Katte Shabushabu     勝手  

I made reservations for a table for four, so there really was no wait time.
We were a little hesitant to enter the restaurant initially because the building they were located in was being renovated, and thus it was hard to even see the store name. Nonetheless, we made our way in and were immediately welcomed by very helpful waitresses and waiters. The restaurant was a bit small, but it was still very comfortable. The waiters were able to speak to us in both Cantonese and English (we had a friend who spoke English with us), and gave us helpful suggestions as to what we should order.
The food quality was excellent: the beef was tender, the skewers were cooked well. The waiters were helpful and agreed to take multiple photos of us for us.
I really have no complaints other than that the restaurant itself is in a rather awkward location. Unless you take the bus from somewhere, it is not particularly close to an MTR station Oh well. It was definitely worth a visit.

When you are a great fan of hotpot, and specially japanese shabu shabu, you should definitely try out Katte Shabushbu.
Although it's only a small place with little seats and honestly, the seats aren't that comfortable but the food there are awesome.

It's a whole new style of dinning really, there are only a 2 waitresses but surely they are very nice. The price is alright, as I ordered a set lunch cost around $70 something, serving US beef 100g, some vegetables and some udon. You can choose the base soup yourself and I ordered a normal sukiyaki soup, it was delicious. They even serve a free dessert, on that day, I had a taro ice-cream in mochi.

As you can control the cooking time yourself, so all is perfect to me.

When you get older, you somehow look back time and think about all those happy and funny memories and moments you had when you were still young. Somehow you started to miss your childhood friends and then it came to a time when kindergarden mates reunion. Our lunch gathering began in a small Japanese restaurant, which is famous for shabu shabu. None of us actually interested in hotpot in the middle of the day except the one who proposed it. Anyhow, it is quite interesting to dine in this restaurant since we can have our own pot of shabu shabu.

1) Japanese PeasThey gave us Japanese Peas for free as snack. The peas are very salty, they were cooked soft but not meshy at all. I can't help repeating, but I really love Japanese Peas, particularly its texture and the way to eat it.

2) Shabu Shabu There are several choices of beef and broth on menu, but we all chose the lightest one for lunch. I ordered the fish broth since it was highly recommended by a friend of mine. The fish broth turned to be very delicious and tasteful. They claimed to have a secret recipe in preparing the soup, which made it tasteful and not fishy at all.

The sliced beef was in generous amount, but the quality was just mediocre. They are just normal US Beef, not particularly special but rather fat. The tofu was not as smooth as I thought it would be. The texture was fine, but it was just not smooth enough. The veggie on the other hand was extremely delicious since it had totally absorbed the essence of the soup and hence very tasteful. The Udon came in a large block, it was fresh from the fridge which was too hard to separate them into two. Since it cannot be separated, I had to dip the whole stack into the soup to cook it. The ending result was having the first half perfectly al dente, but slightly on the soft side for the second half.

In the middle of the meal, you will find the soup had tasted better with a mild taste of beef in it.

3) Taro Mochi Ice-Cream
The mochi ice-cream was indeed a typical local branded mochi ice-cream that you could find in any convenience stores in a pack of two.

Overall, it was rather fun to dine in the restaurant! The service was pretty nice, which they love to explain things in details. The environment although was not huge, was just enough to give the intimacy feelings. The shabu shabu tasted delicious and are priced very reasonably. Definitely a must try Shabu Shabu Restaurant in town.

Read more in my food blog at:
www.cinnamon4coffee.blogspot.com

Despite being small, this place has got the right idea - everyone sitting around a square table, dipping into their own pot, whilst the waiters serve you from the middle of the square so that service can be attentive. Except the service wasn't that great. We asked for the tea to be refilled, twice, before he refilled one of the 3 cups in front of him. I'm like, dude, do we have to tell you six times to refill 3 cups of tea? But at least they were polite (but not apologetic) when reminded again and again for another cup of tea, another dish of sauce, another pair of chopsticks.

But the food made up for it. We went for 1 Kagoshima beef set and 1 chicken set with fish maw soup in a paper pot. Paper holding water? Yup, you get the regular pot resting on an electric stove, and another one fired by coal with a piece of paper held into a bowl shape by a metal sieve. I think the difference between the regular and the paper pot broth was that one had less fat in it, and was meant to be for cooking the chicken.We were allowed 3 choices of soup despite only ordering 2 sets, so I went for the sukiyaki (mildly sweet broth) to avoid ordering another fish soup, as my friend got the 目魚 broth. In my opinion, I think the sukiyaki broth still goes best with shabu shabu especially with the beef as it gives it that slightly honeyed flavour. There were 6 pieces of chicken with the paper pot set which was plenty for 3 persons to share. I actually preferred the packet of Inaniwa udon to the fresh handmade which came in a pen stand like box because it had more texture and was chewier, whereas the fresh one was a bit floppy after cooking. The mixed plate of vegetable was bountiful and fresh, and the beef was thinly sliced, blood red and fresh (as in, properly thawed but still cooler than room temperature).
We also ordered more food to go into the broth - scallops, oyster, konnyaku noodles, and extra shiitake, enoki and golden mushrooms (which really filled us up to the brim). The oyster was ginormous, fat, and glistening, properly cleaned and void of grit and sand.In addition, we ordered the ox tongue and eel kushiyaki, and my friend's set came with a choice of 2 chicken kushiyaki's (except the foie gras), so we ordered the leek and chicken and the chicken rice ball. Everything was grilled to perfection, and my favourite was the onigiri which was 1) massive, 2) had katsuobushi dancing atop, 3) was evenly crispy but not burnt on the outside, 4) held itself perfectly without falling to broken pieces when bitten into.

Had lunch there today for the first time with a friend. Two Thumbs Up!

Extremely impressed with the service and the food quality. Absolutely good value for the quality of food and the quantity as well. The portion is perfect for lunch with a good combination of different kinds of specialties. The beef quality is simply excellent. Vegetables are fresh. The soup base is very unique and is highly recommended.

On top with ShabuShabu with high quality beef, the set lunch comes with a choice of 串燒Yakitori, I tried the chicken meat ball. Very delicious and impressive. It also comes with a drink plus dessert.

The shop gives a very cozy and comfortable ambience. I'm not surprised reservation is a must.

I enjoyed it very much and will definitely visit again. Well done!

my first time came here for lunch.

it's very okay for lunch:

- 枝豆: nothing special

- soup base: fish. this was nice, very tasty! i nearly drank all...

- beef + veggie: of 'coz not high quality beef, given its price, okay la.

- udon: very good! it's a bit thinner than the usual one, chewy and smooth

- coke: they offered only coke, coke zero... all are soft drinks, i canceled mine.

- dessert: ice cream mochi, okay la.

for the below negative comments, i believe it's becoz of the prices they charge for dinner set - no comment as food quality may be different, but if it's comparable to what i had today, then it's overpriced.

it's better to go for lunch, really attractive lunch set!!!

I'd dinner here last week with my friend. We'd made the reservation at 9pm but we still need to stand for 10 minutes before taking seat. (While there are many seats available, I really don't udnerstand what we are waiting for?)
The whole renovation was quite good but too small as there's no space to put your bags / clothes! Also, for the whole night, you'll see the people sitting in front of you, which is not too comfortable.
Back to the food. Disappointed! Really disappointed.
We've ordered the beef and seafood set fromt eh menu, choosing the white fish soup.
For the seafood one, the potion was really small ( you could find the content of the seafood dish from previous comment here). Disappointedly, the seasfood was not as fresh as expected. The scallop was not fresh at all, nothing related to 'sweet'. We'd followed the instruction of the waiter to put the scallop in the soup for only 10 seconds and the scallop's texture was not smooth at all. Obviously it is not fresh enough. For other items of the seafood, really nothing special and I'd think a normal seafood restaurant could supply better seafood than here, with a more reasonable price.
For the beef dish, this one again, totally disappointed. Four hundred some just a small dish of beef and of course again, we expected a tasty beef. No matter it is real japanese beef or not, it does not worth that much. I would say, if you had had the beef in 牛皇星, or even 'seafood star', you won't say the beef provided here is good.
Since the dishes are so small (I am female), we've ordered some BBQ food. Again, really bad. We've ordered quit a lot of items to try. In which, the 多春魚 was the worst one. Surprisingly, the easiest one is the worst one. It was because the fishes are too salty, like 咸魚, I'd drink a lot of tea after eating this. The other one of the beef BBQ, they rolled the beef with a lot of garlic inside, actually, not as bad as the fish, but it is like the rolled beef you could taste from city super food court, doesn't worth almost a hundred for 4 little pcs. Another one was the korean style bbq pock, full of juice and very salty, awful experience of this one. For other BBQ items, nothing special, but cost you a lot.
All in all, we paid 600 dollars per head for this meal and our comment is: Not comfortable, costly, not worth. You could enjoy a better dish in a better environment with this amount of money. Not recommended.

The first thing you need to do before you come is to MAKE SURE you are making your reservation, or else you might not be seated. They are always fully booked! The Japanese light-wood décor makes this restaurant look authentic.

The quality grade wagyu beef you get here is worth more than the price you pay for. Remember to dip the meat with vinegar or sesame sauce which they provided before savouring them. The basket of vegetable (assorted mushrooms, lettuce, cabbage, tofu) was crispy fresh too. We would hardly ever drink the soup base at other hot pot establishments because it is usually flavoured by MSG, but here it is clean, sweet and complements the udon very well!

A small complimentary mochi ice cream finished our meal. A very nice place to chill with friends.

The first time here was recommended by numerous friends who have praised about the quality of the food here.

Been here 3-4 times and it's one of those places that you don't need to go frequently but every now and then when you want something different from your everyday meals this would be the perfect spot.

My favourite selection is the fish soup base with beef. You also must not miss out on ordering some BBQ sticks as well, they have the best ox tongue i have tried in HK!! The vegetable is a good portion and I also recommend the udon as well as it is superb with the soup base at the end. As they top up your pot with soup and not water the taste is always very strong and not watered down.

Would be great if they had a dessert menu too!!!

Service is great from the staff and the manager there is always happy for a chat.

Looking forward to more frequent visit during winter!!!
Remember to make a booking as they are quite packed!!!

I haven't cooked in a long while and this evening I wanted to all of a sudden. Being the lazy person that I am, in order to get the best of both worlds, hot pot / Japanese shabu shabu was the best choice whereby I can fulfill my desire to cook and to explore new establishments at the same time. The whole store front was transparent with a huge glass wall which I think is a good way to promote itself via the display window. The layout of the tables (or long bar table) reminds me of Restaurant City @ Facebook whereby the waiter / staff would deliver and serve dishes inside the enclosed aisle for greater efficiency. Anyways ...

Each guest has his/her individual pot in front of the "bar table." Among the choices on the menu, we picked the set dinners because we were too lazy to order individual items. The set came with a main dish (see below), the choice of soup bases and some side items such as assorted vegetables.

(1) Soup Bases
My friend picked the Clear Red Snapper soup (Left Picture) and I picked the Fish and Kelp Soup (Right Picture). Mine was more of a clear soup based which I like and the Clear Red Snapper soup wasn't as clear as I expected. I tried both soup bases from the start but realized that both were lightly flavored. Apparently, as informed by one of the owners present there that evening, it was intentional to keep the soup base rather light to start with because it will get to be more rich and strong after the meal. It was after the meal when the soup should be consumed to get the most of out it in terms of flavors. (and I did follow the advice and enjoyed the more complex flavors of he soup at the end of the meal!)

(2) Shabu Shabu Deluxe Set
As part of the main dish of the set, the star of the show was the Miyazaki Beef Flat of Rounds (A4 Grade). It was fresh and thinly sliced. A few seconds in the boiling soup would be sufficient to bring the beef its optimal eating condition according to the CHEF of the night, which is ME! The beef would melt in your mouth but due to the light soup base, I only tasted the beef and not much of the flavors of the soup. It was as if I was cooking the beef in plain boiling water. (the Clear Red Snapper Soup was better in this perspective because it started of with a stronger flavors) If you are to order my clear soup base, I would suggest to cook some vegetables using the soup first to elevate the underlying flavors of soup base. Just a tip from Chef wannabe Jason.

(3) Shabu Shabu Seafood Set
For the seafood set, it came with Clam, Prawn, Oysters and Scallops. All items were of extra large size if you ask me. They looked fresh and tasted fresh. Again, with such shabu shabu setting and with fresh ingredients, we can all be great chefs! It was fun indeed!

All items were huge, especially the oyster!

As recommended, placing the shrimp head into the soup at the start would produce a strong and rich flavors for the soup throughout the meal, give it a try to see if it works for you!

(3) Side Items
As part of the set, it came with Assorted Vegetables, Inaniwa Udon and Clear Clam Soup as well. Not much of surprises here. The way the Udon was presented was nice but make sure you cook the Udon last so to get the most out of the soup.

The clear clam soup was rather light in flavors and was not served hot but warm instead. Not what I expected (or preferred) and a few points off for serving it warm!

(5) Japanese Pork Slices
The two main dishes we shared were not enough so we ordered an extra plate of meat. Instead of beef, we opted for pork. They were fresh and without much surprises. The beef was definitely better.

(6) Grilled OX Tongue
Now this was surprisingly delicious. The grilled OX tongue was thick and firm, carrying a very chewy sensation to it. Flavors were good as well with traces of grounded pepper all over it. I was surprised because at a place where YOU the diner is the CHEF, I did not expect cooked items to be this enjoyable. Thumbs up!

Likes

* Fun - If you want to be a chef for a night, this is a good place to start with. The quality of the items all depend on YOU! Not much skills from the kitchen there, smart way to do business indeed.
* Grilled OX Tongue
* Fresh Ingredients

Dislikes:

* Warm clear clam soup
* Seating arrangement quite packed

Avg Spending: Above HKD 500 per person

Original Blog for MORE pictures: http://jason-bonvivant.blogspot.com/2009/10/katte-shabushabu.html

i've been wanting to try this place for months, but its always full and advance booking is definitely required.

it might have also been because of the wait, i was really looking forward to a delicious meal, and was quite disappointed actually... or possibly my expectations were too high.

from the menu, you basically only have 3 choices of either wagyu beef set, pork set or seafood set. all 3 choices werent too impressive nor especially tasty, and the portion is way too small. however, it seems the best option from the 3 would be the seafood.

the dinner sets come with a huge plate of vegetables, which are fresh and crunchy and the udon is also good.

overall, the experience wasn't too special and i think its too pricey, dinner was over $500....

The Matsuzaka beef at this "shabu-shabu" restaurant was outstanding - perfectly marbled. Unfortunately, everything else was substandard. None of the several broth selections were anything close to the typical shabu-shabu stock, and the two we tried were characterless. The miso soup tasted watery, as if they skimped on the miso. And even the beef was almost ruined by being sliced way too thick for shabu-shabu.

