Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House | Santa Clara — Restaurant in Santa Clara

My husband and I have been here twice this month, once with a group of friends for dinner, and the second time today for lunch. My husband does have the gold lifetime membership, which helped us give priority for reservations, and we didn't have to wait too long to be seated. I ended up getting the annual membership for myself so I could get a free meal later on for my birthday.

The first time we came on a Friday night and Derek was our server. He was very nice and gave suggestions on which broth to choose. We went with the diamond menu, which allowed us to try all the limited specialty items with a bigger group.

For the second visit, my husband and I decided to get the gold menu because we knew which specialty dish to get. Ajit was our server, and we are super grateful for the service we received today. He already had some sauces ready to give for our table since the sauce bar can get busy. He ordered all the meats that were limited for us to enjoy first and kept the meat coming. He also told us you can upgrade your menu after you receive the food if you change your mind.

Food: If you enjoy Japanese A5 wagyu, get the diamond or gold menu. The ribeye was melt in your mouth and so freaking good. Gold menu is still a great option cause you can get unlimited A5 wagyu brisket.

As for seafood, I would skip this or just ask for scallops next time. The first time we came here, my husband and a friend both got some food poisoning from the oysters. Definitely avoid the oysters if you can.

For the specialty dish, our favorites are the bone marrow and wagyu nigiri. I looooove bone marrow, and it's one of the better ones I've had. Wagyu nigiri has fresh wasabi on it, and it's pretty good. Although the consistency wasn't always the same when we ordered a few rounds for the diamond menu.

We got the fried shrimp tempura as an appetizer, which was hot, crunchy and delicious!

For the broth, sukiyaki is the one to get. There's so much flavor that you don't even need to dip the wagyu in the sauce to eat it. Spicy miso was ok for us and we enjoyed the tomato broth by adding some sauce to it, and kept the veggies and noodles in the tomato to balance out with the sukiyaki.

I personally love the green milk tea but this always seems to be low from the milk tea bar. I usually don't care for milk tea but this one is addicting!

There is a good selection of ice cream if you have room for it when you're done with your meal. Ube is my favorite after trying all the different flavors.

Service: Everyone we've encountered has been so nice. Even with all the craziness with people waiting outside, they do their best with giving you a smile and great customer service.

While you're eating, there is someone who will walk by and take your empty plates and bowls away. They'll check your pot and refill the broth when it's running low.

Parking: There are plenty of parking spots since this is located in a big plaza.

This has become our new favorite ayce shabu spot and highly recommend it. Definitely get on the Yelp waitlist as soon as you can and plan around it so you don't get hangry. We'll...

This place was packed for lunch at 11:40am on a weekday! Luckily we made reservation online and highly recommend you do the same too to avoid the wait.

When you turn into the plaza, turn right immediately when you see Subway and L&L Hawaiian. Mikiya is tucked in the corner behind those two stores and it’s not easily spotted right away. Parkings were a bit tricky in front of the restaurant but there are ample free parkings available everywhere else in the plaza. You may need to walk but it is just 2-3 minutes of walking away.

Immediately when I stepped inside, I was welcomed with a heartwarming fragrance of delicious hot pot and high quality meats. Both my friend and I acclaimed “It smells SUPER AMAZING in here!!!” A friendly server greeted us, quickly checked us in and led us to our spacious booth. On our way, we took a peek at the meat display area and the beverage station and were super impressed with how clean, neat and nice this place was.

Within 10 minutes of being seated down, another server joined us and meticulously explained how it worked for us:

Basically there are 3 levels: silver, gold, and diamond levels, starting from $48 to $68 to $88, respectively. We picked the silver level and we had so much food that we could barely breathe afterwards.

You can order 2 meat dish per person each time. We enjoyed the Wagyu brisket the best and had the second order of it.

One dish per person from the specialty dishes. We opted for the wagyu bone marrow and wagyu nigiri. Those were both delicious though the bone marrow were a bit too garlicky for my taste.

Unlimited other dishes. We ordered sweet potato fries, tempura, fried chickens, and mini bun with condensed milk. All was tasty!

After you ordered, feel free to explore the beverage, sauce and rice, and side dish stations. We were like kids in a candy store! We were over the moon the see milk tea option here and it was actually really nice! Veggie and side dish station was well stocked with fresh veggies. I love that they have the tong ho veggies.

Our food arrived FAST! Time to DIG IN!!

Honestly, I used to think this place was overrated as most of the highly rated places that I’ve been to recently. I loved how it proved me wrong. I was impressed with the meat quality, the way they presented their meat dishes. We have 1/2 house soup and 1/2 tomato soup for the hotpot and they were both equally tasty. My friend kept commented that now she understood why this place was crowded on a weekday for lunch.

We ended our food adventure with delicious ice cream. Today they have the black sesame and strawberry flavors. The strawberry ice cream was super fresh while the black sesame was invitingly yummy.

Overall, very pleasant experience. Nice ambience, great service and wonderful food. What more can you ask for? I’ll definitely come back and take my family here to...

AYCE Wagyu Japanese A5 Yes please...

I was excited to learn Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House was coming to Santa Clara, I believe they are a chain that started in So Cal. I tried dining here before, when they first opened. The wait was ridiculous. I was quoted 2 hours, but in reality it turned out to be around 3.5 hours..so that didn't happen. They hype had died down a bit now, making reservations and wait times more reasonable. I most definitely recommend checking out Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House if you get a chance. The quality of meats is very evident.

The venue is bigger than it looks from the outside. There is also outdoor seating as well. I'm sure it works well int he warmer months. The parking lot is not the greatest. The main parking out in front fills up fast and the plaza has several other businesses, so parking is a bit challenging during peak hours. The service was excellent. The staff were attentive, friendly and helpful, no issues, service on point. All the meats were excellent, just as expected. We could taste the difference in quality and textures. The Broths were excellent as well.

#WagyuEats: ~ SEAFOOD PLATTER - 5/5 A must order for Seafood lovers. A little bit of everything. This in itself is a lot of food.

~ SNACKS: FRY MINI BUN - 4/5 Just to be clear...this is dessert. It's sweet, not savory. Order this towards the end of your meal

~ WAGYU TARTARE - 1/5 Hard PASS on this one! It was the WORST Beef Tartare I ever had. They might had an off day on this one. Part of it was so cold it felt like was still partly frozen. Also the Beef was in chopped up cubes. Should call this Raw Beef Cube bowl, as this was NOT Beef Tartare.

~ SWEET SHRIMP SASHIMI - 3.5/5 They give you the whole shrimp...I thought it was a bit odd, that the heads weren't fried or taken off...

~ WAGYU BONE MARROW - 4/5 A solid Bone Marrow dish, fatty and flavorful, just as it should be.

~ COLD SIDES: SEAWEED SALAD - 5/5 Perfect seaweed salad. Simple and refreshing.

SPICY CLAM - 5/5 I don't know what's in here... the flavor is brilliant. Savory delicious clams.

TAKO - 5/5 Marinated in Wasabi (probably Horseradish) Still delicious!

Can't forget the desserts, that is if you still have room. There is also Soft Serve and Juice available as well.

#Dessert: ~ Ice Cream: Matcha - 3/5 This was OK. I had better Matcha Ice Cream before.

~ Ube - 4/5 Sold Ube flavor.

~ Black Sesame - 4.5/5 Probably some of the best Black Sesame Ice Cream I had.

~ Mango - 2/5 Not very good, tasted funny or artificial.

Can't wait...