Shabuya — Restaurant in Milpitas

The first time we went to a Shabu buffet was in Seattle named Shaburina which we liked very much. Yesterday was my daughter’s 18th birthday and she wanted Shabu again. This time she’d found Shabuya which seemed to be similar as the one we ate in Seattle. I believe this one has just opened not very long and it’s in a very nice shopping center in McCarthy Ranch, the place was Banana Leaf a few years ago. There are quite a few tables with individual burner, the vegetables and sauce buffet table is in the front, there are gloves for people to wear due to COVID19 and each table only one could come at a time. There are 3 types of broths, we had miso and original, they were flat for me, I need to add soy sauce. The vegetables buffet has a few types of noodles, seafood and vegetables of different types for hot pot. There are only 2 sauces which are good for me. My family only used Ponzu. The price for Monday was $27.99 per person, normal meats, and you have 90 minutes to finish your meal, for us it’s plenty long. The meat selections only has 8 types and they’re paper thin slices, the meats actually so thin that they broke stuck on the metal plate while you pull them up with your chopsticks, you must be extremely skillful to pick them up from the plate, since I wasn’t so skillful, I just took all 4 slices to my hot pot as bundle and believe me, it’s about 2 bites. All 4 of us, we can only order 4 plates at one time and god forbid if they don’t have these young and fast servers, we’ll never finish our meal in 90 minutes due to waiting for meats. I think the way Shaburina operates better, each has up to 4 plates so each can order what he/she likes instead of the whole table get 1 plate for each person. I didn’t like this at all. The meats were paper thin therefore they’re quite tender regardless of what type you ordered, we ordered all 8 types and I couldn’t distinguish the taste of each because they’re all the same. I have to admire their slicer machine, never seen this thin slice of meat before. The chicken appetizers were quite taste IMO, my kids like them too. I tried both and one was better than the other, the non spicy one. My wife likes clams so she ate a whole bunch. The mussels were very soft, no texture and taste at all, should stay away. So for $28, it’s quite good, although I was warned to get charged for leftovers, but with the way they serve the thin slice meats, each plate is only worth 2 bites or one with a hungry one, and the wait, there’s no way anyone could waste any meats if that’s what they worry about. If you have a big party, 90 minutes may not enough because you have to wait for the servers to get the order and bring them to you. I have to give my server 5 stars because he’s extremely attentive, pleasant and fast LOL. My son didn’t want to wait so he just got noodles and quail eggs to make his hot pot. So the 5 stars is from my daughter since she chose this place, I and my wife wasn’t thrilled with the way they served. Will we come back again? Daughter said yes, not sure if...

Went to lunch here at around noon on a Sunday. Usually service here is alright, I’ve been multiple times with some waiters being very attentive and some practically forgetting you’re even there. But since the salad bar provides a lot of food and my parties don’t always need our meat refreshed right away, we’re all pretty chill about the service because it’s easy to flag down a waiter. However, this particular Sunday, there was a different waitress who my girlfriend mistook for our actual waitress and was very rude about not being our table’s waitress. Our actual waitress (Rain, who was nice even though you could tell she was busy) and the waitress who my girlfriend mistook her for (Cait or Kait) both had dark hair in ponytails and black face masks, so I would say it was an honest mistake that my girlfriend mistook Rain for Cait because neither of us got a good look at Cait’s name tag since she was passing behind us when we saw her. Again, we both thought she was our waitress since all she saw was the ponytail and didn’t realize it was a different person. In an annoyed tone, Cait said “I’m not your waitress” and simply walked away. If you’re not our waitress, okay that’s fine. Sorry for mistaking you for our waitress. But in my experience, the waiter will still fulfill your request or at least tell you they will get your actual waiter. She did eventually get our waitress who came quickly after, but I did not appreciate her cold tone and the fact that she just walked away without saying anything else. I understand that it was the lunch shift and it was starting to get busy at that time, but I still believe that doesn’t excuse that kind of tone. My family and I tried to reassure my girlfriend that Cait could have responded better but she honestly felt so bad and I could tell throughout lunch she was bothered and embarrassed by it. I have a lot of sympathy for restaurant workers and try to patient with them (which we all were, considering we could have responded to Cait’s short remark with our own but didn’t since it was so unexpected), but Cait’s response was rude and unnecessary, end of story. I’m sure she’s capable of better behavior, but I’m not here to dictate that. I’m just here to share my experiences at the restaurant because that kind of behavior leaves a bad taste in my mouth. On a better note, there was a young man (a bus boy I believe?) working during the same shift who was absolutely rocking to the playlist playing in the restaurant at the time! He was dancing to Michael Jackson, and even from behind the bar he was rocking and singing to the music! Wish I could’ve given him a tip so make sure to give him a raise for livening...

Shabuya was one of my favorite AYCE (all you can eat) restaurants pre pandemic until today. The food is still as good as it was pre pandemic. They had to remove a few items but that's ok. The low stars is in regards to the speed of how much meat you can get.

Came for a Sunday lunch for 6 people. Our server told us since we were 1 table, we could only get 4 meats at a time. We had to scan a QR code on the table to submit our orders. Our 1st order came out within the first 10 minutes. The 2nd order came out another 10 minutes. Then we put in a 3rd order. About 20 minutes passed. We didn't know whether they received our 3rd order so placed a 4th order. Another 10 minutes passed and we finally got our 3rd and 4th order. At this point I asked our server if the meat was coming out really slow. He said they were backed up and he would try to get it fast as he could to us. We placed a 5th order. About 20 minutes passed, we don't know if they ever got our order so we placed a 6th order. After 10 minutes we received our 6th order but never got our 5th.

Between all this, we had to keep refilling our broths because it was boiling off faster then we could eat it. At this point, we've already been there 1hr30min (which is the table time limit by the way), they didn't kick us out, but we gave up and others were full from the vegetables. In total we only received 5 meat orders, 20 trays, which would be about 4 trays per person. My friends and I normally eat 12-20 trays per person pre pandemic. When you can eat a tray of meat in about 5 min, then have to wait 10-20min in between, it feels like forever.

The service was great. I can't really blame the people who work there. The vegetables, sides, and broth refills were prompt. They've already been open for 2 months so if this was a persistent issue they could've worked it out. So maybe I came on an off day. Other Yelp reviews mention the same problem. Some leave 2 to 3 stars, others leave more but still mention service was slow.

Currently there's only dinner pricing at $28/person. So if you're happy with AYCE vegetables, sides, and 4 trays of meat for $28 you'll be satisfied. If you prefer to eat a lot more meat, then there'll be a lot of waiting, maybe even longer than the 1hr30min they...