Shabu-shabu in Kobe. January 2012
Shabuuu Shabuuu, you can hear it
The Japanese love onomonpoeic words. "Shabu shabu" - thinly sliced beef briefly boiled in a soup stock and dipped in some sauce before relishing it - is one of them. The sound of the chopsticks swishing in the broth is apparently "shabu shabu" (yeah, I never really got that, but then again in English it might have been called "Beef Swoosh Swoosh", so shabu-shabu suddenly seems better). The meal is actually amazing given that nothing is wasted. First eat the beef and then with the leftover beefy stock, add veggies and some noodles and there is soup as a chaser. Shabu-shabu is a fun meal with friends and de rigueur for any new, hapless foreigner in Japan.
My first shabu-shabu meal was with the Director of the Sendai YMCA (my first job overseas), my supervisor, and a colleague. The director, Mr Inawashiro, was a short, pudgy man who smiled nonstop and spoke no English. My translator was my bizarro, foreigner-loathing boss, Mukai. I remember that meal vividly because I was taken to one of the best restaurants in Sendai (unknown to me at the time) for shabu-shabu and more or less expected to know what to do and how to eat. Along for the ride was Canadian colleague, Bill, who valiantly tried to wink and nudge me in the right direction given how incredibly obtuse eating out with superiors could be in Japan for foreigners. I at least managed the chopsticks bravely even if I failed in general conversational politeness. Looking back on it I really laugh at how clueless I was about Japanese culture and at how idiotic it was to bring "the new guy" right into the thick of it with the big boss literally days after arrival. Shabu-shabu for me will always be remembering a very odd dinner with Inawashiro-san.
My other memory of shabu-shabu is from my last vacation with Brian where we spent a week or so in Kansai in winter 2012. One of my most stressful visits to Japan, I was watching my life steaming toward that iceberg in the dark while literally living on the Titanic in first class. Something was wrong, but I just refused to see it. Nonetheless, even that vacation had some high-points and one of them was eating shabu-shabu in Kobe where Brian was his old self and we had a lot of laughs. Amazing how much fun eating shabu-shabu could be with someone who knew what they were doing. We had money, so we got the best cuts of beef as well (hell, we were in KOBE). It was a good dinner even if set during a strange and stressful time of life.
My recommendation for shabu-shabu neophytes? learn to use chopsticks, go with good friends who like to laugh, and drink a little to take the edge off. Shabu-shabu apparently does not have to be served in stressful situations, but like two bookends, the dinners I described marked a beginning and an end of portions of my life.