Shabumi — Restaurant in San Diego

We had called on Tuesday after we heard about CA being in the purple tier and if they were going to offer outdoor seating. They had told us outdoor seating wasn’t available until next Sunday but to our surprised, when we arrived today, there was a tent! We were able to put the table of 4 together to seat our party of 6.

The outside set up was wonderful. Socially distanced tables and great air quality. Didn’t need a heater since the tent generates heat with all the cooking.

I have mixed reviews of this place because it’s awesome that they offer bbq and hotpot in one restaurant. The pot is shared between two people with a divider so you can have two soup base. It’s also all you can eat.

To start out, you tell them your choice of meat and they will bring out two trays of that particular meat per person. Then a veggie tray and a seafood tray. After that you continue ordering by telling them what you want. It came to a point where we asked for one tray not the automatic two.

What I love is that the meats are finely sliced and layered on the tray. It makes the meat quick to cook and tastes so much better compared to places with thick cuts. It also allows you to eat a lot more as you don’t get full quickly.

The veggie tray consisted of variety of carrots, pumpkin, cucumber, broccoli, mushroom, and other greens.

Seafood tray came with muscles, clams, shumai, fish cake, crab, shrimp, dumpling, octopus, squid.

The quality of food was great but the soup base was off. To have a good hot pot experience, you also need the broth to be on par. They have the broth premade in a pitcher and they use that to pour it into the pot. We had miso base and it was watery with no miso paste. We had the spicy house base and it was just spice and water. Then the spicy tomato base was like water and a can of tomato sauce but it was watered down.

We were disappointed in the base quality. Then our pot took a long time to boil and it was because our butane was low. So they exchanged it for a full one. We asked for more miso paste and they ended up being the pitcher to pour more broth. This time around, it tasted better and she said maybe it was because the last batch was the end of the pot and it wasn’t mixed correctly.

Another disappointment due to CoVId is that you can’t make your own sauces and limited to choices. She did bring out peanut sauce, ponzu sauce, chili garlic and even soy sauce. Mixing ponzu, peanut, and chili together was a great combo...

The staff were great, but that doesn't save the food from a poor rating.

This review is just for Shabu and not BBQ.

Even though "shabu" is in their name their hot pot game is the weakest I've ever had, anywhere. Broth is not flavorful. It's a very bland soup that made me not even want to eat any more (maybe on purpose since this is an All-You-Can-Eat?). Limited dipping sauce options. If the soup is weak then there needs to be a strong dipping sauce to compensate, but the sauce options were also extremely limited. There wasn't even Chinese BBQ sauce or black vinegar. No hot chilis or chopped cilantro. The only spice was really just red chili paste. The vegetable selection was limited, and not fresh. I might be biased since I've had a hot pot with AYCE veggies and it was an amazing spread (Spring Shabu near Boston - yes, on the other coast, but still).

The utensils were also not ideal. Everything was very thin metal. During the short time it takes to shovel your ingredients from the thin, metal plate it'll already heat up to an extremely uncomfortable temp. If you're not careful you will burn yourself - say if you touch the side of the plate that was over the pot while you were putting your food into the pot... Ask me how I know...

Bathroom had a clog as well so it just didn't help with our perception of the establishment.

As a final thought, if you do decide to give this place a try for hot pot go inside to look at the AYCE spread and see if that's worth if for you. They had us wait outside until they were ready to have us, then they rushed us to the table and order. We didn't get a chance to really digest what we'd be getting there before deciding to stay.

I'm not sure why Shabu is in the name, but they should consider just focusing on their...

I’ve been to Shabumi two times now, once to try the KBBQ option and the other time to try the hotpot option. Both times I went during lunch time so there wasn’t a wait, though it might be a different story if I went during the busy dinner hours. Because it was lunch time, the price was pretty reasonable, not sure how I’d feel paying for the dinner prices though.

I really like that each person can choose between one or the other, that the table doesn’t have to choose just one. I also really liked that it’s individual grill/pot so you can individually choose ingredients/spice level.

For KBBQ, I ordered the chuck eye steak, beef belly, beef bulgogi, and galbi. My favorite from these are the belly and bulgogi. You can order three meats at a time and they’re pretty quick with bringing out orders.

For hot pot, I ordered black Angus chuck tender, prime chuck eye, beefy belly, and brisket point. The meat was pretty good quality and looked/tasted fresh. My friends and I chose the chicken soup base since it was the recommended one with the most flavor. I wish they offered a spicy soup base, but you’re able to make your own sauce at the bar.

The salad bar was packed with lots of choices for noodles, seafood, vegetables, and other sides to add to your pot. I really liked the Japchae for their side dish too.

Service was quick and the servers were attentive both times.

Overall, I’d come back here again...