Cocary Shabu Shabu BBQ

Its been a while since we came here due to the posts we saw here on Unilocal about unwanted ‘guests’ crawling around but after seeing the A rating they got in May 2016, it made us feel a lil better coming back. We did miss eating here and we truly enjoy the food, flavors, and the staff here.

When we came in it wasn’t too busy and for a group of 6 we were seated right away. Our server was very friendly in bringing us our waters and starting the stove for us.
It was my first time here since I was visiting and I was happy to see that they had tons of meat options already prepped in the back. They’re not too expensive, but each plate varies in price. We had an easy enough time with cooking with our stove and when it got too charred our server fixed it for us.
Didn’t try the hot pot so I can’t comment on that. They do have ice cream and shakes inside as well so after you’re done with your meal you can get something sweet to balance out all the meat you just ate.

I love this place! my friend and i stuff ourselves silly and the it only cost $ 15 for our meals COMBINED!!! the only problem i have is that sometimes the waitress is always busy or never pays attention. i would still recommend this place even if the service isn’t that great.

This is one of my favorite go to restaurants. I can go late at night for great food. Self serve so you don’t have to wait on anyone and cook it to your liking. The selection of food is great. The price is fair and the staff is friendly. And they have a section for boba and specialty drinks as well. Highly recommend place.

My house has been under construction for almost 10 months now and cocary has been my kitchen away from home. I LOVE how healthy it is compared to other Chinese restaurants. No MSG hang over, no greasy feeling afterwards. It has been our family go-​to place for dinner at least once a week because of how affordable it is. The kids love the grilled meats, rice and soy sauce and shaved ice dessert.

Are people really on here complaining that much about the service for a self serve restaurant? Come on lol. We came here (it wasn’t busy, maybe 4 – 5 other occupied tables) & there was only one server working at the time (to bring drinks, refill condiments, refill the broth) & for what she was doing by herself, I think she did an okay job. There’s a difference between service lacking due to laziness/​inattentiveness & actual servers not getting to you as quick as your impatient/​demanding self would like because they’re running around (actually working & helping others too). Our server didn’t speak English well, but understood enough for us to communicate with her. She got to us promptly every time & got us everything we needed when we asked for it. Good enough for me. The rest we did ourselves… BECAUSE IT’S SELF SERVE.
Anyway, about the food… So as you can see, this place gives you hot pot & a bbq grill… at one time. UMMMMM… WHAT!!! WHO’S THE CRAZY GENIUS TO THINK OF THIS?! BEST IDEA EVER!!!
The plates are generally cheap. They range from $ 1-​$ 3.19 ($ 3.19 are mostly meats & seafood plates). I’ll have to agree with everyone else, the broth for the hot pot was watered down… BUT if you throw in the right things (meats, vegetables, butter, soy sauce/​salt, green onions, whatever else you want), it’ll definitely add flavor. So do so to your liking.
I also see some Unilocalers complaining about the quality of the meat… where do you think you are? Lol. Relax y’all. If you need Grade A /​Prime Grade USDA meat with abundant marbling quality, walk the other direction & stop leaving bad reviews for restaurants that never advertised 5 star hotel restaurant quality meat. The meat here is delicious & acceptable for the price, location, and restaurant itself. Give em a break lol. You get what you pay for.
White rice is free – also self serve.
If your grill chars too fast, your fire/​heat is too high. So beware of that. Just turn it down a bit if you notice the grill starting to char a bit. Not difficult.
This place is not the most sanitary of places, but it was clean enough for my germaphobe self.
I personally had a good experience here. I’m really sorry for those who didn’t. If you have an open heart/​mind for food, love hot pot & bbq at the same time, pay this place a visit. It’s fun & yummy :-)
Overall, 3.75 stars, but I’ll round up!
P. S. they offer 20% off lunch

3.5 stars for me.
This concept reminds me of Hot Pot City in Westminster– you pick your desired ingredients from a barrage of refrigerators and you choose to cook on the grill or cook it in the soup.
Fortunately for me, I was with some seasoned pros who knew exactly what to put into the soup to make it delicious – it came out great and before I knew it, I was like 4 rice bowls in deep (don’t worry, they are small) and I can’t remember how much soup I had but my belly felt like a water bed by the end of the evening.
Service is slow (it was a full house that night) but I think it was because we were toward the back of the restaurant where you get little to no attention.
It’s not the cleanest, but it is also not that pricey… you really do get what you pay for.
With the plethora of food options in this area, I would def try those first before returning here.

