Tenkaichi on the second floor of Cathay Cineleisure is a place that serves shabu shabu and grill. You can choose either or, but if you can have both, and if it creates a good deal, well, why not?
I'm someone who likes my mookatas and Korean BBQs the same way I like my hotpots and steamboat soups, so when someone introduced me to this place and said they had a bit of cooked food into the bargain, I was sold.
Having a meal at this place requires some form of strategy- and discipline.
Because even though you might want to order as much stuff as you wish to from the buffet menu, and you might want to fill your plates with as much cooked food as your own food is being cooked, but rationalization is key when it comes to balancing out your favorites versus what you actually want to try, and eat.
What it means is that you can't take as much takoyaki as you want even though you really want to.
And neither can you eat up cups and cups of chawanmushi even though it looks so pretty and is steamed so well and makes you feel all warm and lovely inside.
Why, there is the Meat!
Tenkaichi offers both the BBQ and the grill, so for the grill, we like to order the beef, the beef, and the beef- partially because they have wagyu, and partially because my companion is one of those red-meat eaters whom at places like these will choose beef and pork, over chicken, seafood and fish.
The portions are plentiful; each tray has about five or six slices all beautifully arranged, some of which even have a bit of garnish on the side. I like that the meats are thinly sliced, are fresh, and so there's little marination without a need for sauce to make it taste right. Meats that aren't fresh and which leave me with a heavy aftertaste at the end of the meal are not to my liking.
They have vegetables, of course. There's lettuce, there's cabbage, there're carrots and onions and sweet corn and tomatoes and two kinds of mushrooms. Small platters of them I take for the soup in which I dunk sweet corn, carrots, shitake mushrooms, the other kind of mushroom, cherry tomato, and lettuce.
I take lots of lettuce.
Lots and lots of lettuce.
It's strange, but when it comes to hotpots and BBQs, I can do without most of the other vegetables except for lettuce. And I like those with big leaves. Not only do they look pretty in the soup pot (very 3D, you know) they taste really good in the soup bowl, and they make fantastic lettuce wraps too.
I'm glad that it is a good, filling meal that we have here.
And even though it takes plenty of restraint (for the diet), the cooked food portion does play a part in making the meal feel complete. They don't stinge, no they don't, and it becomes a challenge when you have to resist the fried rice, the fried vegetable tempura, the sushi rolls, the noodles, the yakitori, taking too many cups of chawanmushi.... and balls of takoyaki.