It’s them again!

At night, to celebrate the arrival of Ah Yong Lee Hwee’s new Proton Saga (Actually, it sounded more like because Ah Yong wanted to eat shabu-shabu.), Ah Yong suggested we head down to Puchong for shabu-shabu.

With no disagreement from anyone of us, we found ourselves standing in front of Japanese style steamboat, Shabu-Shabu restaurant barely 30 minutes later. Its Chinese name is a rather weird / odd one, 强强滚日式火锅. It’s at Bandar Puteri Puchong, just behind Giant and not too far from Papa Kopitiam.

Upon entering, there’s a menu with illustrations of various food served. The price range for a bowl of ingredients / items are priced between RM1 and RM4. They are categorized and separated by different coloured bowls, exactly like the pricing mechanism used in Sushi King and many other Japanese restaurants. At the end of the meal, they will collect the bowls and calculate the total price of your meal.

Of course, if you are a big eater or can eat more than 26 plates, then opt for the buffet. It is about RM26 per pax and shouldn’t be any problem for most people to “eat back” their money spent. After paying, the waiter will lead your to your seats.

The restaurant has two floors and each floor can easily accommodate more than 250 people. It is brightly lit and the whole place is very clean for a restaurant of its kind.

The conveyor belt is built as an “U”-shape across the room, with the waiters / waitresses standing inside the enclosed area to serve you and reload the conveyor belt every now and then. However, due to its design, one has to walk a big round just to go to the toilet, which is at the far end of the room.

It is very similar to any other Japanese sushi restaurant. One empty line goes into the kitchen, the other lines comes out filled.

You don’t have to guess what is served on the conveyor belt as there are wooden cube blocks that display the name (in English and Chinese languages) and pictures of the ingredients. If you see something that you want to eat, just grab it from the conveyor belt and you are good to go.

Upon seated, you will notice an empty hole in front of you, which the waiter will then placed a steel pot in it and pour soup into it. Switch on the power with the control panel under the table and your own personal steamboat pot is ready to cook some food.

They will also hand you two bowls of sauces. One is the spring onions, fried garlic mixed with special soy sauce sauce and the other is chili sauce, which tasted slightly spicier than I thought.

For drinks, you got to help yourself by filling your cups up at the designated self-help stations. Only two chilled drinks are served, ice blended grape and ice blended orange juice. They also serve hot plain water and hot green tea. However, there are no ice cubes and therefore, you are stuck with the ice blended beverages.

Honestly, it is really stupid to offer ice blended because ice blended can’t quench your thirst but merely cool your mouth down. You will find yourself sipping really hard on the ice to “drink”.

Oh, did I mention that you need to refill your soup on your own too? Everything, the utensils, soups, sauces and drinks are all available in the self-help station.

Time to eat.

Meanwhile, snap a random pictures of the buggers while eating.

Then, continue to snap and eat.

After some time, get them to pose for you.

The restaurant is famous for its thinly sliced pork meat, which to me, is totally nothing to shout about. It wasn’t seasoned; it wasn’t marinated; it certainly didn’t taste any special, to me. Just thinly sliced pork meat, that’s about it. Even my mum could do that at home, probably thinner and taste better too! So much about the hu-ha of thinly sliced pork meat.

We spent almost two hours in the restaurant, helping ourselves with the endless supply of food. Overall, the food was quite okay, decent amount of varieties and taste wise, it was mediocre.

However, as I ate, I discovered a few things.

1) Since you have your own pot, literally speaking, you are actually eating steamboat alone throughout the night. Loneliness creeps in after a while. I felt kinda empty even though my three buddies were sitting just next to me.

2) Steamboat is supposed to be a group activity, where everybody waits for the soup to boil, throws in all the ingredients to cook, eats, helping others to fill up their bowls with food you don’t want to eat and etc., but this particular type of steamboat doesn’t give me that feeling at all.

3) Because you are eating alone, you are the one taking the ingredients all by yourself. After a while, you will find yourself taking the same old stuffs again and again and again. It happened to me and I ended up eating more fish balls in one night compared to the past six months. If its the normal steamboat, my bowl will be filled up with unwanted food because the guys always put stuffs that I don’t want to eat yet I have to eat because I have to finish the food in my bowl.

4) The four-in-a-line / row seating arrangement isn’t very convenient for chit chatting throughout the dinner.

5) I don’t really enjoy steamboat buffet, honestly and instinctively.

It was decent, but I won’t go back again, unless I don’t have other choice or the majority wants to dine in similar concept restaurants. I was satiated but I didn’t feel good or really enjoyed the dinner.

Related posts:

1. Shogun Japanese Buffet Restaurant, 1 Utama
2. Wa Zen Japanese Restaurant, Melaka Raya
3. Buffet Outing At Jogoya, Star Hill Gallery
4. Pizza Buffet
5. Chilies And Ice Cubes

Tags: A La Carte, Bandar Puteri Puchong, Buffet, 火锅, Eating..., Food, Giant, Japanese Style, Personal Steamboat, Puchong, Restaurant, Review, Shabu-Shabu, 强强滚, 日式火锅，Steamboat