Ulsan shabu buffet date, salmon sushi made on request: Shabre Garden

I heard a new all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu place had opened in Ulsan, so I went with my boyfriend. It was a cheat day in the middle of my diet and a date at the same time. This is my story of Shabre Garden Ulsan Nam-gu Branch :)

Shabre Garden Ulsan Nam-gu Branch: location, hours and parking

Shabre Garden Ulsan Nam-gu Branch is at 14 Suam-ro 128beon-gil, Nam-gu, Ulsan, on the 2nd floor of building 4, and it is open daily 11:00–21:00. Break time is 15:00–17:00, and last order is 20:20. Parking is paid: an extra ₩1,500 per 60 minutes, up to ₩3,000.

How much does Shabre Garden Ulsan Nam-gu Branch cost?

Adult prices are ₩24,900 for weekday lunch, ₩29,900 for weekday dinner and ₩31,900 on weekends and holidays. Elementary school students are ₩16,900, preschoolers (36 months to age 6) are ₩8,900, and children 35 months and under are free. I went for weekday lunch.

It had been open for less than two weeks, so it's a brand-new place. It's also a shabu-shabu spot near Gongeoptap (the Industrial Tower landmark) in Ulsan.

Weekday lunch wait and atmosphere

I arrived on a weekday after 1:30, around 1:40 maybe? There was no wait and we walked right in. One other blogger's post said that from 1:00 it was so crowded they stopped seating people, you know? But on my weekday it was nothing like that.

Shabre Garden The Black Ulsan Nam-gu Branch is a premium shabu-shabu and sushi buffet in Nam-gu, Ulsan. Maybe because it's so new, there was still some construction going on here and there (the elevator). There are quite a lot of seats, plenty of them, so I think it would work for big groups or gatherings too.

What are the dessert bar and chocolate fountain like?

The entrance area is all dessert bar. There are drinks like coffee and soda, desserts to finish your meal, and even a patbingsu (shaved ice with sweet red beans) zone. Soft drinks, shaved ice, ice cream and soda are all yours to help yourself to.

The chocolate fountain zone was so good! Personally I loved that the chocolate tasted rich and classy, not like cheap palm oil.

It looks pretty and tastes great, so I recommend making a waffle or dipping the marshmallows. There are ready-made waffles and also the fun of making your own, so choose whichever you like.

Side dishes at the dining salad bar

The dining salad bar has a wide range of sides: salad, fried food, fried rice, tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), meat and more. Freshly made food is the best, of course, so I'd guess you'll get lots of fresh dishes if you come at peak time.

I got there around 1:40, close to break time, so maybe that's why some of the food had gone a bit cold. Still, the tangsuyuk (Korean sweet and sour pork) and the cream shrimp were great! The stir-fried udon was intensely spicy but so delicious, T_T I guess I just really love udon T_T

Is the draft beer at Shabre Garden unlimited too?

Yes, the draft beer is unlimited here. This was a real plus: you can have all the draft beer you want with your meal, so if you like a drink you'll save money on booze.

Shabu-shabu self-serve bar and sushi zone

The shabu-shabu at Shabre Garden The Black is all-you-can-eat, from choosing your broth to the meat, vegetables and even Vietnamese rice paper rolls, so you can mix it however you like. The self-bar has fresh vegetables and a huge variety of add-ins that could rival a mala tang (spicy Chinese hot pot) specialist. I even saw some actual mala tang ingredients and briefly thought, is this a mala tang place?

The sushi zone is open-style too, and if a type of sushi isn't out, the chef makes it fresh on the spot when you ask. The sweet, soft egg sushi, the rolls and gunkan (nori-wrapped sushi) kids love, the mild, chewy flatfish sushi, and the popular shrimp and raw shrimp sushi are all good, but I like salmon the most! On another blog I'd seen salmon sushi for sure, but when I went there was none at all. I asked, and they made salmon sushi for me right then and there.

The sauce bar has peanut sauce, chili sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ddaengcho (Cheongyang chili peppers) and more, so you can pick to suit your taste.

Salad is a must at any buffet! I eat it to at least try to blunt a blood sugar spike. The salad bar looked just like a wedding buffet. We were like, isn't this basically two meals in one? haha Besides sushi, there was a lot more to eat, like chicken, pasta and pizza.

The salad bar at Shabre Garden The Black also has a separate self-serve porridge corner to finish off your shabu-shabu. It had everything: white rice, chopped vegetables, raw eggs, seaweed flakes and sesame oil.

If you don't want the unlimited draft beer, there's regular soju and beer too! Of course, those cost extra. Even at 1:40 there were really a lot of people. There are quite a few seats all the way to the back, and they were all full.

Half-and-half broth with beef brisket and chuck

The shabu-shabu comes in a half-and-half pot so you can try two broths at once. I think ours were katsuo (bonito) broth and jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle soup) broth.

Here's what we brought back! We kept the first plate fairly modest. It's funny that both my boyfriend and I always grab salad first, hahaha

You can take as much as you like from the meat fridge. There's beef brisket, with a good mix of fat that makes it tender and soft, and beef chuck, which is lean, mild and clean-tasting.

Personally, I felt the beef chuck was much better. Shabu-shabu is easy to eat anytime, which I love. After an ordinary buffet I feel oddly guilty and regretful, but with a shabu-shabu buffet you can rationalize it: at least I ate lots of vegetables, it's still clean eating, right?

Cheers with ice-cold beer! Honestly, I didn't expect much from unlimited draft beer, but it was really good?? It tasted like the draft beer at a fried chicken place! There was no reason not to drink it, so I had alcohol for the first time in a while.

How was the salmon sushi made on request?

The salmon sushi I asked for separately was honestly so delicious T_T

The salmon was sliced really thick, so I could fully enjoy the rich texture and nutty flavor T_T Surprisingly, sushi goes well with shabu-shabu, so I kept eating. After a bite of mild, cold salmon sushi, a sip of the spicy jjamppong broth or shabu-shabu broth cuts the richness, so you never get tired of it. The egg sushi was soft and lightly sweet, which made it easy to eat, and the yubu chobap (sushi rice in fried tofu pouches) was so-so.

Finishing with a chocolate fountain waffle

After a meal, you have to have dessert, right? I'd had my eye on the chocolate fountain since we walked in, so I made a waffle and just dunked it! Honestly, it looked so good I wanted to bury my nose in the fountain, like Noh Hong-chul's diet special.

Spread chocolate and whipped cream on the waffle and have it twice, it's really good. I saw lots of other bloggers making shaved ice, and that's nice too, but please, please eat the waffle.

At Shabre Garden The Black Ulsan Nam-gu Branch, you can enjoy the sushi dining and the hotel-style salad bar without limits alongside the shabu-shabu. If you like shabu-shabu and sushi, I'd say go right now.

This is TMI, but on the way out I noticed a big warehouse-style pharmacy on the building's first floor. I looked around and bought some because the medicine was so cheap.

There are lots of medicines with funny names, and it's fun to browse the supplements too, so when you're full it's nice to wander around the first floor and look around.