Swish Shabu

I've been going to swish shabu since they opened. The people there really know how to make you feel welcome. The food is great and I feel healthy just walking in. I suggest trying the tom yum soup base it's my favorite! All the soup bases are great and made on site, and you can tell. The veggies are wicked fresh and the waitstaff is more than willing to change around the veggies on a combo if you are as picky as me for a $1. Also don't forget the dumplings, also my favorite, there is even a dumpling combo called the dandan combo that is not on the menu.

The sushi although small selection is outstanding and the calamari is not to be missed. In the past few months they have even improved their beer list with a few craft beers. They have a pretty big sake selection for their size and it's all great.

We were looking for something nice and warm to eat on a cold night, and shabu shabu sounded good! By 9:00 p.m., the restaurant was less than half full, so we were seated immediately. After ordering and our divided pot was brought to the table, it took a long time for the stove to heat up. We then noticed that steam was only coming off of one side of the pot and was heating it unevenly. Only one side of the pot would boil at a time.

Steps for Hot-Pot:
1.) Pick between one and three soup bases - Choose from 14 different ones, ranging from $3.00-6.00
2.) Pick your ingredients - Choose a pre-set combination or create your own from the a la carte menu
3.) Add your components - When the soup begins to boil, add your meat and vegetables to cook them
4.) Dip in sauce! Your server will bring you a dipping sauce and some condiments that you can mix in to your liking, including garlic, green onions, daikon, and Chinese BBQ sauce

We ordered the House (traditional pork soup) and the Salmon, Cilantro, and Ginger (pieces of salmon in it). For the meat, we got beef and lamb. The quality was good, but there weren't very many pieces for the price. Each order comes with a plate of vegetables, including lettuce, spinach, corn, carrot, taro, daikon, and wood ear mushroom. You also get a choice of a bowl or rice or udon.

I have fond memories of Swish Shabu as the first place I ever experienced and discovered the joys of shabu a few years ago. However, I don't live particularly close by and have found equally good shabu closer to home so haven't found a good reason to return until recently when my brother recommended their donburi bowls and I love me a good sake don or chirashi!

My boyfriend and I stopped by yesterday on a Tuesday night to try out their donburi bowl but discovered that we had arrived on a "Ramen Night" (Tuesday-Thursday) and the sets looked too good to pass up on (see photo).

Chirashi--I requested no tuna and they supplemented with one extra slice of each of the other fish (salmon, hamachi, escolar) for an up charge of $1. The chirashi was unusual in that it came in a plate but besides that, didn't stand out for better or for worse.

Ramen Set B (ramen + takoyaki balls + mochi ice cream)--Unfortunately, the ramen reminded me of food court ramen and none of the components (broth, noodle, egg, meat) made a positive impression. Even though all 3 sets look good in theory, the key component--the ramen--is lackluster and I wouldn't order it again.

I do particularly like the ambience of the restaurant though (it's pretty with twinkly lights!) and recognize that I focused my review on some lesser reviewed dishes that they don't necessarily specialize in. I would totally still recommend and come in for their shabu though!

This place was great and had a lot of fun options on the menu. We didn't get the hot pot but our dumpling appetizer and my sushi was wonderful!

I would have loved to come back to try more.
There were a lot of college and medical students eating here, as well.
I get the feeling the locals know this is a fine spot.

The staff was nice, the inside is on the smaller side but we came at a good time when it wasn't busy.

Definitely check it out!

Ok..so I came here after having gone to the Shabu-Zen is Allston. And honestly if you have been to Shabu-Zen then don't bother coming here. I ordered the lunch portion and it's much smaller - there's WAY less meat, and more veggies to compensate for it. I had a the Tom Yam (too spicy) and pork soup (too bland) base...and once again - nothing great...

I also saw a weird worm-looking thing in my veggies. Not sure what it was...

I definitely would not come here again - go elsewhere for a good hot-pot experience!

This was actually the first restaurant I ate at when I first moved to Boston, so I was kind of excited to try their ramen night. We went on a Thursday and sat outside because the weather was perfect. Despite being outside, the wait staff were still really prompt and efficient.

Ramen night happens on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and is a fairly decently priced ramen at $12 for tonkatsu, additional 50 cents to make it spicy. For an additional $3 you get spam musubi and a mochi so I went for that option, while the boyfriend had the spicy ramen with takoyaki. First of all, you can't go wrong with spam musubi, so it was delicious, if you're a spam eating kind of person. The boyfriend's takoyaki was also really good- 4 pieces of piping hot and flavorful octopus, yum! The ramen was kind of average. Good things about the ramen is that the tonkatsu is really good- thick soft pieces of pork, and plenty of it. I like that bak choi and a whole egg come with the ramen, instead of having to order each additional item separately. The soup was spicy, and not that thick or rich, but I still liked it. I think my major complaint was the noodles. They were... Hmmm... Too stiff ? I don't know if they tasted like packaged noodles per say, but they were not well made. Regardless, the rest of the ramen was pretty good and my red bean mochi at the end was the bomb.

