A beautiful way to eat at Shabu

Sweet, tender and aromatic: Prime Rib Shabu’s friendly servers will instruct customers who have never cooked their way through a delicious hot-pot dinner. (Bret Putnam/ Special to The Examiner)

SAN FRANCISCO —

The prospect of rich, rare beef poached quickly in boiling broth pulled me right into Prime Rib Shabu, a new hot-pot concept from Isa’s Luke Sung. But it was baskets towering with leafy greens — lettuce, watercress, chrysanthemum and Napa cabbage — that brought me back. The delicate greens melt in the hot broth in three seconds and become sweet, tender and aromatic. What a beautiful way to eat!

Chinese hot pot or Japanese shabu shabu is not hard to find in San Francisco, but Sung’s take on it is just about ideal for my sensibility. He has considered every aspect of the experience, from conduction burners that stay cool to the touch but keep the broth vigorously boiling, to the provenance of each ingredient that makes up the meal.

The room, designed by Michael Brennan, is low-lit and casual, an Asian tavern/club room with two mounted video screens and plenty of space on the wide tables for beer, soju, sake, cooking utensils, condiments, plates and bowls. Every meal at Prime Rib Shabu is a party, even if there are only two of you.

For the complete experience, each person should order a set dinner, such as the hand-cut rib eye set ($18.95) or a thin-cut rib eye set ($16.95). A server places a stainless steel pot of steaming broth on the burner and brings a basket of goodies for each person.

The raw beef comes on separate plates. Each person gets an empty bowl for Sung’s special dipping potion, light soy sauce infused with jalapeños, fresh cilantro and spring onions, whose fragrance is released by hot oil. You amp up your own dipping sauce with house-made chili oil on the table.

First, push squares of organic tofu, yuba (dried tofu skin) and big leaves of napa cabbage into the broth. These items only get better as they simmer over the course of the meal. The yuba, in fact, needs at least 15 minutes, though I also liked it less-cooked and chewy.

Greens, beef and skinny enoki mushrooms literally take a few seconds to cook in the broth, so submerge them bite by bite. You can use a slotted ladle or chopsticks to hold them in the broth. As you take them from the broth, dip them into the special sauce.

Korean unrefined sweet potato vermicelli and thick, chewy udon noodles are at the bottom of the basket. At the end of the meal, put both into the broth and let them cook for two or three minutes to soften.

Using the regular ladle, serve yourself a bowl of noodle soup in your dipping sauce bowl. The dipping sauce has now been deliciously diluted from all the dripping items that have landed in it, so it’s not overpowering.

As for the traditional hot-pot drink — beer — Sung has chosen two: cold draft, white-label Tsingtao from China ($4/$7) that tastes crisp and finishes clean; and Orian, a Japanese beer from Okinawa ($7).

The welcoming serving staff instructs those who have never cooked their way through a hot pot before, but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Eating so cleanly allows you to spend a lot of time at the table, cooking and dipping, talking and drinking, and still not feel overstuffed. 

Patricia Unterman is author of the just-released second edition of the “San Francisco Food Lovers’ Pocket Guide.” Contact her at pattiu@concentric.net.

Prime Rib Shabu

Location: 308 Fifth Ave., San Francisco

Contact: (415) 379-4678

Hours: Tuesdays through Sundays from 5:30 to 10 p.m.; until 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Price range: $9.95 to $25.95

Recommended dishes: Hand-cut rib eye set ($18.95); thin-cut rib eye set ($16.95)

Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa