth felt wounded by the salt for almost 3 hours! This is not an exaggeration. I wish the staff could use a good soup base.

As for the sauces, the staff only has sesame oil and soy sauce. Their sesame sauce was unlike any that I've ever tried before - it was a thick and salty paste with a strange umami-like profile that completely detracts from the meat's natural flavor. Their soy sauce tasted like a blend of ponzu? and seasonded cooking alcohol - terrible alcohol-like after taste!

I ordered the A5 wagyu meat set, and I can say it it's better to save A5 meat for grilling instead of boiling - imagine it similar to paying for good quality steak and then choosing to boil it in salty water instead of grilling it! The second plate of meat they bring will also be worse quality than the first...

The staff will stand there and stare at you while you eat as if there's nothing else for them to do - leading to an uncomfortable experience as you're watched for 10 minutes straight just trying to enjoy your meal.

Maybe the good rating came from previous months, but I heard that they changed management recently. If so, it's definitely represented by a significant decrease in all aspects of this...

GO AWAY! DON'T BE FOOLED BY 4-5 RATINGS!

The food was bad (see explanation). The service was average. We never received the spoons and extra vegetable dishes that we requested. Initially, we had good quality A4 meat as we ordered 10,000¥+, but the quality gradually declined, from A4 meats grade to lowest possible grade. It took around 15-20 minutes to get a new plate. The inconsistent meat quality was unacceptable. We understand the restaurant's policy, but we suggest that children aged 3-4 should be free of charge or receive a 25% discount. We were asked not to turn the heat on the pot up too high, which made the meat cook slowly and become fatty, leaving the pot oily. And that EARRINGS GUY put so much water into the pot! eventually turn Suki-Yaki to HOT POT with oily and lowest grade. WE SPENT MONEY FOR A4 BUFFET! NOT JUST THE FIRST PLATE.

I rates it 3 Stars and probably not coming back again.

P.S. I saw a review from some Chinese customers and I totally agreed with him that the waiters has bad attitude with Asian customers (the curly hair with earrings dude). I maybe wrong but don't be fooled by most of 4-5 stars. Wish that the owner hear us.

Ohh I saw some comments mentioned that the waiter stood to pressure the customer to rates 5 Star. This may be the reason why this restaurant is so OVERRATED! so I came back to rate it 1 Star.

There is many many Shabu-Suki Yaki restaurant that so much better than this.

And we ordered goddam 10,000¥, a second expensive of all courses.

Again! DONT BE FOOLED by...

We had a 7,000 yen all-you-can-eat set that included pork, beef, vegetables, mushrooms, noodles/udon, and sherbet.

The first set we received came with a pork plate, beef plate, eggs, and vegetables already in the pot, but the vegetables were very little for 4-5 people sharing a single pot. We were never asked to choose between sukiyaki or shabu-shabu (even though the set indicated a choice), nor were we asked if we wanted noodles or udon, which were also part of the set menu. We had to wait around 20 minutes for more meat, and asking for udon also took time (shouldn’t food in an all-you-can-eat menu be available as soon as possible?). Despite requesting more vegetables and mushrooms four times, and the spoon and forks for children, we never received them. Sherbet was never offered, but we didn’t want to waste another 10 minutes waiting for it so we left without having dessert. The beef plates varied each time we ordered, have no idea what part we ate but the quality was fine. Overall, the service was very slow and incomplete, this is not how an “all-you-can-eat” menu should be served.

Note: Kids under 12 paid half price regardless of their age (ie. 3-4-year-olds were charged half price).

I’ve seen comments about unfriendly staff towards Chinese customers, and I agree with the attitude towards Asian foreigners. It seems the staff may not be friendly to Asian tourists in general?

The food was okay, but the long wait and poor experience mean I won’t be...