Onyasai, Center Kita (しゃぶしゃぶ 温野菜)

Hard rain, high wind, two kids in a stroller, one asleep, dinner time, nowhere near home. That wasn’t the best planning ever. And that’s how you end up at chain restaurants.

Which I don’t care about any more, because when you have an enormous private room like the one below, how can you care?  I didn’t mind this at all, and I’d eat here again.

I lived near an Onyasai branch forever. Probably everyone lives near a branch – there are 89 in Tokyo and 36 in Kanagawa alone. I never went though. Turns out their thing is all-you-can-eat shabu shabu. We were (rightly) nervous about having to affect a quick exit at some point and thus went a la carte. I didn’t think the pricing worked out too badly. Energetic, cranky little kids and hot pots, the jury’s still out.

So, you know, get a pot of soup and start swishing raw stuff in it until it’s cooked. Shabuっ…..shabuっ…..

Does it matter what kind of beef this was? We ordered it more than once.

Pork, once only, I think.

Fattier beef. Shabu shabu doesn’t have time to render the fat, so it can be a little confronting. I tend to like it anyway.

Their other thing is that you get to split the soup pot and choose two. A konbu thinger on the left, a yuzu thinger on the right. Nifty.

And at some point you need the ‘yasai’ portion of the experience to enter the bath. Not that we weren’t eating vegetables, just that, you know, it’s not that exciting.

Sort of like this review turned out.
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