Oishi Shabu & Sushi

Once in a while, we’ll visit a restaurant that blows past our initial expectations, and Oishi Shabu & Sushi is a perfect example. Two doors down from Kiyo Japanese Grill & Sake – as well as a growing collection of good-to-great Chinese restaurants including Spicy Master and YGF MaLaTang – Oishi (Japanese for “delicious”) actually lives up to its name, offering a four-tier all-you-can-eat shabu shabu and sushi experience across two clean, fairly modern dining rooms, seating around 100 people across four- to six-person tables and communal-style counters.

On weekdays from 11:30am to 3:00pm, guests can opt for an especially appealing $25 shabu and sushi lunch with six meats and three sushi roll options – California, Philadelphia, and tempura are listed on the menu, but the latter was replaced with spicy tuna on our visit. Otherwise, Oishi’s tiers are $39 shabu-only with nine meats, a $44 tier adding eight total sushi choices, and a $63 “wagyu experience” tier adding six premium A5 wagyu beef and kurobuta pork meats, plus a one-per-customer “signature sashimi plate” and wagyu nigiri sushi. There’s a 90-minute time limit, with a food waste charge of $10 per 100 grams of ordered but uneaten food.

It bears mention that Oishi’s service model is a spin on formulas used by rivals such as Dada Shabu Shabu Buffet, dPot, and Mikiya to differentiate themselves from traditional Japanese shabu shabu-only restaurants such as Mo-Mo-Paradise. Historically, guests would only get a bowl of boiling broth, AYCE access to plates of pre-sliced meats served from a kitchen, and limited numbers of self-serve, salad bar-like buffet options. But Oishi operates a more elaborate set of buffet tables, offering everyone eight hot items (fried chicken wings, gyoza, yakisoba, fried rice), three pre-cut sushi rolls, several cold items (edamame, kimchi, seaweed salad, cucumber), two small desserts, a soda dispenser, and a dipping sauce bar. Fairly extensive collections of non-meat proteins, vegetables, and noodles are also available for shabu cooking, including everything from lotus roots, seaweed, udon, and ramen to lobster fish balls, sliced squid, octopus, and fish filets. You can effectively assemble the same soup you’d get at a Chinese/Korean hotpot place like Pixiu Mala Hongtang or Yintang, but prep it yourself without per-pound charges.