Chubby Cattle Wagyu Shabu House | Unlimited Wagyu Hot Pot — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Chubby Cattle is an all you can eat hot pot restaurant that offers options of personal hot pots if you are 4 people or less and family style if you are a larger group. I was really excited to try Chubby Cattle for a very long time and queued outside the door 10 minutes before opening to eat here. We were a group of 6, which had gratuity applied automatically. We appreciate how the hostess informed us before seating. We sat family style, where there was only one large pot in the middle of the table for 6 people. When we first walked in and there were no hot pots cooking, we were seated by the table in the leftmost corner in the front of the restaurant near a large vent. We were overwhelmed by the smell of urine. I had to almost hold back my vomit, it smelled like the MFL subway. We thought it might have been temporary since it went away when others started cooking food, but upon trying to use the bathroom, the reason for the smell was quickly evident. The water was yellow in the toilet from probably another patron since the toilets barely flushed. I checked and both stalls had this issue. This was extremely off-putting and our table smelled like pee for almost half an hour until more customers started boiling their hot pots and the restaurant smelled like food instead of urine.

Despite this, the sauces were extremely delicious, and the vegetables were fresh. We found the portions are a bit small, but since it is all you can eat we could order more. So when ordering we would recommend ordering one more portion than you think you would think you would want to eat, especially for the meat. The wagyu brisket was a fan favorite for our table. We highly discourage ordering the seafood bowl (limit 1 per table). The crab legs came with no cracking tool and we found breaking down the crab was messy and required us to return to the bathroom to wash our hands, and with the smell it was so unpleasant. Additionally, we found the soup bases incredibly salty.

Overall the service and food made the whole experience bearable. The hostess doubled as a server since it was so busy and we really appreciated the fast service. We truly commend the wait staff for being so speedy even though every table was taken. I do have to comment about table accessibility as well. Since the tables are fixed, the chairs were close to the tables against the wall and the booths are very skinny. For $52/person for our group of 6, we just didn't feel it was worth it for sticky and dirty chairs, a nasty urine smell that permeated from the bathroom, and a very loud dining environment. We would rather save our money and try another hot pot restaurant in the area but the...

TLDR: It's mediocre and not worth the additional cost compared to other Hot Pot places in the city. Service was nice.

Wheelchair Accessible?: Yes. Call ahead to make sure they have something other than a booth available. It was fairly empty during lunch time when we went.

TLDR: It's mediocre and not worth the additional cost compared to other Hot Pot places in the city. Service was nice.

Service: The service was nice and friendly. The manager seemed to have a good eye for when our table needed something and addressed it right away.

Meal: However, the overall quality of the meal was just mediocre, despite the selection of appetizers. The beef was of slightly (emphasize slightly) higher quality than other Hot Pot places, but the non-meat options were lack luster in quality. I do not recommend the dumplings, and we did not try the seafood, aside from the Shrimp Paste (which was kind of bleh...). Also, the wagyu nigiri is limited to 1 per person. That's 1 nigiri not one plate. They are extremely small.

Soup Base: The Original and Spicy broth tasted the same, and there were no peppercorns in the Spicy option. It was just a spice red sauce that got added to it. I recommend getting beyond the entry level spicy if you want to actually taste it.

Sauces: Unfortunately, they do not have a traditional sauce bar instead they provide you with two sauce dishes. One has Ponzu sauce, and the other has soy sauce. It is a meager amount. Then, they bring a sauce plater to your table to add garlic, red pepper, oyster sauce, etc. to your sauce should you want that. Be aware that this is shared table to table, so we were a bit worried about hygiene should other people stick their chopsticks in the various sauce accompaniments. They did not appear to have a lot of these sauce platers, but that may have just been the spread that they put out for the lunch crowd.

Cost: $38 per person for AYCE for lunch. This is $10 over other Hot Pot places in the city. Not worth the cost.

Note: It looks like they have moved to primarily an All You Can Eat (AYCE) Model, as the prices on the menu are blacked out as well as a variety of options. Also, the two tables to the left of the entrance do not have access to the refrigerated conveyor belt, which was...

BEWARE, BEWARE, and BEWARE. Read before you go. Chubby Cattle had change their business strategic from a la carte to all you can eat buffet. Frankly one might find "a la carte" will give you a better experience and food quality. We were drawn there based off their website advertisment and promotion. The first beware is that false advertisment on kids age 6 and under are free. Your child/children will have to be 3 ft and under as well. if your child/children are over 3ft and doesn't matter if they are under age 6, they will have to pay half the price $20 instead of $40. The second beware is THERE IS NO A5 WAGYU available when we went and I was warned by my friends and I thought it was just that day that they went that they didn't have A5 WAGYU. If CHUBBY CATTLE don't have A5 WAGYU, then please don't advertise it as this is bait and switch which will cause negative review. Lastly the services is a bit rush and as the last surprise you will have to be charge $8/lb for leftover food. We didn't have much except a bowl of WAGYU DON (basically unedible this smells pretty good and it is basically all wagyu oil and butter that cooks the rice and you cannot or very hard to eat more than a spoonful since they will clog your cholesterol and put you to sleep so you cannot eat it after two spoonful) so we were charged $8 extra for that. But again we didn't argue and just paid since we don't like arguing, but sharing with you all don't order the rice because it is awful . Be warned, you will be charge for the food you don't eat even though it is BAD and not good. The sushi conveyor belt is a good gimmick, but not much variety but then again, this is not a sushi restuarant so don't get your hopes up as you will find wholefood sushi will have better quality than this. Overall for $40 per person, I would not recommend this place and choose other establishment since there's really not much difference in quality and "Nine Ting" have better soup base. The soup base that we all have are all bland. smh...hotpot is mainly about the soup base and if you can't get that right, that's already a...