Shabu-Ya

The interior of this restaurant look really old and need some major upgrade renovation. The foods and services here are alright. I won’t said it the best Korean and Japanese foods I ever taste. Don’t try the buffet lunch they have here. The foods are cold and there ain’t much food selection to choose from. The smoothie is watery with no favor of the fruit at all. I especially like their rice combination meal with the tofu soup that go with it.

Shabu-​Ya has convinced me that hot pot is the coolest thing ever! This is my first time having it, and I’m very pleased.
Three of the four people at my table got the «vegetarian delight,» and we were all very happy with it! The «vegetarian delight» includes tons of vegetables to cook in vegetable broth with spices, flavorings, and noodles.
It also includes lots of chewy, «meaty» (but actually vegetarian) items! There were these delicious little balls that my friends assumed were fish balls but turned out to actually be made out of mushrooms. Awesome, and so different than anything I’ve had before. There were also bits of yummy fried tofu; and some protein-​y, flat, sheets of tastiness that I guess must be bean curd. Mm! There were lots of other white vegetables that I was seeing for the first time and really loved.
Also, the waiter was very, very, nice and patient. The staff let us stay there for a long time after we stopped eating, even though the restaurant was filling up with other people.
Go Shabu-​Ya!

Tonight’s dining experience consisted of a series of disasters. In fact, I came back home at 10pm on a Friday night just to write this review. The waiter mixed up our order for three separate dishes, had us switch seats in the middle of our dinner, put meat in my vegetarian orders, … the list goes on. The waiter even took 30 minutes to take our bill; I’ve never dined at a place that simply would not allow me to pay for my meal!
Oh, and the food was very mediocre.
Definitely do not recommend; there are much better restaurants in Harvard Square. Would not return even if my friends begged.

OK place. Went there last night for a birthday. The place for dinner looks very spacious and relaxed. I decided to go for the Shabu Shabu of beef sirloin.
The service was so so. They brought the meals in different batches with several minutes difference between all of them. I was the only one in the table doing the hot pot and I got a metal cooking pot with beef stew. I threw in the cabbage, carrots, mushrooms and tofu to start cooking. Then I went for the beef that cooked fast. After the meet was done, threw in the noodles and eat them with the veggies.
OK flavor and good company

I would give Shabu-​Ya a 2.5, nice ambience and great location near Harvard Square but the food is very mediocre.
It’s definitely a student joint, minimalist colorful decors that’s perfect for a date or get together with friends. I tried both Shabu and regular food and was not impressed by either. The Shabu usually comes in combo with choice of meat, veggies and choice of carb. The meat is very dry and old even when just briefly dipped in the soup base, the soup base is quite blend including the Chinese spicy soup and they give very little condiments to start with, it looked like a drop of BBQ sauce. It is definitely not a cheap place with its poor quality and limited choices of food.
I would travel a few extra T stops and grab a truly delicious shabu meal from Kaze.

Located on the 2^nd floor of the Gallery in Harvard Sq, Shabu is a reasonably priced and tasty fare. Portions are healthy, service is efficient, and environment is comfortable. Worth the trip. Seems to be a Restaurant on my permanent resource list.
I had the Dragon-​Maki, Caterpillar Maki, Seaweed Salad. Mmmm, good.
Did not try the Shabu-​shabu, also known as hot-​pot, which you take slices of meat, veges, etc., swish it back and forth in boiling soup for a few seconds and it is ready to eat.

A bit pricy for what you get.
We ordered two pots and the vegetables that come with each pot is not enough for the entire meal. You might end up wanting to order another set of vegetables but then it’d cost you an extra ~$ 13 so eat them little by little! We ordered the beef sirloin, I believe, and that was prrretty good. I think everything that comes with the first set of your shabu shabu is limited so you end up having to order maybe one more of at least one thing. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the food.
There’s also the Shabu-​Ya lunch buffet, which one of the people in my group decided to order instead of the shabu shabu. The food he brought from the buffet looked absolutely delicious! We ended up eating some of the food he brought over. :D If I knew what I was getting myself into, I think I would’ve chosen the buffet over the shabu shabu. The buffet is cheap for how much you get, and it’s not like one of those cheap buffets, it’s pretty darn good!