Decided to come here because me and the BF couldn’t figure out what else to eat since it was already 10pm. This place is pretty huge and spacious which I like. Cocary serves hotpot in the middle of the metal pot and then around the pot is where you can barbecue meat and whatever else you want fried.
Honestly, I actually don’t think Cocary tastes bad, it’s just food that is mediocre, which is why it gets three stars. It’s just not a type of food I would crave, but it’s something to eat when you want some BBQ and hotpot at the same time I guess?
Their hotpot soup is pretty bland, I always have to add salt or satay sauce so it has more taste. I like the way Cocary is set up. They have a huge fridge on the side that has all of their ingredients like meat, veggies, noodles, seafood, butter, satay sauce, dessert etc. You pretty much get whatever you want and they pay by dish. The meat and seafood dishes are around $ 4 each and the veggies, mushrooms, noodles etc are around $ 2 each. They also do charge for each butter, each egg and each satay sauce you get. Basically anything you get from the fridge will cost money. The only thing they don’t charge for is rice and porridge.
They don’t have a HUGE selection, but it’s not too bad. They have almost everything that I eat in hotpot so that’s good for me. My boyfriend did fry some meat and it’s honestly all mediocre. I fried a bunch of other stuff that isn’t meat as well. Like I fried an egg and it was delicious. Just had to add salt and it was bomb! I also fried some vermicelli noodles and whatever else I could think of, I thought it was fun!
They also serve Taiwanese style shaved ice here. I never tried it but I would sure like to one day!

Came in at midnight with my husband and nephew to spontaneously try this place and it was darn good! Our first time having this and we definitely would come back. My husband even forgot his phone and the waiter kindly ran outside to catch us and give us the phone.

Never had a problem here. Staff are super nice, food is good. I recommend going here for lunch because it’s cheaper and less busy. (Better service) I love the beef and the veggie options. :) boba was SUPER good surprisingly. Honestly, I think timing is key with this one because when they are busy– they rush. Not the CLEANEST place but it works! Go try it. Super cool to have both Shabu and BBQ. :)

This was me and my friend’s first time eating at Cocary in a while; we usually go to the one in Montery Park. However, we felt like venturing further tonight and went to this location, which we now realize was a mistake
Our dining experience was mediocre to say the least. First, the waitress seated us in a booth where a party had just finished eating. I didn’t know this cause I saw the party leave, I knew this cause the table was still dirty since she clearly didn’t wipe it down before seating us.
But whatever, that wasn’t a big deal so we just went to get our meat & veggies for the hotpot and BBQ. After I got my plates and sat down first, my friend came back and said that the waiter (blonde hair kpop looking dude) elbowed him in the mouth… and didn’t even apologize… Like wow, really? I know that Chinese people working in food service can be rude but this is on another level
The rest of the dining experience was okay, the unsanitaryness aside, but at the end when our check came out, they tried to charge us for 2 plates that were already at the table before we were seated. When we tried to explain this to the waitress, she didn’t understand us and when I looked up, there were 3 other waiters surrounding us trying to figure out what was going on since they didn’t believe us. The girl at the register finally just told us «fine this time is ok» It’s ok doe there won’t a next time cause the cheap price isn’t worth the rude service and questionable environment
TL;DR: there are much better places to eat around this area so skip this one

Me and my family go here once in a while, food is always good. You can take home anything you dont finish, even the soup!

The idea of a hot pot + bbq style restaurant is great but it was a bit disappointing coming here.
The waiter comes and prepares the broth for you which is essentially just water & some garlic/​green onions/​chili peppers. You can grab your meats, veggies, dessert, even sauce in the clear refrigerator nearby. The prices are listed on top of the refrigerator (most of the plates are $ 3.19 unless it’s veggies, etc). The rice & water are on the counter that you can help yourself to.
What I didn’t like about this restaurant is that it gave me the impression that the food wasn’t fresh and that the restaurant didn’t seem clean. The booth seats we sat on felt slightly sticky. We tried pouring some salt on our food with the salt shaker but there was some kind of oil build up in the holes so the salt shaker didn’t work.
I also don’t like the idea of all the food being pre-​plated. The food looked like it was there for a long time (though refrigerated) & I thought it was weird that even the bbq satay sauce was even pre-​scooped into a bowl. It’s definitely convenient but just didn’t make the food look fresh.
I don’t think I’ll be back.

