japanese/hotpot: i recommend HELLO KITTY SHABU

HELLO KITTY SHABU SHABU

No. 17, Alley 27, Lane 216, ZhongXiao E.   Rd, Sec. 4

台北市大安區忠孝東路四段216巷27弄17號

(02) 2711-5216

MRT: Zhongxiao/ Dunhua

website: Hello Kitty Shabu FB page

hours: 11:30AM - 10PM

$$ (about NT$500-700 per person)

Kid friendliness: booster seats available

Visit reviewed: 2/20/2016

Before my childhood friend Jenny even got to Taipei, she messaged me from LA, "Can we go to Hello Kitty Shabu?" And being the good host, friend and curious food blogger, I said, "Of course!" A reservation and few days later, we found ourselves wandering the alleys near Zhongxiao near Lane 216 looking for it.

Once you get closer, the glow of Hello Kitty's face beckons and a lifesized Hello Kitty greets you at the door, ready for selfies (also in that alley, NCIS Sushi, Hoshina udon and a new branch of dessert spot Monteur Cafe).

The inside decor seems to be casual Japanese, with lots of small tables for individual hotpot and a side area with tatami-style, lower seating for bigger groups. 

Reservations at Hello Kitty Shabu Shabu are limited to one and half hours, and when we arrived at 5:17pm, we were a little late. In Taipei, busy restaurants will usually tell you, you have a ten minute grace period before you potentially lose your table, i.e. If people are waiting there. Sometimes the restaurant will call you, or if you call them sometimes they'll be nice enough to hold it for you. I didn't call and they didn't call us, so when we told them our reservation was for 5pm, the girl told us we were late and it seemed like she was going to tell us we lost the table. But since the restaurant wasn't full and there weren't people in line, I emphasized that my friend had flown all the way from LA to eat Hello Kitty hotpot, and after some discussion between her and another server, they directed us to a small table in the back. 

Tables for four are divided with a removable divider, which is smart for the restaurant but crowded for us. Even though no one sat next to us, you can see there isn't a lot of space, so you have to do some Tetris-like maneuvering to make everything fit with your hotpot, once your veggies, meat and steamed egg comes. 

Hello Kitty Shabu offers individual yuan yang hotspots, so you pick two broths out of four choices- regular kombu, pork bone broth, tomato or Mala. Then you choose your meat- there's three kinds of beef or pork available or chicken or seafood. Then you pick noodles or Hello Kitty shaped rice. Everyone gets their own veggies and fish cakes, and additional hello kitty-fied fish cakes are available to add on. 

There's also fried shrimp, chicken and croquettes to order on the side, and a colorful drink menu. 

Once you've ordered, let the photo ops begin!! (Haha the only reason you're here right?) The servers asked us if we were done taking photos before whisking away the bow adorned wooden lids.

Complimentary pre-meal amuse bouche- I think it was konjac- but I found it inedible and tasteless.. 

I ended up choosing the pork broth and tomato. Next time I would skip tomato (it intensified when cooking) and choose the plainer kombu or go for spicy Mala. 

Additional fish cakes we added filled with mentaiko. You can also pick cheese filled. (NT$160 for 2)

The vegetables are quite bountiful- with chinese cabbage, cabbage, various mushrooms, corn, one piece of pumpkin, broccoli, taro and some tofu skin and fish cake.. And then topped with a Hello Kitty thing-- we think it was some sort of tofu soy thing with the HK face burned in, which actually gave it a smoky burned flavor that was kind of unpleasant. But oh, it makes for a cute photo. Lol. 

See how we barely managed to fit everything on the table, and it fits just so. I got the beef (NT$550) which wasn't as tender as the short rib (NT$650).

I loved this little apple bowl and cover with the spoon. I would maybe buy a set if they sold them there. The steamed egg inside was decent too. 

Of course most of you know how Shabu works, but in case you don't, you basically cook the meats and veggies in the hotpot until it's to your liking. You can dip in the sesame or soy sauce, but pork broth was actually quite flavorful already. 

Lots of chopped veggies at the bottom of the large bowl. Sometimes restaurants cheat and it's actually empty or raised inside, but I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty. 

Cooking and eating.. As for the mysterious Hello Kitty faced tofu, it was a spongy, mysterious bite and tasted a bit burnt from what I'm guessing is the char from imprinting the face onto the tofu. I took one bite and wasn't sure if I wanted to take another. 

Dessert at the end included in the set are a few bite sized, brown sugar mochi..

All in all, it wasn't a bad meal as shabu spots go. Would I recommend it? Sure, I'd come back with other Hello Kitty loving friends- I like how they give you a lot of veggies, broth options and steamed egg on the side. And if you're a Hello Kitty fan, then you kind of have to experience it for yourself. It's not as bling and overly cute like Hello Kitty Sweets (now Hello Kitty Kitchen) so now Hello Kitty fans have two places to choose from, three if you count Hello Kitty Bubble, four, if you count the Hello Kitty food souvenir shop next to Ice Monster I have to write up. I was surprised to see an older couple next to us eating (and chilling) who didn't appear to be Kitty fans, but maybe they just liked the food. Also there were empty seats in the restaurant during our hour and half so maybe they save spots for walk ins. It will be interesting to see if Hello Kitty Shabu becomes popular- on one hand, Taiwanese people love hotpot, especially in the winter time. On the other hand, because they loved hotpot, the hotpot game in Taipei is fierce- there's super cheap version and fancy, luxe versions, spicy mala, all you can eat, vegetarian only, herbal broth, the list goes on and on, and now, you can add Hello Kitty Shabu to it. 

