Hot Pot Hurdle

Cooking your own order? Why not!


I had that experience at the Healthy Shabu Shabu event at Shangri-La Mall last night where we were taught the right way of cooking shabu shabu. Yep, I just found out that there's actually a right way of cooking it rather than throwing everything in the pot, then the vegetables last and turn off the fire. Bet you didn't know that too, huh?


Anyways, so I trooped down to Shangri-La mall at 4:00 pm yesterday since I wanted to catch the low-peak hours at the MRT. Wrong! It was jampacked as it was rush hour. As soon as I got off the Shaw station (I just told myself it was cheaper than driving or taking a cab) I went to Shangri-La mall and checked out my favorite makeup counters and chatted with my friend, Chandra at MAC. Since I had more hours to kill, I went to do some (window) shopping. En route to Makeup For Ever and Beauty Bar, I spotted Juned by Cibo so I joined him first. Apparently, he also does my technique of arriving somewhere near the venue hours earlier, grabbing a cup of coffee (or iced tea in this case) to avoid rush hour traffic. Arpee and Noreen joined us then we all trooped down to the venue. Apparently, I have to thank Juned since that saved me money that I would have blew on makeup sprees. Heeheehee


So we got there to the venue and the aroma of cooking soup and the lovely sight of fresh ingredients being delivered to the tables. As we were ushered to our seats, the waiters filled our individual pots with chicken stock (mushroom stock for vegans) and showed us the sauce ingredients. We were also asked to choose our meat dish (all-meat, seafood, chicken, meat and seafood) Our attendant, Phat, was very good explaining what the ingredients are for and how everything works.



Look! Each customer has an individual bowl so that he or she could make his own soup! Plus it's very hygienic that way.

And fresh ingredients!





Businesswoman Candy Hwang, owner of Healthy Shabu Shabu described to us the right way to cook Shabu-Shabu, and event demo-ed to us how it's done. Apparently, the dipping sauce serves to "cool" the freshly-cooked ingredient before enjoying them (and adds up to the flavor). Shabu-shabu is best enjoyed one ingredient at a time so after a few minutes (or seconds) cooking, you can dip it in the sauce and enjoy it. Also, it's best to put the sweet corn, yam, and some seafood/meat first for a richer flavor of the broth.


As soon as our individual soups started cooking and some bloggers ate their own concoctions, I could hear everyone marvelling how all the flavors were kept intact. For those of us who chose seafood, the attendants even peeled our shrimp for us. I can say how much I loved the texture of my shrimp. I also loved how the ingredients are freshly delivered each day. No wilted vegetables, shriveled up meat, or dry fish fillet. We could even customize our own soup to our liking. Sophie even added more chili to hers! All bloggers were silent as they were eating their very own customized Shabu-Shabu.



As for me, here's mine...



Pardon the VGA quality of the pic (I will make do with my camera phone first as my Canon Powershot is in the ICU). That's an all-seafood shabu-shabu with vegetables. Very very healthy! By the way, the shabu-shabu stoves are perfectly safe since these are

"electric stoves controlled by a remote console instead of traditional LPGs."

No wires, no fire! Horray!


After I finished my dessert (a yummy and healthy fruit bowl with grass jelly and sweet milk), I chatted and mingled with the other bloggers and each blogger had a different concoction. With my GC on hand, I better try a new recipe. :-)



(Healthy Shabu Shaby has branches at Powerplant Mall, The Podium, SM Mall of Asia, Robinsons Galleria, SM North The Block, Alabang Town Center, Robinsons Midtown and Shangri-La Plaza Mall)