Shabu 88 - Rowland Heights

The service was amazing, 5 stars for service and 3 stars for the meat quality. I will definitely come back again to eat here at least one more time to re-judge the meat quality:

One of the best shabu-shabu spot I've been to. Will be back again The outside of this place isn't that appealing but don't let that deter you because the inside is well maintained and clean.

First time here and it was Saturday night. It was packed but we waited not that long around 5 mins. There were only two servers at the time, it was the busser an older man who noticed us waiting after he set a table and called one of the server. The guy server gave us a table, the services were quite okay it's just they were only two of them so sometimes you have to ask twice for anything. Which is understandable and they were polite : And other than meat, we got to get them ourselves which was convenient, like veggies, noodles, mushrooms etc. For a $30 ayce dinner on a weekend we were happy. They gave probiotic drinks at the end.

I've been to Shabu 88 4+ times so far and have been impressed each time. In my last visit, I ordered a split sukiyaki and original base and orders of their 4 different beef plates. Every meat is tender even the lean meats. My preference is the short plate and the chuck eye roll. The short plate is the fattiest of the bunch and the chuck eye provides a nice balance between fat and lean meat. For those of you who like to eat your money's worth, I brought a scale to my last visit and weighed each plate of meat. On average, each plate was around 190 grams but ranged from 110 250 depending on how many slices they decided to put. The original broth is a vegetable based broth that doesn't impart a lot of flavor into your meats and vegetables so for those that like to keep the taste of their meat and veggies pure and/or want their sauce to be the star of the show, the original broth is perfect. The sukiyaki broth will make everything quite sweet. Personally, I like putting my vegetables in this broth since I don't dip my vegetables in sauce normally and having a change up in savory to sweet is nice. I would caution against getting a full sukiyaki base unless you really like the sweetness. The one downside of my last visit to Shabu 88 was that their plates weren't always completely clean. I haven't noticed this in my previous visits so I'm willing to believe that it was a one off occurrence. At $29.99 per adult, Shabu 88 punches above its price point and shames the value propositions of rivals like Jazz Cat if you eat more than 5 7 oz of meat.

Love this place. We got here on a Thursday night and it's not busy, giving out very chill vibes with great playlist and excellent service. On top of it all, meat quality was superb get the shoulder top blade if you like fatty meat, and the boneless brisket for the lean type. We had the sukiyaki and original broth and I combined them both, soooo good! Will definitely come back!