Including the fee for the unappetizing appetizer (a half-dozen edamame) and service charge, the set meal added up to $500 per person - an outrageous price, even considering the quality of the beef.

i brought my friends to come here again because of my friend's birthday.

i found there are some changes on the menu. more skewers come up.

since we are very very hungry, we ordered some skewers before shabu shabu commenced

ox tougue - very elastic and fresh
chicken meat ball - eggs inside but dry, can be more juicy
japanese beef rolls - excellent and not too heavy
chicken wings - ok la, nothing special

We also ordered 3 shabu shabu sets (2 upgrade & 1 standard) with some side orders (crab legs & tofu)

- upgrade A4 (by seeing the texture without tasting, the beef is excellent. of course it tastes really well)
- standard beef (just so so, not good but not bad. it's acceptable and reasonable for only $230. In Japan, having traditional shabu shabu, around 6000-7000yen for this standard kind of beef, $12000-14000 for deluxe beef)
- fish soup for all pots we like it very much with udon.
- crab legs - i prefer to dine out in hoikaido because the food there are fresh
- tofu - i do not eat because my friends eat all
- dessert mochi - wonderful for round up

this is the 2nd time i came here. they keep the food standard and change the menu sometimes. my friends and i love this place very much. keep it up. i join your shop fans group already.

P.S. Bonnie - Happy 2x Birthday - haha

I must declare, I was asked by a friend to pay a secret visit to this restaurant, and give comments to this friend.

We went there for lunch. As a friendly reminder, you have to make reservation, even on weekdays.

To be frank, lunch menu is not that attractive, but good value for money. Perfect for ladies craving for a light but special meal.

Since we are acting under a covert action, we ordered food off the set-menu.

美國牛 and 和牛, special udon (the hard ones standing up in a 筆桶), 黑毛豬, tofu, clans, 春菊.

Again, as a friendly reminder, I recommend you try 美國牛 before 和牛. Reason being their texture and beef-flavour differ remarkably. You would love 美國牛 and divorce 美國牛 because of the emergence of 和牛. Reverse in order would cause some disappointment.

Clans are good, though there is a bit of sand, unavoidably.

春菊 is a must-try.

Udon should come last, because by then the clear-to-cloudy soup would highlight the characteristics of the special udon.

Good thing about the hotpot is 一人一鍋.

After hotpot, we ordered a few BBQ. Can't remember what we have ordered, but impression is "above average".

We revealed our identities at the end, and gave some recommendations to the boss, Kenny.

Forget about the 是次消費 below, we really have ordered a lot, kind of unusual for lunch. Normally, price per head for set-lunch plus 2 or 3 BBQ sticks, $100-120 per head.

I will definitely revisit to see if there is some improvement.

Over the past few months, a number of restaurants have opened up on Caroline Hill Road... and this is one of the best ones. Although the bar seating means that it's harder for big groups to chat, it's a great place for two or three friends to hang out and have dinner. Although because there are only 18 (or 24?) seats, it's also a good place for small events like a birthday party or hen night or something.

There are several set dinners to choose from - beef, pork or seafood. Each set comes with a humungous plate of very fresh veggies, soup (clear clam or miso), udon or rice and a choice of four soups for you to cook your meal in. Then there's a la carte where you're spoilt for choice, with options for more shabu food or skewer food (grilled stuff).

My friend & I ordered the beef set ('normal' wagyu beef is great already, no upgrades to A4 wagyu needed!) and the seafood set (huge fresh clams, scallops, prawns etc... as well as a seriously big American oyster), as well as ox tongue skewers and ginko skewers. YUM. That ox tongue is SO good. The udon is also worth mentioning - it's very very good indeed. Though it didn't look like very much food, we were both terribly full by the end of it, and the red bean ice cream thing at the end capped off a great evening of food.

They also have a good choice of sake, bringing in several brands that aren't commonly found in Hong Kong. Apparently, they're going to be bringing in sparkling sake soon too. Will be looking forward to that!

Just as a note though - people sitting on the long sides of the bar seem to get less steam blown into their faces so try to ask for seating on the sides instead of in the middle of the U, and there isn't anywhere to put your bag(s), especially when it's full house in the restaurant so don't go with a whole lot of shopping!!