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f you want to taste Japanese food but cannot handle raw food, you need to try Japanese-style hotpot shabu-shabu at Shabu-Shabu House, which recently opened an outlet at Grand Indonesia's East Mall.

Shabu-shabu consists of paper-thin meat, vegetables, mushroom, tofu and noodles that are soaked into the soup and eaten with sauce.

Until the Meiji period, eating beef in Japan was uncommon among the Japanese. However, after the port of Yokohama was opened in 1859, the number of foreign residents in the city (and Japan) swelled and so did the demand for beef to be used in cooking. The practices of this foreign community influenced the Japanese, including the consumption of beef.

Burhanuddin Hasibuan, the restaurant's operational manager, said that his restaurant focused on shabu-shabu because he wants to introduce other healthy and natural Japanese food apart from the already famous sushi and sashimi.

There are four types of soup to go with the menu: the plain original, the chicken broth miso, the spicy kimchi and the sweet sukiyaki. The kimchi soup has a similar spiciness level with Padang food (from West Sumatra). Here comes the rule: if you can't stand Padang food then go for the other soups.

Guests can also choose the meat out of choices: wagyu and the regular beef from New Zealand or Australian. The beef comes in two sizes: 100 grams and 200 grams. You can switch the beef with seafood, chicken or vegetarian platter. Going back for an extra helping is encouraged!

"Some of our menus, the Australian beef, New Zealand and fish, actually fit with suggested diets because they only have 700 calories," Burhan said

Shabu-shabu contains Omega 3 and Omega 6, which is good for people with cancer, cholesterol or heart problems.

The fun thing about eating shabu-shabu is that you can determine how well done you want for the meal. It does not take a long time to have a well-cooked meal. With 1,800 degrees Celsius running on the electric stove, guests can have a well-done piece of meat after a one-minute dip.

The dish is prepared by submerging the ingredients into a pot of boiling water or dashi (broth) made with konbu (seaweed) and swishing it back and forth several times. The familiar swishing sound is where the dish gets its name. Shabu-shabu directly translates to "swish-swish".

It is recommended that the vegetables go into the broth before the meat, noodles and tofu because the latter ingredients can soften up quicker than the former.

Before eating, cooked meat is dipped into goma (sesame seed) sauce while the vegetables go dipped in ponzu (citrus-based) sauce. The meal can be enjoyed with a bowl of steamed white rice. Once the meat and vegetables have been eaten, leftover broth from the pot is customarily combined with the remaining rice, and the resulting soup is usually eaten last.

As the restaurant's name implies, the dish selection basically focuses on shabu-shabu. However, there are also side dishes such as shitake maki (sliced mushroom wrapped in meat), tofu steak, donburi (rice bowl), yakitori (grilled food) and tempura (fritters).

Besides the outlet in Grand Indonesia, Shabu-Shabu House can also be found in Senayan City, eX, Cosi Caf* in Pluit, North Jakarta and two other outlets in Semarang, Central Java, and Surabaya, East Java.