You know how at one time I seemed to have this thing for K-BBQ and Mookata and the like?
Not that I don't have a love for it now, but what with my appetite and my tummy these days, I'm finding that I lean towards the soupy soupy stuff a wee bit more.
Mookata has the soup, of course- it's in a little moat- but I'm finding myself wanting to have more of hotpot type soups where I can dunk my meat and my vegetables in and not feel like I'm missing out if I don't use the grill.
That's not to say I don't like nor want Mookata or KBBQ.
No way.
Just that... I don't know... for some time now I've found it a tad hard to relish in grilled meats, and if I'm going to stuff myself with lots and lots of food, I'll need to measure, to adjust, to balance.
Shabu Sai, thus, has become one of my newest, latest, most favorite place for hotpot buffet.
A friend had introduced it to me.
What's funny is that we always used to pass by the restaurant when it was at Suntec City, but never got to try.
And now that they've shifted out from the place, we find ourselves searching for other Shabu Sais.
There's one at NEX, which I haven't been.
But there's also one at Orchard Central, which, yes, thankfully, I have been a couple of times.
We were there one afternoon for a late lunch, and by late I mean we were there around 3pm.
Several kinds of soup bases we get to choose, and whilst I hovered between getting the tonkatsu or the yuzu, my friend went straight for (if I'm not wrong) the tom yum. I just know his had the spice whilst mine had the safe.
Dont' laugh at my choice of the yuzu.
It might have that hint of sour sour at the start, but the taste balances out once you start dunking your meats and vegetables and other ingredients, and soon you'll get a slightly salty soup with just that very, very, very faint hint of the citrus fruit.
There were trays of meat this afternoon.
What types they were, whether pork or beef, I now don't seem to be able to remember, there might have been some beef, there might have been some pork.
But there were all these thin slices of belly, I remember, very likely pork, all of which were really fast to cook, and so very fast to eat.
It was a good thing, really.
I was hungry.
What makes these slices great is that they're sliced thin, they're chilled, and arranged all so pretty.
And because they're so thin, they cook really fast in the pot even though you've just barely warmed it over and switched it on.
I'm always hungry whenever I come here for a meal.
So, yes, I'm glad that there're fast-cook foods available at the buffet counter, like lettuce, green leafy vegetables, carrots, tofu- of various kinds.
There're a good number of ingredients at the vegetable buffet, by the way.
Like carrots, corn, potatoes, different kinds of tofu, different kinds of mushrooms, lots variety of green leafy vegetables, lettuces, and all the gamut of hotpot ingredients one can think of.
I've seen cuttlefish balls, fish balls, prawn balls, meat balls.
I've also seen tang hoon and ramen and some other types of noodles.
I don't take much of the noodles though.
Instead I go for the rice, which, I don't eat during the course of the meal, but (more or less) after I've finished the meats and the rest of the vegetables that I want to have.
This afternoon's vegetables included mushrooms and white tofu which, even though I prefer the processed cheese types, seemed too bouncy and cute to completely ignore.
Then there was, of course, a whole plate of lettuce, which is a favorite vegetable of mine when it comes to hotpot, and at a buffet like this, can have up to three, four plates stacked full.
Most of the hotpot, of course, featured meat.
How many trays we ordered, I don't remember, there might have been seven or ten, but we were hungry, I was hungry, and this afternoon- as it turned out- between the two of us, we had no problem finishing them all.
Maybe it were the stacked-up trays of thin pork belly slices that did the trick.
Maybe it were the slices of fresh, pleasantly chilled beef.
But today it were me who had a larger appetite.
Long after my friend decided he had enough I was still working my chopsticks inside the pot, picking out slices of meat to dip in the customized hotpot sauce of sesame sauce, spring onions and parsley.
I had no problem finishing up the meats from my side of the pot this afternoon.
I also had no problem chomping through the other ingredients and picking out spoonfuls of seaweed from my friend's soup.
Seaweed really does enhance the flavor of everything.
Whether it be wrapping the pork belly slice around the seaweed, whether it be mushed up with some of the other ingredients, or whether it be eaten with my own special mix of rice, it's all good.
Special mention must be made of the rice that I've said I always try to have.
Never mind how full I am, I always try to take a bowl of it.
It is the simplicity of this dish that I love.
One wouldn't think that a bowl of warm, fluffy rice, mixed with fragrant sesame oil, crunchy fried onions and fresh green spring onions would make such a comforting difference to a hotpot meal, but there it is.
I never get bored breathing in the fragrance of the sesame oil (even though I sometimes overdo it and drown the rice)
Neither do I ever get bored of the fried onions and spring onions that add such varied texture to the rice.
Perhaps at another time I might add the egg and eat it Japanese style.
But this afternoon I was happy with what I had.
And I finished the whole bowl.
I wasn't going to end the meal without having any dessert, however, and so, off it was back to the soft serve machine at the buffet counter where I had a a cup of vanilla soft serve topped with colorful rainbow sprinkles.
In the form of a vanilla soft serve topped with rainbow sprinkles.