It’s 1 a.m. in the wee hours of Saturday morning in Houston’s Southwest District. Time for shabu-shabu!

Where’s the beef? It’s at Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House, 9896 Bellaire Blvd., an all-you-can-eat Japanese-style hot pot restaurant focused on wagyu and open well past most bedtimes.

Also, at Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House, membership has its privileges. Those with an annual one get a discount on each visit for themselves and a guest — and a free birthday meal.

But Houston, there’s only one problem, according to an online reviewer: “I think I’ll be sweating beef for months after this.”
Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House takes shabu-shabu up a notch, offering a modern and stylish yet comfortable dining room, attentive service and all-you-can-eat premium quality wagyu beef.

Wagyu is a term for a breed of Japanese cattle that produce highly marbled beef, while shabu-shabu is a Japanese-style of hot pot named after the sound the ingredients make while being stirred in the pot.

“This restaurant is a different level of shabu,” David Zhao, founding partner of Chubby Group, which operates the restaurant, told the Houston Chronicle.

“Our beef is ethically sourced from a local ranch and our vegetables are always in season,” says Chubby Group’s website. “An important element of shabu-shabu, we select soup ingredients carefully to create a delectable umami broth.”

First opened in California only a couple of years ago in 2022, Mikiya has been expanding quickly with more locations in California, as well as in Las Vegas and Honolulu. The Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House in the Southwest District is the first Texas location.

The only way to get priority seating at the busy restaurant is to secure a Chubby Club Lifetime Digital Membership, starting at $700. However, the check-in process sans lifetime membership is quite seamless and, even on a recent busy Saturday, the wait wasn’t terribly long.

Waiting has the benefit of growing your appetite for the AYCE (all-you-can-eat) experience, which is limited to 90 minutes. Choose from four pricing options that come with a discount for a different kind of membership at a much more budget-friendly price — a $28 annual membership.

We got the annual membership and then went with the Silver wagyu menu set ($45 for members), featuring Australian wagyu cuts, one speciality dish (we chose wagyu bone marrow) and a seafood platter.

The raw beef and seafood is presented table side. Diners use chopsticks to dip the meat, one piece at a time, into a choice of flavored broths such as spicy miso, Japanese tomato or a house broth with ponzu sauce.

First time cooking your own meat and veggies in a simmering broth? Don’t worry. The helpful servers will guide you.

A lot goes into a successful and memorable shabu-shabu experience, including ambiance, tasty broth, fresh vegetables and high-quality meats.

Mikiya checks all the boxes from start to finish.

And, while start to finish is limited to an hour and a half, you can dine on Mikiya’s shabu-shabu almost anytime — day or night.

The restaurant is open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Mikiya opens daily at 11 a.m.

Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House
9896 Bellaire Blvd.
https://mikiyashabu.com/project/houston-tx/

— Dorothy Puch Lillig