By Gene Gonzalez DO IT YOURSELF In Davao City, shabu shabu gets a house it deserves I was in the Damosa area of Davao the other night and I seemed to have spied this place called Mr. Shabu Shabu. The place was well lit and had people coming in feeling welcome as the place was spacious with high ceilings and squeaky clean interiors. The restaurant was well patronized because we three chef instructors would be the ones to get the last table on a weekday night. I had my reservations and was a little unexcited to find two broths (plain and sate) as choices in the menu and was looking for a condiment tray or station on the other tables where one can customize your own sauce, very typical of many shabu shabu places. Things in my mind started to change when the service staff told us of a new broth offering, which is their Szechuan flavored soup as clamored by several regulars who want some heat and electric sensations from this spicy traditional stock that is a Beijing standard. The excitement erased my skepticism about their house sauce when I tried a pea-sized drop and suddenly was impressed by the complex yet balanced mix of fragrant ginger, garlic, sesame paste, cumin, XO sauce, and cardamom with herbs. It takes a masterful palate to come up with this sauce and it takes a lot of confidence to bank on one sauce and certainly this sauce catapults this shabu shabu place to the top in this city. Later on I had found out that this restaurant is from the same group of restaurateurs Jongjong Gotamco, Sherdan Te, Allen Abbas, and Sherdan Te that gave Davao City this loud, happy drinking place called Tagbuan, with lots of specialties from the different cities or outlying areas of Davao City. Their Szechuan when it starts to simmer starts that complex potpourri of a paste made from dried chilies, prickly ash or Szechuan peppercorns, ginger, garlic, white pepper, sweet wood spices. The spicy heat of the broth does not overpower the freshness of the ingredients. The slices of the beef are so fresh and deep fuchsia in color that a gentle plunge is enough to create a medium rare morsel that is given another plunge in their house sauce. More and more boiled specialty balls such as their squid and our group favorite of cheese tofu are plunged into the steamy hotpot. The flavors build up on one’s palate and build up on the hot broth. Midway it has become a very tasty soup where you relish the mixed flavors and the floral fragrance of the Szechuan peppercorns and its interesting mix with the smokiness of dried chili and other spices that comprise the paste. After demolishing platter upon platter of the merry mix of food we signal the staff that we would like to exit the restaurant, feeling that we have had a large but satisfying dinner. As we do, we realize that it is next door to Ice Giants where they serve a halo-halo type of dessert with durian! But that of course, that’s another story.... You can email me @[email protected] or message me on Instagram.