These past few years, my dad has usually been celebrating his birthday at any of the popular buffet restaurants (usually Dad's/Kamayan/Saisaki at Megamall or Yakimix). While this year wasn't supposed to be any different, the really long wait to get a table at Dad's Megamall forced us to seek at alternative, so we decided to head over to the Mega Atrium at SM Megamall and try out Tong Yang Shabu-Shabu & Barbecue Restaurant, located at the 4th floor. It's been ages since I last ate here--the first and (so far) only time was during the late 90s or early 2000s at their older location in another part of SM Megamall. I don't really recall much from that time, so stepping into Tong Yang again and trying out their food felt like an entirely new experience.
As you can see, we did not have to wait at all to get a table. We were immediately escorted to our table and within a few minutes, we were already going through their selection of cooked and uncooked food.
At P595 per person, Tong Yang is competitively priced against the larger and more popular buffet restaurants that have been emerging around Metro Manila lately. Tong Yang, though, gives more emphasis on having the customers cook their own food (it is a Shabu-Shabu restaurant, after all), which is why they have a pretty limited selection of cooked dishes. More on that later.
They have a HUGE selection of seafood, from salmon to crabs to oysters to shrimp, and so on.
Displayed here are items that include Squid Rolls, Fish Cakes, Fried Beancurd, and Bicho Bicho--and that's just one part of it. There's A LOT more if you look around.
All set to be cooked!
Since I don't have that much experience in cooking (save for the cooking classes I had in grade school and high school), it's nice to pretend to be a chef by "expertly" turning the meat over with a tong every few minutes. That's the closest to cooking as I can possibly get.
I wasn't really able to try everything shown on the photo above (it was just too much for me!), but the green squid balls with spinach stood out. My mom also loved the squid balls, squid rolls, and the fresh squid--she found them to be very tasty. This is clearly one of their strengths.
You can choose from different types of soup. The sinigang soup base (top) and the chicken soup base (bottom) are just some of them. The chicken soup was bland--I guess a bit more seasoning would have helped to add more flavor to it.
They have a limited selection of Sushi. They were very good, though, so I guess that makes up for the lack of choices.
The noodles were bland; I wasn't really that much of a fan. I only ate half of what I got from the buffet. Other items I noticed on the buffet table include Yang Chow Fried Rice (pretty good), dimsum (acceptable), kimchi (good), sweet-and-sour pork (good), and sushi (thumbs up!). There were a few others too which I don't recall much, and didn't really get to try.
First round of dessert: one scoop of strawberry ice cream and half a scoop of chocolate ice cream.
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Second round of dessert: Um...halo-halo (?). Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I wasn't too happy with it, so...
...I went back to the dessert table for a slice of ube cake roll. This one was much better than the halo-halo. I would have returned for a second slice had I not been so full already. They also had fresh fruit and almond jelly but I was already too full to get myself a bowl of it.
While my parents and brother were quite satisfied (so much so that my dad decided he would return to treat his co-workers to lunch here after a few days), I on the other hand felt that there are still points to improve on, starting with the selection and quality of cooked dishes, for one. While some of the dishes were good, some just weren't (the noodles, especially). They could have also refilled the dishes faster and more often, to avoid the swarm of diners "pouncing" on the food as soon as they are placed on the buffet table. Also, while the staff were friendly and accommodating (thumbs up for that), I had an experience where some of them were blocking the dessert station because they were chatting with those behind the counter--and they weren't even talking about work-related matter, mind you.
On a scale of 1-10, I think this place deserves a 6.5.
Tong Yang Shabu-Shabu and Barbecue Restaurant
4th floor, Mega Atrium, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City
Operating hours: 10am-9pm (Sundays-Thursdays); 10am-10pm (Friday and Saturday)
Other branches: Jupiter Street, Makati City; SM City Fairview; Eton Centris Walk; Robinsons Place Manila; Del Pilarstreet corner Padre Faura, Ermita
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