Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House Boston 味喜屋 — Restaurant in Boston

Not going to lie, I fully expected this to be very gimmicky walking in. All you can eat wagyu? Seemed unreal at the prices and I mostly expected American wagyu, but they had the real stuff - at the top tier price of course. The first two tiers had mostly lower grade wagyu, but the $78 tier and $98 tier had Japanese A5 wagyu as options. The $78 tier gave one serving per person of each type of Japanese A5 wagyu with everything else unlimited, while the $98 was unlimited for everything including the A5 wagyu. We chose the $78 tier and it was more than enough for the five of us sharing. It also came with one free appetizer each of wagyu bone marrow, wagyu nigiri, wagyu steak tartare, or sweet shrimp. We tried everything except for the shrimp and they were all excellent.

The sukiyaki broth with the pasteurized egg added was amazing. The wagyu soaked up all the broth beautifully and every bite was flavorful. The spicy miso broth was good as well. They didn't give a lot of vegetables for some reason, but they gave us a huge platter of seafood that included shrimp, abalone, snow crab legs, oysters, white fish, and giant scallops. We definitely had our fill of meat here.

There were also unlimited side dishes that you could order from the menu. We only tried the cold dishes and didn't order much else from this menu because the meat and seafood from the hot pot was so filling. They also had rice and Japanese curries next to the sauce bar that you could take as much of as you like. There was also unlimited milk tea and you could refill your drink at the soda fountain as many times as you like.

The sauce bar options were limited. I would have liked to see more options as they didn't even have a few things like sriracha. They also do not have alcoholic drinks besides sake at the moment.

My only other issue is that the way this place is set up, walking around is a major safety hazard. In many places in this restaurant, it's impossible to get around tables if only one person is standing in the way. I found myself having to ask people to move or shove by people every time I had to go to the bathroom or get up to go to the drink/sauce bar. The tables are VERY tightly packed together. The tables are also small while the serving plates are huge, so we also had a lot of trouble fitting all of our food on the table. We had to stack the plates a lot and quickly dump food in to make room. The floor was also very slippery. I don't know if it was because of whatever it was made out of or if someone spilled something, but people in our party slipped on it and we watched other people, including servers, slip on it quite a bit as well. Between that and the tight space, there were a handful of safety concerns.

Overall though, our group loved the food. It was very busy, but we could clearly see why. We'll probably be back at some point once the craziness of the new opening...

My first time having A5 wagyu in a shabu-shabu setting. Great concept in theory, but probably not something I’d go for again. Still enjoyable though.

Stopped in for dinner before a concert in the Theater District. I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of how this restaurant group runs things, but wagyu shabu is a concept Boston hasn’t really seen before, so I figured it was worth a try. They push a membership program with discounts and perks, though truthfully, their lineup isn’t the kind of portfolio you’d want to frequent on a regular basis (certainly not more than once a month).

They offered four AYCE tiers, and we chose the second-highest (gold tier), which included all the premium cuts. The only difference with the top tier was that Japanese A5 wagyu was capped at one plate per person. Since we just wanted to try it, two plates were more than enough, and certainly not worth the extra $20 upgrade.

With this option, we also got two of their specialty dishes, and we got the Sweet shrimp sashimi and the Wagyu bone marrow. The shrimp came in medium to large varieties, so it felt more sumptuous than usual. Liked that they didn’t dress it up with anything except wasabi. Clean and simple.

The bone marrow, however, was already rich to begin with, and this version felt like it was just pure grease. Even the chili flakes at the bottom didn’t help. Should’ve gone with the wagyu nigiri instead.

The shabu shabu was solid overall, but didn’t quite go the way we expected. Our biggest mistake was getting two of the mildest broths: the house broth and sukiyaki. Thought those would highlight the meat better, but they ended up tasting way too similar. The lack of contrast just made all the richness pile on top of each other.

Meat-wise, our favorites weren’t the fanciest cuts. The A5 brisket and Australian wagyu had the best balance (rich but still meaty). With these kinds of cuts, the margin for error is tiny. Slightly overcook it, pair it with the wrong broth, or skip the right dipping sauce and the whole bite falls flat. So the dipping sauce was absolutely essential. Their spicy ponzu with grated daikon and scallions was the only acidic element cutting through the fat. Without it, this could’ve been a disaster.

One detail that felt off was the tables. Scuffed and worn as if they’d seen a decade of service. I’m all for upcycling, but the beat-up look didn’t quite go well with the “premium” wagyu hot pot pitch.

All in all, a satisfying meal. If I do come back, I’d probably stick with the...

We had a very disappointing experience at this restaurant. This wasn’t our first visit—we had been here before and loved it, which is why we decided to bring our friends this time. Unfortunately, the service was nowhere near the level we had experienced previously.

First of all, no one asked us if we had dined here before, and there was no introduction to the menu or how the ordering process works. This was already quite different from our previous visits. Throughout the entire meal, we felt like we had to constantly ask for everything—nothing was offered or explained in advance.

Shockingly, our server brought the meat before even giving us the vegetable platter. We only realized something was missing when we noticed the table next to us had theirs, so we started trying to get someone’s attention. Our assigned server rarely came to our table, and most of the service ended up being done by other staff or someone who seemed to be the owner.

We had ordered the $55 set, which is supposed to include seafood. This was our third visit, and in the past, everything was served smoothly without us needing to ask. This time, we were almost done eating before we realized the seafood never came. Only after asking did another staff member quickly bring it over.

The whole experience was frustrating and far from what we expected. Even the egg for dipping, which used to be self-serve, was brought to the table in liquid form—and it didn’t taste fresh at all.

Finally, when it came time to pay, we decided not to tip 15% because of the poor service. To our surprise, the server actually asked us why. We explained our dissatisfaction, expecting some kind of apology. Instead, the response was to blame us for not speaking up sooner. We were baffled—should we really have to request every single part of the set meal? In the past, everything came in order without us needing to say a word: veggies, meat, seafood, then dessert.

To top it off, we were never even asked if we wanted the ice cream at the end. Is that something we’re now expected to request ourselves?

We used to recommend this place to others, but after this experience, we will not be returning. Very...