Overall a great experience, with some minor complaints, but a pretty good value meal. Would definitely come again.

My first ever hotpot experience was at Swish Shabu in 2012, as a freshman in college. A group of us went, and we were all so satisfied with the sushi and the hotpot. We each ordered hot pot combos and the amount of meat and vegetables was perfect and we were all so full afterwards!

Location-wise, it's right off the Fenway T-station. There are a lot of other places to eat, drink, and have fun in the area. One time we had hotpot and then walked over to the movie theatre to watch Thor 2 (AMAZING). Another time we stopped by Emack and Bolio's after dinner for ice cream. Another time we stopped by Marshall's to pick up some stuff (yes I've been to Swish Shabu a number of times!)

Staff is very friendly. One thing to note though is that Swish shabu is located on a small strip mall with about 5 or so other restaurants/dessert places. Supposedly when 1 place's fire alarm goes off, the entire strip mall's alarms go off. This happened on two separate visits, which was a bit unfortunate because while we were eating the siren was blasting full volume, and some people actually just got up and left before finishing their meal. They didn't have us evacuate, so I just kept eating (haha) but it lasted for maybe about 10-15 minutes.

Otherwise, when in the Fenway area, this place is a great option- it's usually packed especially on the weekends!

Came here because of a Bostonian friend's recommendation. Swish Shabu is located in a food strip with great diversity: shabu shabu, Mexican, Mediterranean, Thai, crepes all next to each other. I didn't know that was possible. Anyway, there was supposed to be a 30 minute wait time for the 2 of us but we were able to get seating in the bar within 10 minutes. Service was excellent. I was impressed with the waiter's knowledge of the menu.

We shared boneless short rib combo that comes with veggies and choice of noodles. What's great is that extra order of meat is half off if you order extras from A La Carte menu. We stuffed ourselves with extra order of meat, udon noodles, Napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms. The meat is very tender. The house broth is the standard broth but it was good on its own. The dipping sauce was addictive!

The price isn't cheap but it's not expensive either. I definitely felt like I paid for the value of the meal.

I've heard so much about this place, and I'm happy I finally got to go. Tucked away next to a bunch of great Fenway restaurants.

Hot pot can get pretty expensive, so we pick and chose what we wanted to eat. We started off with some tea (which should not be charged for, but whatever), and some spam musubi (YAAASS, but it's expensive, $2.50 or something a piece). Then we ordered the 2 soup bases for our hot pot (apparently you can have up to 3... Haven't seen that before). We ordered the spicy tonkatsu and the house pork soup. YES to the spicy tonkatsu, it's so good. We ordered the surf and turf combo which came with your choice of noodles and a platter of meats and seafood, and a platter of veggies. On top of that, we added side orders of: beef, more noodles (I recommend the mini udon noodles), Mochi, watercress, and fish tofu.

In the end, we were overstuffed (even though I seriously think I can eat a crap ton when it comes to hot pot). Service is good, they always check in on you. Ended up being around $24 per person including tip! Not bad for hot pot, especially being so full at the end. And drink loads of the soup and definitely hydrate post dinner, it's salty goodness. Not bad for a place in Fenway. Would come back!

I always struggle with liking shabu shabu places because I know how easy and CHEAP it is to hot pot at home. That said, if you're feelin' lazy or just looking for lots of protein after the Spartan like we were, Swish is a good choice. There was a shabu shabu buffet at ~$20+ pp so we went with that. We had 5 people and 2 split pots, each with the mala and house broths. The mala one is delicious, the spice really cooks into the meats and veggies so it is flavorful. The house one sort of looks like used bath water and doesn't taste like much--what do you expect when it's freeeeee.

We ordered a bunch of meat, fish balls, veggies, etc. The quality of the ingredients are really good--everything was super fresh! But smaaall smaaall portions. I get that it's buffet so you want to minimize waste, but the amount they brought us in the first round was only enough to feed a single small child. Obviously the simple fix is to order more so we just piled on the meat orders, mmmm.

Overall if I HAD to go out for shabu shabu, Swish is a really good choice. But if you get a burner for home ($20) and spent the rest of that $120 bill on ingredients you'd have a friggen feast.

Fun Shabu Shabu.

The area around Fenway is much nicer than I remembered. I took my sister here for her birthday and it was great choice. Shabu Shabu is not my favorite, but interactive meals are always fun.

I found the combos at Swish to be pretty good value. They included veggies, a few meats, and noodles to fill you up. All of the ingredients seemed good quality and fresh and I enjoyed the broths we chose. They have partitioned pots so that you can have more than one broth per table. Service was good and the restaurant seemed very clean and tidy.

Great for a fun date or group dinner outing.