After looking at the 3 star average reviews on Unilocal,I was a little turned off… until I realized that they were all about the hotpot. I think the secret about this place is their specials — I had the seafood pancake and stone pot bimbap and it was perfect!
Seafood pancake — perfectly crisp on the edges and soft but not mushy in the middle. Only downer was that there was a lack of shrimp (i think there were about three pieces in total), but it was somewhat compensated by the loads of artificial crab. Expensive at $ 12, but it was pretty big portioned and definitely filling enough for dinner by itself.
Stone pot bimbap — again, good consistency with the meat, veggies, and perfectly made egg on top. However, while it was yummy, there was nothing extra-​ordinary about it. At $ 15, it was way overpriced.
Overall, good deal w/​groupon but you could defintely find better deals in Allston.

If I had to pay in full for everything thi would get a 3 star. But I bought a groupon for 24 $ and got about 60+ for it. It was two entrees, one edamame app, one gyoza, and a dessert. I got the miso shabu and prime rib plate. Boyfriend got the bi bim bap
If I had to pay for this in full I would have not been so happy. The hot pot sauce wasn’t very strong. I could have gotten the chicken broth and not have noticed. And seeing as I paid extra for the miso I wish it had more impact. It was very good otherwise. I love shabu shabu. For the dessert I got iced lychee. Just don’t. It’s literally a can of lychee poured on ice cubes in a martini glass.
Boyfriend loved his bi bim bap and I saw other people at different tables eyeing his food too. So that’s good.
The service leaves a little to be asked for. It’s kind of like they give you your food, you’re cooking it. So why do they need to come back? Unfortunately I do need the staff to come back to: refill waters, take plates, and generally just see how our meal is going.
I liked the atmosphere here though. Very modern and clean. Approachable for those new to shabu shabu and centrally located

I had a groupon so decided to check out with my friend. I was impressed by fresh and good quality meat and vegetables. Their kim chi broth was amazingly savory adding up the flavor to each ingredient. We tried a green roll that has hamachi and tobiko eggs. it was very tasty as well. overall, it was much better than I expected and I will definitely come back for another «swish swish»

My friend tempted me here with a Google deal and the promise of some good hot pot. «There’s hot pot in Harvard Square?!» Last I checked, all the good hot pot places are in Chinatown. And, well, that remains the case. All the good hot pot places are still in Chinatown.
Ugh, another Google deal /​Groupon that got me good. It’s like when your parents told you that you and your siblings were taking a car ride to the candy shop and then somehow you ended up at the dentist with a wad of gauze in your mouth and enough drool to fill a bowl. Yeah, THAT kind of feeling.
I give this place points for trying, but what it offers in modern equipment (everything is electric, vs. gas, and is easily controlled, vs. having to hail a waitress every time your pot starts overflowing and you freak out, looking at the 7 knobs all in Chinese), it lacks in flavor and quality of food.
We ordered the kimchi beef broth and ordered some dumplings, extra mushrooms, and a slew of beef alongside the typical greens and mushrooms offered. When the dumplings came, they were rock hard, frozen. Like, glacier in a scenic Lord of the Rings moment… frozen.
Ok, I don’t expect über-​fresh, but I also don’t expect anything to come frozen like I just got hungry in the middle of the night and decided to raid my freezer for a bag of frozen dumplings I got at 88 Supermarket. For that, I get to a) stay in my pajamas and b) not shell out $ 35/​person for mediocre food.
The staff is nice, but I wouldn’t recommend this place to a friend, based on the food alone. Maybe an enemy.
Emoticon rating: :T

I’m Asian, and I know what good hot pot should taste like. Shabu Ya doesn’t meet my standard. The soup is bland and tasteless, the beef is dry, and they only give us soy sauce as sauce. The portion is also not that generous, but I can let that go if the quality is good.
The worst thing is the service. The waitress that serviced us was an Asian girl with the most obnoxious attitude I’ve seen. She was impatient and overall rude. I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone I know. Bad food and bad service!

