Shabushabu Onyasai Sanjokamogawa

First, Shabushabu is a fantastic community dining experience! This place has a wide, delicious, all-you-can-eat menu for up to 2780 yen per person (three varieties of meat; more cost extra). Get the additional All-you-can-drink option for 1500 yen more. The waiting staff spoke English and everyone was helpful and accommodating. Very recommended!

We ordered the 2980 yen set of all you can eat. We chose two types of soups, one is sweet spicy soup another is salty soup with grapefruit. Both are nice. The salty soup with grapefruit was really surprise us. It's great to goes with vegetables and mushrooms. Of course meat was perfect with spicy soup. We had homemade chicken balls, pork belly, beef belly, pork lean and beef lean. The quality of the meat was very high and the textures were soft especially belly part (lots of fatty). However, the strange thing is that the serving staffs were really talkative and speaking loudly. Not to us but among them. This is rare to see in Japanese service industry which is always customer first. We called many times and a staff came and ordered food. In brief, the food is nice but for the service, lower than my expectation. Maybe is Friday and they all looked forward the coming weekend.

We went here five times during our stay in Kyoto. Four of the times were fantastic but the fifth time was the worst. Dirty vegetables and less meat even though we ordered MORE. When I showed them pictures of of our previous meals they didn't care and just said it was the same. Since one in our party speaks fluent Japanese it wasn't a language barrier. Also could hear them laugh about the dirty vegetables from the kitchen. Recommend but beware of uneven service quality.

Very average Shabu shabu... 鍋ぞうin Tokyo was way better and even cheaper. Not sure if it's because we got the second to cheapest all you can eat set, the beef was either very tough, thick cut or fatty. Sichuan spicy stock was more like a sweetened kimchi sauce. The vegetables looked and tasted very stale. Service was okay and friendly enough. Definitely avoid this one if you're looking for a reasonably good quality shabu shabu.

We received dirty vegetables, we called them 5 times before seeing anyone (just to order more food). Good service was dependent on who served us. And our deserts did not resemble the pictures. Not friendly to foreigners (even those who can speak japanese).