Warming Up to Hotpot

On an aimless Thursday night, my friends and I hit up Mokkoji Shabu Shabu Bar in Irvine.  For those unfamiliar with it, Shabu Shabu is hotpot.  You’re given a choice of seasoned broth which is placed before you on your individual electric burner.  You order your choice of meat, which comes with a selection of veggies, and then you get cooking.

Our group of six was seated after a bit of a wait, but the servers were very courteous.  We got a seat at the bar and got to see the owner and head chef hard at work.

Chef and owner with Mokkoji branded tofu.

     

Ponzu on the left and Goma on the right.

Shabu shabu also typically comes with two dipping sauces for your meat and vegetables.  There is the ponzu sauce, which is a little salty and sour.  The other is the goma sauce, which is peanut based and a bit on the sweet and spicy side.  One of the neat little gimmicks at Mokkoji is the opportunity to grind your own sesame seeds for the goma sauce.  It’s always a fun little activity while waiting for the broth to boil.  

Mokkoji stamped tofu with the veggies.

I ordered the original broth and managed to get a dollop of their spicy soup base in it.  For meat, beef belly is super delicious.  It’s sometimes a hard choice between their ribeye and their beef belly, both of which are good quality and very tasty.  Beef belly offers a little bit more bang for buck with nearly the same amount of meat for slightly fewer dollars.  They also have a fantastic new presentation for it that includes slivered green onions and mashed garlic with carrots.

Delicious beef belly.

Hotpot in progress.

They also had a deal for two dollar Sapporo beers, to which a few of our friends just could not say no.

After eating most of the meat and veggies, there was a small pile of udon noodles left on the plate.  Once we were mostly finished with our hotpot, we asked our server for the soup base.  It comes in another small bowl.  Heating up the noodles in the hotpot, we spooned the noodles and some of the hotpot broth into the soup base, and we had a yummy noodle dish.

   

Yummy squid ink.

As we were there for dinner, Mokkoji offers a complimentary porridge to finish the meal.  It is rice cooked in the left over broth of the individual hotpots, and it comes in three flavors: squid ink, vegetable, and kimchi.

The overall meal was filling and delicious, and ran about twenty dollars a person after tax and tip.  For those wishing to try hotpot for a bit cheaper, Mokkoji has a wonderful lunch selection at a great price as well, roughly twelve dollars before tax and tip.

 All in all, cozying up to hotpot at Mokkoji was a great way to spend the evening.