Monday, April 15, 2013

Typhoon Restaurant and Bar : Shabu-Shabu (Hot Pot)

Typhoon Restaurant and Bar: How to Eat Shabu-Shabu

My ideal lunch or dinner out is to go to a nice place, order from the menu, wait for a while and then once the food arrives, eat away. Somehow the idea of adding another step before the eating part, like in shabu-shabu (hot pot), becomes quite a chore for me.

So for this feature, I made sure I was ready for the added step. I surprised even myself at how interesting the cooking--if you can call it that--can be. Here, we will take you to a step-by-step account of our shabu-shabu lunch so you can better appreciate how we enjoyed. We had lot of help from Natalie Arciga, Business and Development Officer slash shabu-shabu expert of Typhoon Restaurant and Bar. If you’re curious about the name of the restaurant, it is the foreign owners’ positive take on typhoon because they equate it with the resilience of the Filipinos. I, on the other hand, thought that shabu-shabu is the best meal to eat when there’s a typhoon because it keeps you warm and feeds you really well, too.

Visit Typhoon at A.Venue Mall, Makati

Bar area

The first step is to choose your soup, and here is where the fun really starts--Typhoon Restaurant and Bar is not known as the King of Soup for nothing! There are twenty seven kinds of soup to choose from. The Asian Soups is the majority among the choices, with fifteen representatives. There are of course some Western Style Soups too and interestingly, a Healing Soups category. We opted for the Spicy Pork Bone Soup (P328) from the Asian line-up and the Zuiji Soup (P398) from the Healing Soups group.

Spicy Pork Bone Soup

Zuiji Soup

Now on to the second step that, although quite simple, is by far my favorite - picking out your meat and seafood. I was quite happy with the sight of the Seafood Set (P588), and my grin became wider when the Australian Beef Set (P388) was laid out.

Seafood Set

Australian Beef Set

The third step is choosing your noodles and vegetables plus some balls. We went with the vegetable platter for set orders, which has of the following: Taopao (P58), Taiwan Pechay (P120), Iceberg Lettuce (P130), Udon (P88), Sotanghon (P68), Egg (P30), Tofu (P48), Carrot, Golden Mushroom (P98), Wintermelon (P58), Pumpkin (P58) and three kinds of balls of which our favorite is the Cheese Ball (P88). I thought for sure that adding all of these things will make the spicy soup hopefully not that spicy, and the healthy soup more flavorful.

The fourth step is mixing all of the shabu-shabu ingredients as a result of steps one to three. The best tip we can give here is to make sure to cook the meat or seafood well, but to not overcook the veggies.

At this point you may also want to start thinking of the sauce. You will again be confronted with an array of sauces and condiments to choose from. What was thrown in ours were the shabu shabu sauce, fresh chili, fresh garlic, chili with peanut, satay sauce, shallot with oil, fried garlic, toasted peanut and spring onion.

Then it’s just a matter of repeating the last step and swishing over and over until you’re so full that you can’t take on any more.
I personally liked the Spicy Pork Bone Soup more than the Zuiji Soup, but I realized that having the right sauce to go with your masterpiece is crucial to enhancing the flavors.
You would think that’s all there is, but we also went home raving about the Spicy Sauteed Chicken Dry Pot (P888) which we opted to eat as viand with rice. Know that it can also be served as a soup in the pot for shabu-shabu.

Spicy Sauteed Chicken Dry Pot

With all the spicy items we were having, we had to have something apart from water to help ease the burning. The HK Style Sunflower Tea (P50) did a perfect job of doing exactly that.

HK Style Sunflower Tea

Because of this Typhoon Restaurant and Bar shabu-shabu experience is set in a really cool place (they showcase street art!), I now look forward to the next one.

Photos by Hermin Belo.

Establishment Info

Typhoon Restaurant and Bar