This is not my favorite shabu place… It’s probably my least fave shabu place in the area, actually. Good service, quality food, but small small portions for the price and they were out of some things the menu said my platter came with, and didn’t even offer to replace it with other items.
Sushi was pretty good though!
Would not come back again if I didn’t have a groupon…

Service: 3
Food: 3
Ambiance: 3
Overall, a very average place. Nothing to get angry over, nothing to get excited about. I’ve tried the shabu shabu, which is decent, the korean food, and the japanese food – all «A-​OK». It’s a weird mix of all types of Asian food, so I suppose if you can’t decide whether you want Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or Thai, this would be a good way to delay that choice.
It’s a great place for groups, for sake bombs and loud chattering. Service is decently fast and they can get you in and out in 30 minutes if needed. Prices are a bit steep for the quality of food.

Shabu-​Ya is located in the center of Harvard Square and offers Korean food, Shabu, and Japanese food (with sushi). Clearly, the owners of Shabu-​Ya are not economists and have not read up on specialization, as I have tried something from every category and was not impressed with anything.
On my first visit to Shabu-​Ya, my friends and I decided to try the Korean and Japanese aspects: we got some Yaki Soba, Toppoki, Bibimbop and some sushi rolls. The food was a bit too salty for our tastes, and the sushi was all right. Not bad. I got the Suntofu another time and was disappointed that they didn’t give me an egg to put into my soup. As for the shabu, I’ve never really liked eating shabu at restaurants. I’m usually very paranoid about them cleaning and preparing the food properly. But thankfully the vegetables were pretty clean and the seafood was pretty fresh. But overall, there was nothing special, and the broths were just okay. The price for shabu is average when compared to other hot pot places in the Boston area.
Despite the fact that the food kinda sucks, Shabu-​Ya still attracts a lot of people, many of whom happen to be in college. So it gets noisy with people drinking sake-​bombs and such. Which is fun.
So if you want a fun bonding and drinking experience with your friends, come here for the lively atmosphere and sake-​bombs, not for the food.

Aw, this place used to be a Korean restaurant my family went to when I was a kid. It still has signs in Korean that use both their old name «Silla» and the new one, «Shabu-​Ya.»
Anywho, we had a groupon for this place and it was pretty darn good, though not as yummy I think as Shabu-​Zen (husband actually prefers it, though). Mostly, I liked the atmosphere. kind of funky, cute, modern. We had shabu, but I’d definitely go back someday to try other stuff, too. I definitely recommend it–

Shabu-​ya is a fusion Japanese/​Korean restaurant that specializes in Shabu Shabu.
We ordered two servings of Shabu Shabu, while my friend also added an order of Red Sox Maki (tuna, avocado, spicy mayo with tobiko on top).
I had one piece of the roll just to get an idea of what it tastes like. There was a pretty big piece of sushi in each roll. I am not a huge fan of mayo, so I avoided the sauce at the bottom. Luckily the sushi roll itself was very simple without any artificial non-​seafood flavors (think excessive mayo & fried stuff). Instead I could taste the fresh sushi itself, along with the savory avocado and crunchy (?) tobiko
While we enjoyed the sushi roll as an appetizer, the waiter came by with a platter of vegetables (lettuce, cabbage, corn in the cob, tofu, mushroom) and raw meat (boneless beef short rib) to be dunked in a pot of boiling broth, special shabu sauce (similar to soy sauce but less salty) for dipping the meat and the vegetables, and a bowl of udon noodles.
Eating shabu is a fun experience if you have never tried it. You get to «indirectly» cook the food by dunking it in the boiling broth and dipping it in the sauce. It is also a course meal that involves vegetables and meat as the first course and noodles as the second course. I have definitely had a much tasiter shabu shabu in Korea, but it was nice to get a little taste of «home» in Cambridge. Nonetheless, I think I would rather stick to sushi rolls or Korean food at Shabu Ya because the vegetables weren’t very fresh and the broth itself wasn’t very flavorful.

