Shabu Shabu, Korean BBQ, Karaoke and Virtual Golf????

Well, this is a bit confusing. The restaurant is called 'Shabu Shabu', which is essentially Japanese hot pot, but this restaurant is 100% Korean, from the proprietors to the food. But the culture clash is not what stands out the most about this restaurant; the weirdest/coolest selling point of the restaurant is their simulation golf and karaoke entertainment built into the restaurant. 

...Yep, you read that right.

So, while we know that you can stay sufficiently entertained throughout your meal, how does the food fare?

Takara - the treasure of Japanese restaurants?

Takara is upscale Japanese restaurant located on the upper floors of les Cours Mont-Royal shopping complex. It also has a more accessible entrance located on De la Montagne street. With a trained Japanese chef behind the sushi counter, Takara is recognized as one of the more authentic of the better-known Japanese restaurants in Montreal.

Qing Hua 2.0 - Still like mom makes!

The name 'Qing Hua' is most probably very familiar to a large portion of Montreal's food-savvy population, as well as a sizeable chunk of the 'common folk', as I call them. Most of them probably know Qing Hua as the humble - if dingy - restaurant in 'New Chinatown' with appalling service but scrumptious dumplings. What people don't know yet is that Qing Hua has opened up a second restaurant in the real Chinatown. So just how does the dumpling shop's little brother compare to the original?

Lolling and lolly-gagging and Lola Rosa.

Where Concordia gets the Green Panther and Crudessence, McGill gets its share of vegetarian food from a quaint little cafe tucked away in the McGill Ghetto. This cafe, as many a McGillian will know, is called Lola Rosa. Dun dun dun...

The Green Panther, not to be mistaken for its sneaky pink cousin.

I'm sure that if I mentioned the Pink Panther, most people born before the mid-90s would automatically think of slick pink feline and its iconic theme song: do doo, do doo, do doo do doo do doo do do do doooooo... badabababum! Ehhh... you get the jist of it. In any case, Montreal seems to house that panther's greener and hippy-er cousin, the Green Panther.

Seoul Chako, not solely for Korean BBQ.

FINALLY! A GENERIC, CHINESE-OWNED AYCE KOREAN BBQ PLACE JUST LIKE THE ONES IN TORONTO.

...Hey, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Seoul Chako just recently opened up on Ste-Catherine's street. After my last run-in with Korean BBQ of the AYCE sort, I was a bit scared of trying this place out. Still, armed with a student discount coupon, a small group of us charged blindly into the restaurant with very little ($10?) to lose.

Ossu! Sushi Yasu!

So now that we've seen the trendy fusion-style sushi, let's check out the other side of the coin. Traditional sushi restaurants tend to be modest-looking restaurants with simple decoration and a humble old Japanese man behind the sushi bar, shouting an 'Irrashaimase!' to you as you walk in the door. That, my friends, is what Sushi Yasu is all about.