Posted by Jess
16 June 2011

As my time in Tokyo is winding down, my coworkers and I went out for a night on the town as my sayonara!  There is one style of restaurant I hadn't been to yet in Japan - shabu shabu.  The gang was nice enough to take me out for this experience before I head out of town. 

Shabu shabu involves creating a stew at your table and then dipping meat in the stew to lightly cook it, dip it the meat into a soup/sauce and then eating.  The table has a hot plate in the middle with water in it to start and you add vegetables to the water to add flavor.  Then when it's hot and ready to go, it's time to eat!

We went to a spot close to work called Chiriri.  It's a set course menu so for a price, you get an appetizer, drinks (from a select list) and the dinner. 

turn up the heat

get that water boiling

making the stew

the pork and soup arrive

cook the meat

don't forget your drinks!

We had a good time and took advantage of the free drinks for about 2 hours.  After that we headed out to a few other establishments and had a good time.  We ended up at a little pub with deep fried everything on a stick.  It was like a State Fair bar.  We had deep fried ham, fish, hot dogs, apples, bananas...and more drinks of course.

I went home very full and grateful for the good friends I've made in our short time here.

Kanpai!
Jess