Do You do Shabu?

Enjoying a great meal is another way to unwind! With these challenging economic times upon us, dining at home seems to be the way to go - since going out to dinner is less frequent, selecting a good restaurant for the times you do splurge and go out is key! This past weekend we went to one of our favorites - Shabu Tatsu, in the East Village. This place is great. New York magazine selected this restaurant in their top critics pick list and indicated "Shabu-Tatsu is messy fun for a generation of foodies who were denied the interactive delights of the sorely lamented fondue pot, that recently resurrected staple of the bad-taste seventies". I love fondue and am not afraid to admit it (heck, if I'm admitting my addiction to knitting, most other things pale in comparison)... The restaurant features "Shabu entrees", consisting of thinly sliced cuts of meat, which diners immerse in boiling water to cook. Two savory dipping sauces accompany the meat, in addition to salad and a bowl of white rice. After the meat course is over, a platter of veggies and noodles are served, which diners immerse into the broth, and enjoy ladled into seasoned soup mugs.

I like the integration of courses at Shabu - during the meat course you prepare your own broth for the veggie and noodle course! Very cool! We've been to Shabu Tatsu with a bunch of our friends over the past couple years, so if you go for the first time 1) ask for instructions from the waiter if you're a newbie because otherwise I think they assume you know what you're doing - if I didn't go with an experienced friend the first time, I could see myself eating raw meat and boiling the salad 2) be fairly competent with chop-sticks - I've never seen any forks and don't think they'd work anyway 3) be prepared to get a steam facial from the cauldron of boiling water. The only thing that would make Shabu better would be for them to bring back the ginger ice cream. Overall this place is one of my top picks.

After dinner, our friends took us for "Bubble Tea". This drink was a first for me - Saint's Alp's Teahouse offers these really neat tea drinks that have tapioca balls ("pearls") in them. How cool is that!? The tapioca blobs are the size of large blueberries, I'd say. You use a pretty wide straw to drink them up - I was envisioning myself choking on them in the middle of the street, but our friends assured us they travel up the straw pretty slowly, so everything went smoothly. It's always fun to try new things!