Snapshot: HELLO KITTY x MCD's fried pineapple pie

If you're a fan of McD's fried apple pie, like I am, then you might find yourself trying the fried PINEapple pie in Taiwan. When I ordered it, I didn't even realize it was going to come in Hello Kitty-fied cuteness. Then I realized that I missed the whole Hello Kitty x McDonalds Taiwan menu (basically sticking HK's face on the packaging) they were doing the past month and the launch of the Hello Kitty toys. 

As for the taste? The crust is essentially the same crispy flaky goodness as the fried apple pie. The inside is a thick pineapple gel filling that is overly sweet and sugary, similar to the filling of those old Hostess pies. The pie is served hot, so be careful when digging in. Let's be honest- most of you will try this just because of the hello kitty cuteness, not the taste. 

Cuteeeeeee Hello Kitty x McDonalds toys- hello kitty ladybug, pineapple, strawberry and watermelon !! 

They should just stick Hello Kitty on everything for a few months and see what happens! Haha. 

gastronomy/fusion: i strongly recommend RAW

RAW
No. 301, Lequn 3rd Road, Zhongshan District
台北市中山區樂群三路301號
(02) 8501-5800

MRT: Jianan Road

website: www.raw.com.tw

hours: Lunch: Wed- Sun / 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Dinner: Tues - Sat  / 6 PM - 10 PM
Closed Mondays

$$$$ (NT$1850/per person plus 10% service)

Kid friendliness: only set menus available so only probably only foodie kids will appreciate

Visit reviewed: 4/7/2015 & 3/4/2015

Extremely happy and fortunate to have gotten to try RAW a few times since its opening late last year. It pays to have a group of friends that love food as much as I do to snag reservations and invite you along. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see or meet Chef Andre Chiang since I had heard he greeted diners and explained some of the dishes in the first few months after RAW's opening (as I saw photos on my Facebook feed). It would have been nice to hear directly from him about the food on my visits, but it's understandable that he's busy running his other restaurants in Singapore and Paris.  Taiwanvore has a great write up about Chef Andre Chiang and his recently published autobiography, which helped explain to me how RAW became one of the hottest reservations in Taipei and the cult of Chef Andre. 

Love the secret drawer in the table at each seat. It's where you'll find the menu, all the utensils for the meal and way in the back of the drawer, a napkin.

The menus come in English and Chinese and alternate between each seat, so if you get one you can't read, try trading with your dinner date. The 8 course menu is like a word puzzle to decipher at first glance- it's read across each row, and describes the main ingredients in that dish.

The bread (NT$150) is not part of the set, but I ended up getting it each time after I first tried it. Spread the whipped butter and buckwheat generously on it and devour. I probably ate half a loaf while waiting for my dinner date.

Toasted cauliflower / chicken masala / couscous 
on a crispy chicken skin chip. Like a fancied up gastronomic chip and dip. A lot of crunch and flavor and a great start.

Rose champagne/ Tomatoes / Ohba sansho

So many flavors at once from this dish- sweet, sour, shiso, the sea, floral, fruity.. Green, yellow and red tomato salad and an icy shiso sorbet to pair with the kanpachi sashimi hiding under the cucumbers cut so thin they are nearly translucent.

Perfect Egg / Praline / Wild Veg

The fun part of this dish was they brought a wreath of herbs for each person to pick and adorn and season your dish yourself. The pralines added a nice crunch to the slow cooked egg as did the zucchini and wild vegetables.

Always love an oozing slow cooked egg that melts in your mouth. 

Cappellini / Sakura ebi / CCC

Paired with a mushroom broth tea, the umami flavor (and smaller portion since it's part of a set course) of the capellini left you wanting more. 

Clam / Corn / Kelp Jus

The ingredients on the menu sound like a strange combination, but I loved the sweetness of the corn steamed egg along with the briny clams. Loved the crunch of the corn crackers too, like those fried shrimp chips mom used to make. Creamy, crunchy, sweet- hard to imagine the layers of flavors from the bowl of algae green seaweed purée. This dish might be too sweet for some, but I liked it. 

Burnt Cabbage / Cod / Soubise

Perfectly cooked cod, this dish was one of my favorites both visits. The cabbage was less burnt this time around and I found the soubise (onion béchamel sauce) a tad too sweet for me this time.

Mushroom Salad / Pork / Chinese Olive

On the menu, the mushroom salad and pork look like two separate courses, but they are actually one. While I enjoyed the crispy pork belly skin, I cut out all the fat in the pork belly 

Strawberry / Pink Guava / Roast Apple
There are inevitable comparisons between RAW and Mume, and even more in my mind with this strawberry dessert since I really enjoyed Mume's deconstructed strawberry cheesecake. I liked it more than this, since this tastes like something you could do at home yourself. Sliced strawberries, pink guava sorbet, a pouring of cranberry juice and the odd partner of a piece of roasted apple which at first glance I thought was a banana. I liked the sorbet and the strawberries were less sour this time than my last visit, but I haven't been crazy about RAW's desserts yet.

Pineapple Cake
More cake-like than the typical Taiwanese pineapple cake which is more of a shortbread, it's a playful interpretation that doesn't quite work for me.

Note that the tea and coffee is not part of the set and is an extra charge (NT$220), as is the still or sparkling water by the bottle. I'd skip the tea and coffee and get a lychee bubble drink instead if you have to order one drink.

It was odd to me that I liked many of the dishes more tonight than my previous visit, but a pleasant surprise. It goes to show that there are always so many elements that happen with a meal- the ingredients, the chef, the dining companions, the mood, the level of hunger- even eating the exact same dishes you can have different experiences. 

The following are photos from my previous visit with this menu, my second visit to RAW. They had just switched to this new menu in March which will go until the end of May 2015. Some of the dishes had subtle changes from one month to the next, such as more tomatoes and cucumbers in the second dish, or the cabbage not being as burnt in the cod dish.

Peeking inside the kitchen.