Absolutely my favorite hot pot in Northern California. I am a huge food enthusiast and travel constantly for business. But I can say one of the best if not the best. The food is amazing and so are the people there. They make you feel like family which many places lack. I came in for the great food and ended up making some great friends! Love this place.
Worst dining experience ever. Customer service is the worst. Our female waitress, Lyly T, is very unprofessional, disrespectful, rude, and condescending. Even though our party of 4 got AYCE, we didn't get to enjoy the experience of it. Every time we wanted to order more food, it was like begging our waitress to input our order. Each round of meat came extremely slow. It took 20-25mins for each round of meat to come from the kitchen, which our server Lyly blamed the "slow meat cutter". After the 2nd round of ordering meats, Lyly disrespectfully and in a condescending tone asked us if we can finish the food and if not she will need to charge us a fee for leftovers. I politely informed her we are aware of the extra charge if there are leftovers. However, she was argumentative and treated us like criminals as if we can't pay for the food. I don't mind being reminded of the store's food policy (which I'm already aware of), but her unpleasant tone was uncalled for.In summary, I would never come back to this restaurant or ever recommend anyone to eat here. The server Lyly gave us such a terrible experience that I felt embarrassed bringing my friends to eat here and we all felt humiliated for being treated like trash. Unfortunately, the server represents the restaurant and with such terrible service, I cannot rate the restaurant any better. I cannot enjoy the food because of how terrible she made us feel. If you ever crave hotpot, please go to Heat Shabu downtown (18th St). I've been to the downtown location before and the experience is wonderful there. It's like night and day. Downtown location great experience because the food and customer service are on point. Just don't go to the Fair Oaks location because of the terrible service.
The pork itself it’s good. And the broth was really good. Fair price and enough portions for customer to get full. Definitely recommend to make a reservation before you come. We had fun here and great customer service. Nice environment to dine in too. Highly recommended this location for shabu and will be back if we are in the area
Been a few times before but didn't have any issues until tonight.If this was my first time I would have rated 1 stars but maybe tonight was just not our servers night. We never got refills on our drinks and another server was going to tables with water at the end of us eating. We said it's fine because it's been a bit since we were offered more drink anyway and they left. Service was very very slow and we were only checked on once. Lost our appetite so they charged us for one plate of half eaten meat. Server was busy I think tonight drinking with the other tables. It's fine if the employees are allowed and want to do that but probably a good practice to make sure you are still good to take care of your tables.My advice is the downtown location has been excellent to us every visit. The servers there rock and I always have someone checking the temperature so nothing boils over and getting us to order more and more food.
I've been coming to Heat Shabu since pre-Covid and while the service has always been lacking, the convenient location kept me coming back. Not anymore... Two bad experiences in a row will have me going elsewhere from now on. First incident, I arrive with a party of five and are placed on the wait list. The hostess tells us it'll only be 30 minutes or so. We notice there's an empty table but alas the hostess tells us its intended for parties of 6 or more. So we wait.. in the freezing cold for 30 minutes. No call, nothing and we're told it'll be another 15 minutes. same scenario plays out again 15 minutes later all the while the table for six remains empty. After more than hour of waiting, the hostess informs us she can't give us an eta and can't seat us at the table sitting empty for the past hour because it's meant for parties of 6 or more... We leave, frustrated and hungry and Heat Shabu misses out on a few hundred dollars of revenue. Incident #2.. My wife and I are about to enter the restaurant when I realize I forgot my mask. I ask the host for a face mask and he replies they don't provide face masks. Odd, but whatever. I offer to wrap a scarf around my face for the Three second walk from the entrance to our table. Nope, has to be a "proper" face mask. So I then offer to wait outside until our table is ready, broth boiling and meat served. Nope.. Mind you this is after the mask mandate had been lifted by the County, everyone seated inside is mask-less and I'm fully vaccinated, boosted with evidence. Apparently "policy" trumps common sense and genuine intent to keep staff/customers safe. You're food is good, but not good enough to put up with horrendous service. I'll make the extra 10 minute drive to Happy Lamb hot pot and take advantage of the lower prices and better variety of meats.
The most important thing about reviews for me is1. This place has GREAT customer service. +++2. This place has a variety of options to choose from.3. The VIBES here are just what you want!!I always leave with a full stomach and satisfied.This is my 2nd time coming to this location and will be coming back.
Restaurant is small and the service is so slow. The receptionist told us the wait was an hour and there were 2 parties in front of us. After an hour and a half we still had not received a call from the restaurant; when we went inside they had empty tables they were not even cleaning. The lady was so rude and sarcastic, we decided to leave the place. Don’t come to this place if you don’t want to ruin your evening.
It was a good time and good food. Tonkatsu broth is the best. It was busy but not crazy busy. Only taking off a star because our server seemed to be too immersed in the guys at the bar then the tables she had. Other servers were working hard.
Love going here for all you can eat hot pot dinner. Staff is attentive, friendly and takes sake bombs with you. We eat here too much actually.
First time there...server was slow. Although they tell you it's all you can eat that is not true. It's such an inconvenient to keep on asking the server for the next round. Our orders are limited and serving size was ok. The server came over to us and also ask for our names because this will be our last round. We gave good tips but never coming back.