Love this place for the choices you can make, very afforable
A great place to take and bring your friends :)

Family and I come all the time… but this time… there were COCKROACHES coming out of the walls! The roach made its way to a bowl… and once we told the waitress… she said she’ll notify the owner. After a brief phone call… she said «owner will give 10% off your bill» SERIOUSLY?!
We won’t return to dine here again.
See pictures that I posted…
This place needs health inspection ASAP!
Dine and beware of pests showing up next to you and in your food. Good luck with that. Might have food poisoning…

Blood was running down my thigh, and not in the way you’d think. It’s best to be careful with some of these meat plates and how you hold them, since they are prepped ahead of time with some plastic wrap.
My friends found this cool place and prices are actually not that bad, since I left it quite full.
You get free rice, congee, and sauce (think sacha).
You have marinated meats that go on the grill, obviously, but be careful since oil does splatter all over. These were actually quite good.
You also have shabu meat. It’s not the best quality, obviously, but it is still good. We got some fish balls and fish tofu to put in there, which were all very good. Our fav was definitely the fish ball with roe inside. It’s shaped like a mini onion so it’s hard not to miss!
I also found some fried tofu with wood ear fungus, which was surprising since I usually expect them at Viet places and for me, they are quite hard to find.
We got some tong oh veggie with it and a mixed platter of veggie with tomato and corn, making the broth delectable. I loved the soup afterwards as it was very flavorful. Best part was that no one fought me for it.
It’s an ok place overall in terms of selection and cleanliness, and the value was ok – I’d still rather go elsewhere for shabu, but I don’t regret giving this place a try.

If you like shabu shabu, and not only likes to cook for yourself/​table; you get to pick and chose your ingredients too! I usually don’t eat all the different choices that other shabu places give on a plate, I like how Cocary has the self-​sufficient service.
In all honestly, the service is okay, usually there is one or two people working and it would be a full house. Prepare your patience, this place is chinese own (don’t expect great service). The price is worth your wallet, I remembered getting a hefty stack of plates between 4 people and the bill coming out to be no more than 30dollars.
TIP: Don’t wear a «night out in the town» outfit, the smell you will garner will be a great mixture of burnt food. I also recommend going in the morning, there is a discount for early eaters which adds to the convenience and price.

It’s so cheap it’s ridiculous! We came in for lunch and only spent less than 20 bucks… for 3 people? Whaaaat?!
It was our first time and the waitress showed us how everything works. She led us to the drinks station (we didn’t get anything from there), rice and soup area (unlimited!) then to their fridge where you get all the stuff you want to bbq or whatever you want go into your hotpot. A plate is for $ 3.19 and you can get some veggies, tofu, jelly or fruit from the last fridge for about 2 bucks per plate. They also have the basic soy sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper and chili tray per table plus you can get bbq sauce or satay sauce from the fridge for a fee.
Service was excellent. There weren’t a lot of people and I only saw 1 waitress working but she was on top of her game. She knew that it was our first time so we appreciate how she constantly checked up on us.
A cheap option if you want bbq without having to do AYCE. They also give you a 20% discount during lunch!

I’ve been coming here with my family since I was a kid (a different location, until this one opened).
I love that it’s «DIY» and it’s really good. I even tried to copy their marinade when I moved where there was no Cocarys.
Just keep in mind that it’s like Korean BBQ, you’ll smell afterwards from grilling all your beef, chicken and lamb (lamb is my personal favorite).

It’s ok for what it is — when you and your hungry companions can’t decide between KBBQ and Shabu Shabu … you get the best of both worlds.
You pay for the plates that you choose to cook and eat. There is no set menu except for drinks. They have selections of meat, seafood, veggies, and other items for bbq-​ing and shabu shabu-​ing. :D Average — «small» plates are $ 2.99/ea -(All proteins and selected veggies). Large plate — veggies (napa cabbage, spinach, watercress, etc) $ 1.59/ea.
AYCE pumpkin porriage (add some of the shabu shabu broth) — it’s pretty delish! and steamed rice.
Normal condiments on the table — vinegar, soy sauce, chili flakes, and salt. Can ask for hot sauce, oyster sauce, butter (for cooking), and sesame oil for free. Satay/​BBQ sauce is extra (say whaaaaaaat?).
Parking — plentiful in a lot shared with Ihop and a few other restaurants.
Overall, good for what it is. Just that the portions are quite small (probably about 2 to 3 ozs of protein per plate).
LOVE that they are open until 1 am. :)