Hello Shabu — Restaurant in San Bernardino

All in all, this was a wonderful dining experience. I had gone to a shabu shabu restaurant once before that was not all you can eat, and Hello Shabu was my first all-you-can-eat shabu experience, with a buffet, etc. The music inside was quite loud, and my hearing is terrible, and the server/hostess was very soft spoken, and I had an extremely difficult time understanding the process of acquiring and ordering the food options (pick broth, pick base, pick proteins, etc), and as we were the very first customers of the day, there wasn't any way to observe other patrons at what they were doing in order to get a feel for what the restaurant intended for us to respond with.

After each of us (wife, 3 kids and myself) placed our broth and protein orders, we sort of sat around, unsure what we were supposed to do. A few minutes later the music stopped briefly right as the hostess/server explained where to go to get various items (ice cream, beverages, prepared hot-buffet items) and we were still a bit confused because we weren't exactly sure what any of that meant against what we already ordered, and were unsure of if the directions about the hot-plate items were what we had ordered for our soup bases/proteins, etc.

For all the television screens that there were in the restaurant and how long the reception area was, I am surprised that the screen on the wall right as the patron enters the restaurant, is not a tutorial for the individual(s) who do not know how to order at an all you can eat shabu shabu.

I feel it would be very, very wise to create a tutorial video and feature it to the patron as they enter the restaurant.

After the food came out on the little serving robots, the broth was added to our hot kettles, and we tried a couple of items from the buffet line to add to the broths (vegetables, mushrooms, noodles) we started to get a feel for the location with much better confidence.

It was fun, and we learned alot, and we will probably try it again sometime on a family...

Had the chance to finally try this new Hotpot spot in town! It’s nice to see that they made great use of the space of the old Souplantation location. The restaurant ambiance was very clean (including the bathrooms), more modern furniture all throughout, and the addition of live plants made the space feel more homey and vibrant. Each person has control of their own hotpot (to cook, keep warm, or turn off) with the little remote on the side of the table.

💵 - payment was taken first at the cashier table on the left upon entering the building. The price was clearly listed with written notice of 10% gratuity already included with our bill. ($33.24 per person total with tax and gratuity for weekday lunch). Not sure if they offer more food options for dinner, but lunchtime would def be a more economical option if you want to try this place out.

⌚️ - there was literally no wait time. (Went right before noon on a weekday). We were promptly escorted to our seats, and the waitstaff kindly explained how the process goes with an orientation of where to find certain items. Started off with ordering a base broth and selected our choice of meats, which was delivered by their robot, Gina.

🍲- they had 3 flavors for the broth (chicken, beef, and vegetable). The broth was pretty bland which gives you a blank canvas for how you want your soup to taste as you have several options of soup seasonings to try (see last few photos).

🥓- they have many options for your choice of meat cuts to order. It will be delivered by the robot. Plenty of vegetables, Seafood, and other options of sides such as Kimchi, seaweed salad, etc at the bar. The side dishes were tasty and warm but pretty basic.

🍦🍧 - it’s cool how they have a shaved ice section and a soft serve section.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience and I would def recommend friends and family to check...

I used to eat here all the time when it was souplantation, when I read they had all you can eat rib eye , I figured I should try it out, first off this is not rib eye , this is a hot pot soup place where they bring you literally paper thin shavings of meat that have all of the fat trimmed off , which if you are like me and like fattier meat like I do definitely Don't come here, it was 40 dollars for dinner and that included a 10 percent tip ,which I don't like a restaurant forcing me to tip up front , I would have actually left a larger tip because the workers were very helpful, however, for 40 bucks you would think they would refill your drinks it's all self serve you cook your own meat in the soup broth and you have to refill your own drinks which wouldn't be a problem but they have tiny little kid cups I had to refill 10 times , pretty annoying , it was a hot day with hot soup, so I was really thirsty ,I will say the beef beef broth for the soup was pretty good , you go to the salad bar and pick your own ingredients and spices for the broth ,the gimmick here is they bring the thin slices of uncooked meat to your table on a robot waiter, which is kind of comical because they also have workers there who mostly just take away the plates, the robots don't seem nessecary and the workers are literally bumping into each other, I definitely won't be back , save your 40 bucks and go to a Brazilian all you can steakhouse much better experience and quality of meat selection, the Japanese hot pot is not...