Doing it up - POSH style!

Hola bloggies!

Recently, I had the opportunity to try a whole new restaurant in Victoria. It happened after a particularly grueling workout session. I was majorly in need of food as fuel and the Fiance was just plain hungry. On my trainer's recommendation we decided to head to a restaurant that opened up just next door to my gym.

The whole schtick of the restaurant was that you cooked your own food in what is normally referred to as a shabu shabu or hotpot style. The upside of this is that you have total control over your food and you cook it in a very low fat way. Which is probably why my trainer recommended I give it a try!

This place bills itself as North America's first exclusive Japanese Sukiyaki restaurant. I'm not so sure that's accurate but the experience at POSH was overwhelmingly positive nonetheless.

For our meal, we decided to try what essentially amounted to the restaurant's sampler plate. Once we made our choice the waitress brought over a large shallow pot and placed it on top of a burner built in to the table. In the pot she placed a mixture of water, sukiyaki sauce, and cabbage. The idea with the cabbage is that it will cook down releasing more water.

The egg is very traditional. The Japanese think that the texture and flavour of your cooked food will be further enhanced if just before eating it you run it through pasturized raw eggs. I tried it and I can see what they're talking about. Still I wouldn't recommend noshing on raw eggs unless you really trust the restaurant where you are eating.

The meat for the dish comes in the form of several trays of finely sliced beef and pork belly. I left the meat to the Fiance and ate the veggies and tofu instead.

This is the sukiyaki pot doing its thing. At this point we had a couple of pieces of meat in there.

And this is the veggie selection. It was seriously impressive!!!! In that bowl there is more cabbage, bean sprouts, greens, melon, zuchinni, mushrooms of multiple varieties, ditto for tofu, some noodles, and also a very starchy root - I believe the waitress said it was taro.

In one word? YUM!!!

I chose to supplement my meal with a small bowl of delicate rice. The Fiance, as always, chose noodles instead.

Once we had all our ingredients (it took a while to gather everything) we got to the cooking process. To be honest it was pretty fun and I could totally see how this would be a great place to visit with friends. It really is fantastic for a social outing. Having said that I really do think you need a long time to enjoy the meal. Particularly if you're someone with a big appettite! We spent over an hour there and when we left the Fiance was still hungry!

In spite of the slow cooking process I still loved the experience. Plus the quality of the ingredients were superb!!! I would totally hit this place up again on a future visit. :o)

Have you ever tried a Hot Pot or Shabu Shabu type restaurant? Did you like it?

Have you ever tried taro root? I have to say it was the revelation of the meal for me!!!