A one-minute walk away from JR Akihabara Station, Tajima-ya Yodobashi AKIBA is on the eighth floor of the Yodobashi Akiba building. The chain has more than ten restaurants open throughout Japan and specializes in all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu and yakiniku buffets.

The lunchtime course comes as a 60-minute or 90-minute all-you-can-eat buffet, while the time limit is 90 or 120 minutes for dinner instead, with the menus staying largely the same. The price of the course changes depending on the meat that comes with each set.

For lunch, the 60-minute beef and pork all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu course is recommended, which is 1,780 yen for adults, 980 yen for elementary school students, and 580 yen for children aged three to six years old (without tax).

From beef and pork rib to pork loin and chicken thigh slices, you can enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet-style meal as you add vegetables and other ingredients into your hotpot.

The shop also has its signature duo-flavored hotpot for your shabu-shabu. You can choose any two from six soup bases: Nikko konbu (seaweed stock), sukidashi (stock made with lightened sukiyaki sauce), chige (kimchi flavored), yuzu-shio (yuzu and salt), white broth (meat and vegetable stock), and a seasonal soup flavor, such as onion.

For the 60-minute course, one of the soups is pre-selected as Nikko konbu, while you can pick your favorite soup out of the available choices for the other one. For the 90- and 120-minute courses, you can select the two of your choice. Amongst foreign visitors, white broth, chige, and sukidashi are especially popular.

Once you’ve ordered your course, the hotpot, meats, ponzu sauce, and sesame sauce will be served first as a set. As the meat is only sliced after the order is placed, if you would like more meat to go with your food, just place your order with the wait staff. Vegetables and rice are available as self-service, and you can help yourself at the designated buffet counter.

This Akihabara shabu-shabu shop is dedicated to the best. Only the finest of meats are available at Tajima-ya’s all-you-can-eat buffet! The meat is very fresh, being sliced only when ordered, and you can taste the rich fattiness of the meat. You can pick out just your favorite cuts out of four types - beef rib, pork rib, pork loin, and chicken thigh - from the beef and pork all-you-can-eat course.

Besides the above, courses including locally produced beef and the finest wagyu, Yume-no-Daichi pork from Hokkaido, and Ōyama-dori chicken are available as well, so it’s recommended that you pick the course that best suits your palate.

Then the meat goes into the boiling broth!

Give the meat a good swish in the soup, and once the meat is fully cooked, pull it out! Do be sure that the pork and chicken are thoroughly cooked before eating though.

When eating shabu-shabu hotpot using lighter soups such as Nikko konbu and white broth, we recommend eating the meat together with ponzu sauce and sesame sauce.

Besides savoring the meat with just the flavor of the soup, you can enjoy it together with sauce as well, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone. There are over ten other different spices and condiments that you can mix and match with, so try things out until you’ve found your perfect flavor!

The buffet table at this Akihabara shabu-shabu specialty shop has more than 20 types of seasonal vegetables and other hotpot ingredients lined up.

You can pick up as many of your favorite ingredients as you like! Leafy greens, carrots, daikon radish, mushrooms, tofu, shirataki noodles and konjac are all shabu-shabu ingredients that go well with meat, making them excellent add-ons to your hotpot. Though a few main items remain unchanged, seasonal vegetables make a limited-time appearance at the buffet table during their peak season.

Besides this, wiener sausages and wonton dumplings are some of the other different ingredients that you can get as well. With such a wide variety of foods available, you’ll definitely have an enjoyable hotpot meal.

As the side ingredients change depending on their stock and supply, do look forward to seeing what daily specials they have to offer on the day you’re visiting!

You can pick your choice of noodles to finish up the hotpot as well.

In another corner, rice and curry is available. This is included as part of the all-you-can-eat course as well.

The curry is chock full of vegetables. It makes for a nice change of pace from the hotpot due to its different flavor, and it goes well with rice as you finish up the last of the soup, allowing you to enjoy your feast all the way to the end.

Feel free to pick up whatever sauces or add-ons you need at the spice and condiment corner. You can pick condiments to add on to your soup, and to the ponzu and sesame sauces, to create your own perfect hotpot soup and flavors.

And let’s not forget the sweets. Besides all the above, there’s free-flow ice cream as well. Chocolate and strawberry sauces for the ice cream are available too, so go all out to make your perfect parfait. It’s excellent as dessert.

Free flow drinks at the drink bar are available for an additional cost. For the 60-minute course, free-flow soft drinks cost an extra 400 yen, while alcohol costs 1,200 yen (without tax).

The shop interior is spacious and wide, and as there aren’t any full wall partitions, ventilation is good as well. Hand sanitizer is provided at the entrance and each table, and staff are also required to wear masks, as part of measures to control the Covid-19 virus. English and Chinese menus, along with foreign staff, are available as well, allowing for multi-language support. And thanks to the shop location, foreign visitors frequent it as well, making it a place that anyone, regardless of nationality, can gather at and enjoy.

Besides the courses we introduced this time, there is a premium all-you-can-eat course that includes Kobe beef as part of the meat selection, and another that comes with Hokkaido Furano Wagyu, and you can enjoy them with either two-flavored shabu-shabu hotpot, or grilled sukiyaki style.

Tajima-ya Yodobashi AKIBA is a place where you can eat your fill of the finest quality meats. When looking for shabu-shabu in Akihabara, do be sure to check it out!

*The above article is based on information from July 2020