Kanpai BBQ & Shabu - All You Can Eat — Restaurant in San Diego

After getting denied seating late (8:35 pm) on a Sunday from 3 of our regular joints, my eagle-eyed hubby said “what’s that?” and pointed to a shop across the lot. We went over and asked the girl if they were seating still and she said yes! We waited a bit and I’m like “What is up? There’s open tables!!” When they called us, they brought us to the OTHER room! (Oops 😂). It didn’t have a ton of tables, but it was roomy!

Got seated and given the rundown or how it worked. For $40, KBBQ has open access to everything except the meat (which you order from the staff) and can get anything from the shabu stations. Woot! Drinks were behind us, next to the rice and the miso soup and beef curry stew…all self-serve. They had drinks on draft: water, sweet oolong tea, calpico, and milk tea. Canned soda in the fridge was available to get at your leisure. Orders of the beef…can’t say for sure if they’re TRULY Wagyu, but I’ll just say the beef was GOOD! Nothing was frozen that we saw. Steak was not too thick/thin, the beef cubes and rib fingers were 🤤 on point, and brisket with good marbling and so huge I had to cut them in half. Not a TON of options for meats, I’d say like 12-14…but they’re tasty and fresh so it’s better regardless. They also serve karaage 3 ways and a bunch of other stuff. I liked that the salad was basically chopped romaine hearts large enough to use as wraps but not the entire leaf you have to tear. I also liked the ability to get the shabu stuff for the grill. Had a picky eater with us so we were able to find something they like (spam and karaage…aka chicken nuggets).

It would be AMAZING if they’d let your table pick shabu and kbbq, but it’s not a deal breaker. Personally I LOVE Shabumi for the ability to have and share hot pot AND KBBQ on the same table. But I’ll go here for kbbq because the quality of the meat and the convenience of everything self-serve is worth it.

Service was good. I don’t have any complaints.

So thanks Olleh, The Fire Spot, and Tsuruhashi for not being able to take us! We got a new spot for our...

Kinda unorganized. Came in today right before they opened, couldn't get parking, there was already a line. 1105 got on their list, they didn't mention a wait time. And when they finally got folks seated on their limited tables, all of a sudden an hour to hour and a half wait. Tried to call ahead to get reservations a few days back for Mother's Day but no one picks up. But clearly you can make one coz these 2 tables have a sign on it. (There were tables reserved on the shabu-shabu side as well.) They said the reservation was for a group at 1230. So IMO they could've used this for a group the at 1105 when we were there instead of not using it the whole hour and a half. The waiting area outside is a 2 seater bench. Thanks to the flower pots we got a place to sit. Servers kinda didn't care and were a lil bit rude, mind you they just opened, there was a group done with their table and it wasn't cleaned up immediately even tho they have a long wait-list and limited tables. The same thing happened when tables around us were done, it took a while to clean, they took forever to set it up, and they didn't seat the people in a timely manner. Ice cream was out, salad/shabu-shabu sauce self serve messy and was running out of some items. Food was good, but service was awful. It was a disaster of a mothers day. Thanks Kanpai. I would highly avoid it during the weekends. Maybe services are better during the week. As for now a 1 star for me. Maybe we'll give it...

For the price, wait time, service and meat quality during our first visit; Kanpai is our new spot for Japanese AYCE BBQ!

We were there right before opening on a Saturday so there's still spots for parking. We did the BBQ. You can also have the option for Shabu experience. The assorted meats are to order. Service was quick, got our additional meats in 3-5 mins. There's 4 dipping items/sauce available.

We ordered the following: Prime Cut Steak- the most tender meat that we ordered so we requested it twice. Recommended!

US Wagyu Brisket - it was tender also and only took couple of minutes grilling. I like the amount of fat in the meat. It was delicious. Recommended!

M8 Wagyu Steak - another meat that we're satisfied for its tenderness. Recommended!

We weren't a fan of the Wagyu cubes..I had it medium rare hoping to be more tender but it was chewy same as when I cooked it well done.

Also ordered chicken karaage; it was crispy and well seasoned Sriracha Mayo.

Sides, "free" assorted drinks(soda), soup were available in a corner that you can keep going back. All the sides that we tried were all good; seaweed salad/cucumber salad/edamame.

Definitely will come back if we're craving for Japanese Boq. Our server asked if we need anything multiple times which is great. Great...