Shaba-Shabu Thai Japanese

03/19/11

Delicious sushi rolls.

by vhb at Citysearch

I feel like i'm a regular at Shaba-Shabu. I have been there 10-20 times and have always been impressed with the food. The service is hit or miss but the sushi rolls never fail to make me say "mmmmmmmm" as soon as I take a bite. My favorites: the yummy roll, spider roll, okinawa roll. The seaweed and japanese house salads are also both excellent. Sitting at the sushi bar is also fun and their cocktails are delicious. I have never had a bad experience there and it's my favorite sushi place in Raleigh.

02/01/11

Miss, do you know what a smile is?

by BlueberryRed at Citysearch

Any possible appreciation of the food was all but obliterated by the extremely poor service we received while we were there. I will not, however, fault the entire restaurant for this, since friends of mine have told me that they received decent service on other occasions.

Rather, I think much of my negative opinion of the restaurant was a result of our waitress, Sophie's, extremely bad attitude and neglect of our table. This waitress came to our table literally four times during the course of our dinner, which lasted for well over 1.5 hours since some members of our party came a little late. About 25 minutes between her stops. Drinks took very long to come, food took even longer to come, and the desserts were also very delayed. Granted, this probably points to a problem the restaurant's food and drink preparation time, and was outside of our waitress' control, but such long gaps between food being ready could easily have been covered with a graceful apology for the delay and a little extra attention from her. Instead, we got no smile, the bare minimum of politeness, no refills on our drinks, no asking us whether we wanted to order anything else.

By the end of the evening, I was seriously contemplating either leaving a very small tip or none at all. However, when our bill came, we discovered that this particular restaurant automatically adds a gratuity of 18% to our total. I for one was outraged by this because I did not feel our waitress deserved such a high tip - considering the fact that she did nothing more than take our orders, plop our drinks and food in front of us after an extremely long wait, and then studiously ignore us for the rest of the time until we managed to grab her attention long enough to order dessert and ask for the check. When we tried to ask her about the tip issue, she was both rude and patronizing.

In conclusion, if you ever decide to eat at this restaurant, be aware that if you receive bad service, you can and SHOULD question the automatic gratuity charge. And of course, keep and eye out for the waitress Sophie. This could have just been a bad/off day for her - I've worked in the restaurant industry, I can relate - or it could be her usual style for treating customers.

09/25/10

Sit At The Bar

by 2001carolinagirl at Citysearch

I absolutely love Shaba Shabu. I ate here for the first time 4 years ago and still think it is the best sushi in the area. I have celebrated 3 birthdays here and plan on visiting many many more times. However, my advice is Sit At The Bar!

If I had only sat at a table at Shaba Shabu, I doubt that I would feel the same way about this restaurant. The service in the dining room leaves a lot to be desired, the wait staff can be short and not very attentive. However, it is completely different at the bar. The service is much faster and the bartenders are much friendlier and attentive.

I used to REALLY love the decor and atmosphere, however it seems that a year ago they painted the walls in the bar area white and I haven't seen a DJ there in a while.

Conclusion: Sit at the bar, order some sushi, go home happy.

09/10/10

Love This Place

by Milo A at Citysearch

Been there a few times over the years. My wife and I love it. Can't wait to go back.

02/20/10

Bad Japanese Food

by sushi critic of triangle at Citysearch

# of visits: 2 (it was enough)

The Good: The good is that you have the option of choosing between large variety of items from their Thai and Japanese menu. The selections are vast and much to choose from. The cocktails were well made and the staff friendly. They even had some authentic shabu shabu tables which I was looking forward to test out. Out of the three categories of their food(sushi, Thai, shabu shabu) I'd say the Thai food stood out of the rest. Definitely not the best Thai in the area but then again, I'm not an expert on Thai food.

The Bad: With all the people's good review of the sushi at this place I did have some expectations but they were not met. I sat at the sushi bar in one of my visits and it did not have a very clean odor. I could smell some fishiness in the air. That is a bad sign. Then I noticed that they pre-cut their fish. I haven't seen restaurants do this in a long time. On occasion I see a really busy restaurant do this but they were slow at the time. With a little hesitation I ordered salmon, tuna, and red snapper nigiri to start off with a bottle of hot sake. I took one bite of the pre-cut salmon and was reluctant to finish it. It had a slimy texture and a off smell(probably due to pre-slicing) that bothered me. The tuna was just your average frozen yellow fin tuna. The red snapper was also the frozen tilapia that most sushi bars in the area uses. Overall the flavors of the rice and the fish did not impress me at all. The sushi rolls that we ordered were better then the nigiri sushi but was just average in my opinion. Nothing too special for me to want to return. As far as the shabu shabu, I'll keep it real simple. I do NOT recommend it at all. Shabu shabu was one of my comfort food when I was back in Japan and I'm an expert in the field. I did not try to compare it to the ones back home but it was just awful. I'm sorry to be so mean about it but I could not believe they messed up so bad on such a simple dish.

Summary: It's a nice place to grab a few drinks and have a few Thai dishes and some rolls at a decent price point. The atmosphere was slick and contemporary but lacking some details in some areas if you look closely. I don't think they have had proper training when it comes to Japanese food so stay away from all the Japanese food menu much as possible. The rolls are OK and I will try some of the ones people recommended below if I go back. That is a big IF though with the sushi bar experience.

• Pros: Thai food and bar
• Cons: Japanese food