Shabu Shabu!!!!!

Last night Atsuko took us to a Shabu Shabu restaurant. Shabu Shabu, is an onomatopoeia, derived from the sound emitted when the ingredients are stirred in the cooking pot. Our Shabu Shabu restaurant offered different simmering broths to choose from for cooking our meat and veggies. There was a rich pork broth, a kimchi broth, a sukiyaki broth and traditional Shabu Shabu broth. We had the traditional Shabu Shabu broth and the Sukiyaki broth. Thin slices of beef  and pork were brought to our table as well as Ponzu dipping sauce  (a citrus, soy sauce, mirin blend) and a very nice sesame dipping sauce. We went to the raw veggie buffet and picked out mushrooms, fresh leafy greens, tofu, thinly sliced daikon radish, leeks, carrots and yam noodles etc. It was cute at the veggie buffet because under the different veggies was a name and picture of the farmers and where there farms were located. i.e. This is Jiro san, he proudly grew your daikon radish on his farm in...
(Don't mind me in the picture, its what I look like after 2 days with an earache)

Atsuko added all the sukiyaki ingredients into the boiling sukiyaki pot.

 

 

After the Sukiyaki was simmering we started in on the Shabu Shabu broth. Here's Atsuko and I cooking almost paper thin sliced pieces of pork , we would then dip the cooked slices into the Ponzu or sesame sauce and eat it. I really liked cooking the thinly sliced Daikon radish it had a very refreshing flavor.

 

 

 

 

 

Both of the boiling pots produced delicious fare. The Sukiyaki offerd a rich flavor, seasoned with soy sauce and sugar, while the Shabu-Shabu was a  lighter flavor that was wonderful with the dipping sauces.

 

When the sukiyaki finished cooking, I ate it in the traditional Japanese style. I broke a raw egg into a bowl and beat it with my chopsticks, then I would take pieces of meat, noodles, mushrooms or tofu from the simmering pot, dip it in the egg and eat it. The beaten egg helped cool the hot food and added a mild flavor to it that was quite good.

 

 

 

When the broth simmered down we would add either sukiyaki sauce or water to the pot to either strengthen or lighten the broth. That's what the two little jars in the picture below are.

 

 

 

We ate and ate and ate...so wonderful and delicious with a side of white rice!