Nabezo Shibuya Center Gai

I spent like four birthdays in a row here, because it’s just that good. All you can eat meat and vegetable hot pot? Yes please.
The price is pretty good; usually between 2,000 to 3,000 yen (20 – 30 bucks ish) per person for your standard hot pot, depending on if you get drinks or not. But I mean come on, all you can eat shabu shabu. Totally worth it.
Basically, you just ask them to keep bringing you meat (pork or beef) and whenever you want to add more vegetables, you just go get them yourself. There’s ponzu and goma sauce served to dip your meat in; the goma sauce is great.
The ambiance here is chill; dark wood and dark rooms with nice accent lighting; even though this is a chain, you feel like you’re seriously in a really nice place.
Anyway, excellent place, excellent food.

Fantastic all you can eat deal that’s tourist friendly. Highly recommended for dinner in the Shibuya area.
Nabezo is a large chain of nabe (Japanese hot pot) restaurants across Japan. It’s owned by the same company that does Mo-​Mo-​Paradise (even cheaper shabu shabu chain) and Barbacoa (Brazilian churrascaria). As a chain restaurant, this is not 5-​star fancy Ginza sukiyaki here, but the cost performance is pretty fantastic.
You can choose between 90 minute and 120 minute courses featuring beef & pork, domestic beef & pork (wagyu and nihonbuta), or veggie only. You have the options of two soup broths: shabu shabu (simple dashi broth), sukiyaki (egg included), kimchi, soy collagen, or tonkotsu (pork bone soup).
As soon as you’re shown to your table, your server will offer to bring you your meat, while veggies are self-​serve from the buffet.
If you’re doing a course with beef and pork, the server will bring you as many refills of meat as you’d like. They also come by occasionally to top off your shabu shabu broth. Ponzu and goma dipping sauces are included with shabu shabu in a carafe on the table. If you’re doing sukiyaki, then you’ll also get carafes of warishita (sukiyaki broth) and water to top the sukiyaki broth up yourself. The egg that comes with the sukiyaki is only one-​per-​customer, but you can get more for an extra fee. Each soup broth comes with its own dipping sauce, with your server will bring to your table.
The buffet at the Shibuya Center Gai location is what makes this Nabezo my favorite out of all the ones I’ve been to. They offer a huge variety of veggies that vary by the season. There is also a condiment bar where you can customize your own sauces to dip your shabu shabu, a curry and rice bar, an ice cream bar, and a drinks bar for an extra fee (water and hot gobo tea are available for free). In between the curry rice and condiment bar is an area with other items to add to your nabe, including noodles (udon and ramen), Korean kimchi and toppogi, Chinese dumplings, and ground chicken to make tsukune meatballs. I recommend adding the ramen noodles to tonkotsu broth for DIY tonkotsu ramen.
Everything from the buffet area (except for the drinks machine) are unlimited all you can eat, which is a pretty amazing deal when you think about it. Even though the temptation is strong to fill up on nabe, save some room for dessert. The ice cream bar here carries four seasonal Japanese flavors, which range from the familiar (strawberries and milk) to kind of disgusting (Japanese greens that taste like grass ice cream). Not every Nabezo offers an ice cream bar or even AYCE rice (I’m looking at you, Nabezo Asakusa), which is why I recommend the Shibuya Center Gai location in particular.
Walk ins are okay, but it’s recommended to call ahead for large groups or during peak dinner hours. They’re very accommodating to foreigners and some of the staff can speak English.

We are shabu shabu newbies and had no clue on what to do. Luckily, the waitress spoke a little English, gave an English menu and proceeded to tell us what we need to do.
Like I said, newbies, so we just chose the shabu shabu and tonkatsu like broth. I guess after looking at the pictures here, we made the mistake of not putting more veggies and spices to our broth. I mean it tasted good but it could’ve been better. Oh well, there’s always next time– now we now what to do! Also, they have melon soda so yay!!!

