SHABUYA — Restaurant in Honolulu

The only thing I knew about Shabuya was that it was popular, and the wait was long. Finally, I have a bias against places that "let you do the cooking." I don't go out to cook, I go out to be cooked for! Nothing drew me to it, in short, but my daughter chose it for her belated UH graduation dinner, so we decided to head into the maelstrom. Even putting our name in via Yelp an hour beforehand left another hour waiting outside, with the crowd, on a rainy evening at Ala Moana. I was quite doubtful the experience was going to make up for the hassle.

But my mood changed as soon as we were seated, and I got the lay of the land. Our server, #icebear, had a lot of advice for our table of newbies. And it only started to sink in as we started to choose what we wanted to eat that this was an All You Can Eat (AYCE) establishment. While all-you-can-eat options are a bad choice for me (I don't eat much), I was happy to give it a good run. We had 90 minutes to do our best damage, and we all filled up before our time was up.

Basic as it sounds, the thing that made the difference over other hot pot places I've been to is the individual burners and pots. Instead of a large, possibly segmented bowl in the center of the table that everyone feeds out of, everyone got their own to experiment with, with portion sizes to match. It made it all seem a lot less daunting and complicated.

The menu options are well explained and explored, so I won't list them all here. The house broth is a winner, but I wish I'd tried something more unusual. I loved all the meat options and the seafood options equally, but the pork belly stood out among the options for the former, and I went for a second pile of mussels for the latter. I probably should have cooked more vegetables. The udon was good, the Korean ramen was good, but really I kept the noodles to a minimum to maximize the good stuff.

We ordered, but barely ate, the karaage chicken, and I felt bad (no take-home boxes here!). I kind of wondered if someone could combine the right ingredients to come close to Vietnamese pho, but I know that's not the point. We didn't have room for dessert.

I'm not a drinker, but the young ladies in our party really liked the fruity shoju -- watermelon apparently the best. They were sneakily strong. And #icebear made recommendations for different combinations for our next visit.

The total bill for four, plus two shoju, was $140, far less than I was expecting. I'm not entirely sure I'd wait two hours, but it was a great experience. Maybe when the crowds die down... if...

Two people for lunch, half hour wait for a table (not bad). They will text you when your table is ready so you can walk around the mall a bit.

Sum up: Staff is friendly but service is slow and sometimes we could not find our waiter.... Food is ok, there are less options during lunch. Base broth is bland but they give you stuff the flavor your way. Look at your plate some are dirty with old food. Also women's bathroom single sink was plugged and nearly over flowing, gross.

Extended version: Waiter was super nice the whole time but seems to have tables on different sides of the restaurant. He was hard to find. He took our first order of broth, meat (4 at a time per table), appetizer, and drinks.

Went to buffet style to pick up veggies, noodles, sea food (shrimp, fish, fish balls, clam, raw egg, and small SQUID species NOT BABY OCTOPUS! Loose a star for mislabeled food, can't fool a marine bio major). The buffet line neededs more mushrooms. Really not hot pot without them so where were they? Saw 'black mushrooms' but how about some enoki, button, or shiitake?

Picked up several of the different types of dishes found some old broccoli on one, green onion on another, and many of the small black dishes had white bits on them.

Also make sure to cook your shrimp well because it's sitting in juicy-water not ice so it's stewing!

All but meat was at table when we got back. Didn't get our first order of meat until 25 minutes after sitting. Ordered another appetizer and more drinks once first meat came but that didn't show for 20 minutes. Ordered a second round of meat and reminded waiter about drinks and appetizers. 2nd meat didn't come for another 20 minutes (bit after drinks and app came). Waiter was apologetic and gave some excuses but that doesn't get the food or drinks out... After that second meat we didn't see the waiter for 15 minutes so we gave up trying to get any else. (Table next to us was having same problems so not just us!)

Taste of broth was a bit bland but there are a many sauces you can add to season to taste (garlic, hot chili, yuzu, green onion, ...)

Need to work on turn around time from kitchen to table and sense of urgency in staff (two tables over baby spilled liquid all over and their waiter walked to bring dishes to kitchen before getting them a towel for the baby, which was closer to table then kitchen). Speaking of the table could we have some more napkins? One was not enough and never...

This had to have been, one of the better experiences eating out, that I've had in a long time. Some of waiters could be part of a Kpop boy band, as they were playing Kpop the whole time we were there. They could make the Shabuya boy group.

I guess we went right before the rush, between lunch and dinner around 3:30 pm, so there wasn't any wait.

They ask you to scan the QR code for the menu, they do have regular menus in case you can't get it on your phone.

They seat you, waiter/tress comes over and does the asking if you've ever been there before, and gives you the spiel about how things work. Basically everything is included in the 29.99 price, except drinks.

They have liquor, mixed drinks, beer, soda, juice, and tea.

Ordered soda and tea, and was told they are refillable. My personal recommendation, try not to drink anything if you can help it. Takes up too much stomach space.

They offer you rice as well, and I'm sure that is also refillable, but another recommendation, don't eat too much rice until you're almost done!

They have different cuts of meat, even though it doesn't look like a lot, it has to be so filling anyways.

They have a buffet of veggies, seafood, sauces, and noodles, too many things to list.

Appetizers all included as well, you just order from your server.

Food!

The broths were very good, a lot better than some of the other hot pot places around the island. We ordered Tonkotsu and Spicy miso, they were both very well flavored.

Meats 3 out of the 5 beef meats were really good. Blade, wagu, and flat were our favorites, all very soft and easy to chew.

We didn't try the chicken or pork.

The veggies cook up quick absorb the broth nicely. There weren't too many choices in the sauce as some other places, so if you have a preference of sauce, they might not have it there.

The waiter we had was super attentive and helpful, never rushing us to eat, always came back to check on us, would totally...