4/5 for food, 2/5 for service
I returned to Hong Kong for a few days on a solo trip to Asia after being away for almost 3 years. Met up with a buddy who now lived in HK and he asked if I wanted to re-live the glory days of crushing hotpots. Nabe One came to our heads as we have had a good experience with it before (in the TST location). We were in Causeway Bay at this particular time, so we chose to try this location.
The queue was fairly long for a Sunday night and I was reminded of long queues despite being only a party of two. While we wait, we spent some time examining the menu and making sure we had our soup bases and choice of meets ready.
Ordered
- Two soup bases of Tomato Pork Bone Soup (4/5) and Sukiyaki Soup (4/5). Both were good and helped contrast each other. The sukiyaki broth was sweet and delicious, though enjoy it in moderation as it gets old fairly quick
- Japanese Wagyu Beef - Pork (5/5). Very good. A bit on the pricier side (~ 41 USD / person) but might as well go all-in when in Asia. The cuts of beef are lean, juicy, and literally melts in your mouth. It is easily cooked and takes seconds when dipped into the boiling broth. I recommend this or the U.S. Supreme Beef - Pork when you're at Nabe One
Service
- One of the worst services I've experienced. The service was fine for first 1/3 and generally fell downhill to pure disrespect for last 2/3. My friend and I are Americans, this was an AYE restaurant, and we were paying a decent amount for this experience. We made sure to bring our A-game to get our money's worth. We cleaned a plate of wagyu beef every 1-2 minutes which shocked the servers as they tried to stall us when we were ordering to make sure they were not losing money off us. This was very annoying despite ordering everything in Cantonese. There was a time period when we didn't receive a plate of beef for at least 10 minutes and I had to speak English to get them moving. The server then brought over 5 plates of beef and it definitely looked different and of poorer quality than what we had in the beginning. Very annoyed. Also, by the time 90 minutes came, we were immediately forced to pay our bill (they don't allow splitting, too) and leave.
Nabe One is good but I wouldn't expect too much from a service level. Most unprofessional staff I've seen, despite advertising this as an AYE. read more