All my hot pot and shabu lovers, HIT THIS UP!
Be aware, it is all you can eat, so put on your best stretchy pants. The prices depend on what meat you choose — pork, beef & pork, veggies, etc. and they also have 90 minute or 120 minute limits, with the latter being more expensive of course.
Overall, each option is about 2000Y and up, except there was this choice of Japanese beef & pork, which was like 4000Y and up. I was totally ok with the regular beef & pork but the bf was like, let’s do the Japanese one! I was like.. .. .. ok you big spender. But actually he didn’t know it was about 2000Y more and just thought whatever, sounds good, so… read the menu guys.
Anyway, no regrets though. It was some tasty ass shabu/​hotpot with some bomb meats. The quality of the beef and pork was great, and it better be for a whole 2000Y more.
We got the sukiyaki and shio tonkotsu broths, which reminded me a little bit of tonkotsu ramen broth but a loooot lighter. Both SO GOOD.
They have all the veggies laid out on the counter, as well as fish balls, udon, rice, other kinds of noodles, chicken paste, etc etc etc. They also have a huge selection of sauces and seasonings. OHHH so good. They also have beef CURRY! I used it as a sauce but people also just eat it with rice. Seriously amazing spread.
We both ate enough to feel like garbage cans for the next 3 hours, but again, no regrets. Everything was fresh, delicious, and just sooooo friggen worth it.
ANDDD on top of that, you also get AYCE dessert. I mean, it’s just ice cream, but really good ice cream. They had like 4 flavors when I went — grape, chestnut, sweet potato (I think ube, it was purple), and caramel. CHESTNUT AND SWEET POTATO! As full as I was, I still made sure I got 2 cupfuls of those lol.

This is an «all you can eat» shabushabu place, and you will probably spend a bit more than 3000 yen per person (with unlimited soft drink, which are sold separately). If you choose not to get the free drinks, you have some selection of tea, as well as water.
They have several types of soup you can choose from, and the meat is of good quality. The service is excellent as they will come to refill the soup automatically and ask whether you want more meat.

This is a pretty cool shabu shabu restaurant not that far from the Shibuya station (take the Hachiko exit out of the station). They have an English menu, though I couldn’t figure out the difference between regular beef and pork, and their Japanese beef and pork, besides the price. We got the regular option at 90 minutes. This meant we were served as much meat as we wanted/​could eat and our visit could last up to an hour and a half. There was also a two hour option, but 90 minutes embed up working perfectly for us. (At lunch time the options are either 60 or 90 min)
Along with the meat, which is brought to your table by your server, they have buffet-​style bars with all you can eat fresh vegetables, pickled stuff, pork dumplings, noodles, rice, curry, desserts, and a soda machine. You can get all you can drink soda for 400¥ (which is almost unheard of in Tokyo). There are also some specialty drinks and sodas that aren’t part of the soda machine that you can purchase for a fee of about 400−500¥.
The sesame sauce was a tiny bit spicy, maybe a 1.5 on a scale of 0 to 10. I would have preferred 0 but still ate a lot of sauce here. The pot they set up at your table to cook in has two sides and you get to choose from five different kinds of broth (shabu shabu, sukiyaki, kimchi, garlic, and oxtail). We tried shabu shabu and the garlic one and each of us enjoyed our choice.
Overall I would recommend this place if you’re in the mood for shabu shabu and like an all you can eat style meal. One last note, the music in the restaurant was kind of weird. It was in English, was pretty loud and seemed an odd choice of style, but I think that’s what’s tending right now as I heard stuff like this in other shops too.

Sigh… boy, this place just spoils me.
On a cold winter’s day, what’s more suitable than being warmed up with a mixed hotpot?
Last week was freezing and my friend decided to come here for some warmth.
We didn’t really care about the all-​you-​can-​eat course but it was still we ordered the 2hour course so we got everything. The 2 hour courses included a choice of 2 soup bases, all the beef and pork you can eat, all the veggies we can munch on and to finish, all the noodles and dessert. Nom nom.
When we were still in university, we’d stuff ourselves like mad at these all-​you-​can-​eat places, but not anymore. Still, knowing that you’re not going to be overcharged and is only paying a certain amount is good to know.
We choose the kimchee soup and soy milk soup base; a flavrousome, strong and spicy soup for the beef and a milk and creamy soup for the pork.
We had a great night out! Can’t wait to go again before the winter ends.