Confessions of a Non-Cook

i truly love to eat and appreciate good dishes on the dining table, but i do confess, i never liked being in the kitchen very much.  that is why, the gods that i call those people with in white hats and aprons are definitely heaven sent!

hubby took me to a shabu-shabu in greenhills once when we were still not married and i thought, that was the last time it would happened.

it was the steam coming from the hot pot, yes, that was it, i said, it left my hair smelling like everything that we ate.

but honestly, i did not like the fact that you paid for your food to be served raw and for you to do the cooking: picking of ingredients, planning how long you want it in the boiling pot, and mixing your own bowl with spices and condiments until it was to your liking.  now, isnt that the chef’s job, i thought?!

hubby should have seen it as a sign that i was not going to be the kitchen-wife material.  but then again, he always knew that i never liked getting my hands dirty.

and so when i said i had wanted to try this new place in pasay which was no doubt a shabu-shabu, he got me in the car and we headed to King One with no ifs or buts.

i read an article in Spot about this place and i was intrigued by its title, “… ups the ante in eat all you can dining”?!  hmmm, maybe i could give the steamy hot pot one more try.

we got there a little before 10am and waited outside as the waiters readied the restaurant for a busy sunday lunch.  the view of the conveyor belt transporting various ingredients near majority of the tables through the big glass windows made me surprisingly excited.

when we were finally allowed to enter, we were ushered to our booth and presented with a couple of sheets of paper.  here you could choose which ingredients you wanted, the noodles and 2 soup bases into which you wanted to boil your food in.  we had picked a plain soup and of course a chili based one for hubby.

people started to file in a few minutes later and soon the place was packed.

we chose our ingredients starting with various seafood including crab claws (which tat loved!) and the cheese balls which came as a wonderful surprise.  caution though because the melted cheese inside the squid/fish (i think it was) ball is mighty hot!

we also got several plates of the US fat beef along with other this and that which suddenly became just too good not to be drop into the boiling broth instantly, hence, no other pictures! hehehe!

the thin strips of beef became my favorite, dipped into the boiling pot, just a second after it changed color.  it was not the melt in your mouth kind like that found in tsukiji but for less than P500 (for the beef and everything else!), it was a meat lover’s delight.

you could actually see as the beef was being sliced as thin as bacon by this machine in the middle of the conveyor belt.  and as i was sitting in plain sight of the whole process, we just kept ordering for more plates of these fatty strips (waiting for high blood pressure to happen! mwahaha!)

when we were done and finally got our bill, we were served a plate of fruits to cap our scrumptious lunch.

not bad i thought.

this time, my shabu-shabu experience was not as painful as the first.  yes the steam was still there leaving a faint scent on my hair, and yes, i still had to choose what to drop in the boiling broth and when to rescue it from the heat, and yes i still had to spice up my own bowl to my liking.  but because the choices looked and tasted really good (especially the beef fat! harharhar!), i sort of forgot i was actually “cooking” my own food.

with good food and just P499 per person and an additional P50 for bottomless drinks (on sundays and holidays that is, but on regular days the P499 is inclusive of drinks), this restaurant really does add to the standard of eat-all-you-can dining!