Shabu Shabu Bar — Restaurant in Santa Ana

This place has been my go-to shabu spot since high school when my brother would take me. Sure, I have other spots I like to rotate, but compared to the others, Shabu Shabu Bar is always a very fun and pleasant dining experience.

The meat quality here has never suffered and has remained consistent all these years. The same can be said for the produce. I can't speak on the broth options unfortunately as I enjoy doing plain water, but my wife really enjoys the sukiyaki. I especially love the fact that I can substitute items out for others. For example, I despise mushrooms, so I can get something else in its place, like another vegetable that isn't a fungus :)

They have THE best goma sauce I've ever had and I like grinding the sesame seeds before dinner. It adds a nice depth of flavor to the sauce. I used to never care for goma, but because of SSB, I need it! Also, if you're a hothead, definitely request for the drops. I can do upwards of 8+, but I am a VERY spicy eater! My wife does 5-6.

As I mentioned earlier, the atmosphere here is lively and fun. The service is always personable and attentive. The previous and current owner are always engaging with their customers and helping out the rest of the team which I think is a respectable.

I just went recently, but I can't wait to go back again, especially when the weather gets colder and the days...

We came here with high hopes seeing stellar star ratings from both Google and Yelp. It was a cold night so we figured that Dhabi would be a perfect option. When we got there about 6 parties were waiting in line ahead of us, but it moved quickly and we got seated within 20 minutes.

First impression, lively place and very noisy.

The waitress asked if we were ready to order 3 times within a 5-minute span, and we felt like she was rushing us to order. Anyway, we ended up pickig the large seafood plate and rib eye plate as our entrées.

The food arrived pretty quickly, and they looked good! And that was the only good thing I could say about the food.

Upon our first bite we could tell that the scallops and ribeye were either in the freezer for too long, or the temperature was not set right on the freezer because they were both very dry. The texture of the salmon was alright, but the flavor was very bland. The sauce and broth also were very bland, and the thick-looking sesame sauce was very sticky and tasted like it was thickened with starch.

The service was not bad, but we could feel that they were rushing us so they can free up the space for the next customers.

Overall a two ★ experience. One ★ for the food and 2.5★ for the service...

Review in 2010!

The decor was definitely new and nice! There are plenty of seatings and there is a little lounge area to just have drinks and/or eat appetizers. It seems pretty chill.

The food here is pretty good. I ordered the rib eye and my bf got the chicken. They were both good. The pot there cooks everything pretty quick! I like that! I also had to watch out how fast it was cooking my meat since I didn't want to overcook it! I did the first time and I had to watch myself from leaving the meat in the broth for too long. I was able to cook it where it was just tender and yummy! There was also a soup base that you get for your udon and it's not bad, but not the greatest. I still like the California Shabu-Shabu soup base for udon and beef in Fountain Valley better. I also like their dipping sauce there better too. What's cool about this place is that you get to grind your own sesame for your sauce or your waiter can do it for you before they poor in the peanut sauce. Pretty neato!

Very friendly service and good food. They also use Pi-Water which is really healthy filtered top notch water that I can't even describe. Haha. That is a plus! I also like the fact that they serve brown rice here too!...