Mo Mo Paradise
	One of the pleasures of dining at a Japanese specialty restaurant is the sense that there are ritualized procedures to follow that add to the experience of the meal. Just as when dining at an okonomiyaki restaurant you must carefully grease up the hot plate and use a timer, or when eating sushi you must remember to take a taste of ginger between different treats, the process of eating shabu shabu and sukiyaki is involved and lets you feel like a chef. At Mo Mo Paradise, guests are treated to choice cuts of Black Angus beef imported from the United States in an upscale atmosphere that features stylized paintings of bulls. Before eating shabu shabu, turn on the hot plate in the center of the table and boil the water in a steel bowl. Using your chopsticks, quickly swish the meat in the water (some folks believe that it tastes better if you sing 'shabu shabu' as you do this) until it's cooked. Then dip the meat in a choice of two sauces, either gomadare, a slightly sweet sesame sauce, or ponzu, a soy and vinegar combination. Only after eating the meat should you then cook your tofu, carrot, hakusai cabbage, maitake mushrooms, and negi green onions. Sukiyaki, the slightly tougher and sweeter meat dish eaten with raw egg, is also a house specialty. "This food is our country's party food," explains manager Tadashi Oneta, "and until recently it cost a lot of yen. Now there are many shabu shabu restaurants, but none of them serve it as inexpensively without sacrificing quality," he adds. Set menus from Yen 1,500 allow for all-you-can-eat shabu shabu or sukiyaki for 90 minutes. Higher priced sets offer more items and more beverages for a longer time period. It's best to make a reservation beforehand as the restaurant fills up quickly on the weekends. Open from 11:30-9:50 (last order), Closed 2-5pm Wed-Fri. 31-2 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku, Shibuya Beam Bldg., 6F (Across from the Parco Club Quattro building. Follow the road between the Seibu buildings and look for the Beam sign.) Tel. 3461-2941   Previous   Next   TJ Current Issue   Subscribe to Tokyo Journal