Today the J-List staff is taking off work a little early in order to have the kangei-kai or “welcome party” for a new employee, Nicholas, who will help us in our mission of covering the world with strange and kawaii things from Japan. We’re going to a local shabu shabu restaurant, where we’ll enjoy a Japanese dish I like a lot, although it’s not that well-known outside Japan. Shabu shabu is thin slices beef (the same kind used in making sukiyaki) which you grab with chopsticks and dip into a pot of boiling water, cooking it in a few seconds since it’s so thin. (As you swish it around in the water it makes a sound like shabu shabu, which is where the name comes from.) You then dip the meat in a tangy sauce and eat it over rice, then repeat until full. Although it’s less common than Korean barbecue or Western-style steak restaurants, I like shabu shabu because it’s so much healthier. As you cook pieces of the meat in the water, fat and oil accumulate in the boiling water rather than inside your body.
One of my favorite Japanese dishes, shabu shabu, yum.
