Pinoy Shabu-Shabu

Written by Lilia B. Unite

I have been staying away from shabu-shabu for quite sometime after my funny experience years ago in Chengdu, China:

It was already late at night when I went out with one of my colleagues for dinner. Most of the restaurants we saw were selling unfamiliar Chinese cuisines. We were a little bit relieved when we saw an English Shabu-Shabu restaurant sign. Unfortunately, their menu were all in Chinese without any picture to give us a clue what they mean. None of their staffs knew how to speak English. After 15 minutes of struggling with charades and pictionary style communication, we decided to just let the waitress order for us. Confused on what we wanted and to be safe, she ordered all of the possible ingredients available leaving my friend and I with a table full of familiar and exotic raw foods enough to feed an army battalion and enough for me not to crave for shabu-shabu for a long time.

Then came last week when we passed by the newly opened Seferino shabu-shabu restaurant in Robinson’s Dasmarinas.

Seferino’s ambiance was quiet and not smelly unlike other shabu-shabu restaurants I went to. It’s a great place to go for chit chat while having a good meal. On top of shabu-shabu, they also offer different Asian and Filipino cuisines. If you are ordering other meals, their shabu-shabu solo will be enough for two persons to share.

One thing I like about having shabu-shabu is seeing your food prepared and cooked in front of you and the variety of ingredients you can choose from.

At Seferino, they have a pre-selected set of ingredients when you order shabu-shabu that's a combination of seafoods like fish, squid, shrimp, squid balls, crab meat mixed with strips of thinly sliced pork, beef and lots of green pechay and cabbage. It's a good break from the typical fried foods we eat in fast food restos.

Surprisingly, my picky eater daughter liked it too. This prompted me to create our home made version of shabu-shabu using common ingredients in our kitchen.

Ingredients:
Lucky Me Pork Ribs Instant Noodles
Fresh pork bacon cuts
Squid balls
Siomai
Sweet corn
Pechay
Cabbage
Carrots
Tomato (whole or big slices)
Banana (the variety for cooking)
Soy sauce (depending on how you like the soup base to taste)

Procedure:
1. Prepare all the ingredients and place them in a platter.

2. Prepare the soup base by mixing Lucky Me Pork Ribs seasoning mix in boiling water. Set aside the noodles for now. You can use the noodles as alternative for shabu-shabu noodle if you don’t have any. Add soy sauce to taste. Let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

3. Put the meat, squid balls, siomai and corn and let it boil. When they're half cooked, add in the sliced carrots and banana.

4. When almost done, lower the heat and add in the noodles, tomato, pechay and cabbage then simmer for 2 minutes. Do not overcook the vegetables. Then serve immediately and enjoy eating.