I went using a groupon worth a maki roll and two entrees. We got the playboy roll, bibambap, and the beef something. At first when we reached the door and peered in around 3PM we weren’t sure whether or not it was a good idea to go in because I had read some reviews from Unilocalers that it wasn’t a good place to go because of old veggies and what not. Nope, the playboy roll was delicious and fresh, the bibambap was good, and the beef katsu or something was pretty good, albeit some pieces were over done (then again it is the korean style of beef).
Shabu-​Ya is a chill place with interesting décor, since it’s located right near the heart of Harvard Sq it was easy to find and in the midst of a hustling bustling community, but I wouldn’t go there again unless a friend wanted to because it’s pretty expensive for certain dishes (that’s how they get into the wallets of the Harvard students!). Once is enough for me because there’s better Korean food out there.

Tasty! Wish the waitress has given us a rundown of what the heck we where supposed to do when we had the hot pot on the table but we managed to figure it out.
A ton of food for the cost which was nice. I’d love to go back.
We had the mixed hot pot — with chicken and beef, the soft shell crab roll, the spicey tuna roll and the roll with cheese on top (I don’t remember the name.) The sushi was very tasty but I felt like the broth for the hot pot could have been a bit more flavorful. Found myself adding hot sauce.

The price of the food is steep at Shabu-​Ya. We ordered the Makimono combo, which was California roll, tuna roll, and salmon and avocado roll, plus miso soup which we never got until the very end (a different server kindly brought it to us, and actually brought us an extra one for our trouble). I ordered sake (salmon) nigiri, which was thick in the right way, and delicious. The sushi was nice, albeit a little falling apart, and the miso soup was great. Their induction tables are gorgeous, and the concept of making the restaurant into the hot pot (as another patron/​Yelper mentioned below) is so stylish it makes me squee. The cheerful green booths, bead chain curtains, cute tables, and visually-​varied lighting fixtures are all lovely. We got surf and turf shabu-​shabu, and the original server was honest when asked whether or not we should order beef broth or another broth (she said the beef broth is really bland), so we ordered miso broth. The experience of shabu-​shabu is fun and romantic. I understand that other reviewers are unhappy with the way Shabu-​Ya used to be, and the quantity of the ingredients, etc, but this was our first trip here, and all I have to go on is the cost of ingredients and the comparable price of shabu-​shabu elsewhere in the world (slash on the internet).
It was pricey. It was also delicious. But what was weird was that a person who may have been a manager or owner came over and started micromanaging our experience. We are not shabu-​shabu experts. But you know, if your customers are laughing and talking and looking like they’re having a great time, does it REALLY matter that they poured the ponzu sauce into the pot? They/​we LIKED it that way. The staff member who came over laughed at us and said that we were Doing It Wrong, and that we were supposed to mix the fresh garlic/​fish paste/​scallions/​chiles into the ponzu sauce and not the pot. Guess what? We were having fun before you came over and embarrassed us. We paid $ 21 plus $ 3 (miso upgrade) for a small plate of bok choi, Chinese cabbage, herbs, one slice of mushroom, one tiny piece of carrot, two 1″ cubes of tofu, one slice of cob-​in corn, eight slices of raw beef, and a plate of two raw shrimps/​scallops/​salmon-​bits/​calamari/​squids and four slices of «fish paste.» We paid it freely. Now, don’t come and be the Shabu-​Shabu Police! Let us eat! Let us play! Let us have our romantic experience! Sheesh.
The server who brought us our apologetic miso soup also suggested dessert, and we were in the mood, so we ordered two frozen items that looked awesome on the menu in photos, but arrived looking the worse for wear. My giant fruit bombe had been previously unfrozen at some point in its life, then refrozen, and arrived smashed on the plate (it was a fist-​sized ball of mango, passionfruit, and some other fruity sorbet or something in a white chocolate shell), and our chocolate teddy bear ice cream treat looked like it had been out in the rain for a little while. But they were still delicious, and we still had an awesome time together, so that worked out well. We love shabu-​shabu, and will stop into Shabu-​Ya if we’re in the neighborhood again, otherwise we’ll try out some of the other shabu-​shabu eateries in the area.