Tai Ke Shabu Shabu brings experiential Taiwanese dining to Olivette
This stylish new hot-pot restaurant features tableside cooking.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
You’re waiting. Steam eddies are swirling from the steel pot, which is loaded with shrimp, clams, squid, and corn on the cob. The table’s covered with plates for more ingredients waiting to be dunked: delicate sheaves of milky enoki mushrooms; shaved beef frosted with fat; tong hao, or chrysanthemum leaves; Taiwanese cabbage. But you’re waiting for what looks like a slab of traffic cone–orange Jell-O. When it’s delivered, things start heating up. You spoon the thick, creamy spice mix into the broth, which detonates into a violently hued brew. Give the broth a little time to cure; when the bubbles start popping, it’s time to start ladling ingredients into the pot.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Think of Tai Ke Shabu Shabu—an offshoot of Tai Ke, the recently shuttered Taiwanese restaurant in University City—as similar to the DIY fondue dining experience. Seats at the rectangular bar are equipped with rocket-efficient induction heat. Tables get Sterno-heated pots, which take a little more time to hit cooking temperature. Either way, you choose a basic pot—seafood, lamb, beef, mushroom, a combination—then order from more than two dozen vegetable, meat, and seafood add-ons. Once the broth is on the boil, you pop in what you want, allow it to parboil, and proceed to nibble and nosh your way through the night. It’s lovely, the essence of leisurely dining.
Shabu shabu is a dish with a curious past. The word is onomatopoeic Japanese, describing the swishing sound of food stirred in broth. Taiwan later adopted it and adapted it in a unique version. That’s what Tai Ke Shabu Shabu is bringing to St. Louis for the first time.
The Taiwanese version’s distinctiveness comes primarily from the kick provided by the flavoring of the broth. Every eatery has its own, more secret than the Hapsburg napkin fold. We wheedled a single ingredient out of the owner: beef fat. It’s blended, we’re guessing, with Szechuan peppers, anise, and maybe tangerine peel. Whatever else is involved, the result is a spectacular multilayered taste that’s spicy, prickly hot, and bursting with flavor.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Crispy fried tofu skins
Dipping sauces are another hallmark of Taiwan-style shabu shabu, the pride of any kitchen serious about this dish. As with the broth spices, the recipes are proprietary. Tai Ke’s standard version is a take on shacha, a slurry of garlic, shallots, chilies, and other ingredients, with a definite bite that’s warm rather than flaming. Another sauce, redolent of sesame seed oil, goes particularly well with the mutton. Don’t be afraid to ask for more; just don’t ask for the recipe.
Tofu skins are like crispy pork rinds but soften into delectable chewy nibbles. Lotus root cooks to a firm but tender texture, like cooked carrots. Chitterlings are, well, chitlins. They soak up the broth’s flavor beautifully. Beef tendon balls are the same airy, meaty spheres you’ve had in pho.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Gau Bao, a steamed bun with braised pork belly, cilantro, ground peanut, and pickled mustard greens
A few small suggestions for the new Olivette eatery: A stirred raw egg accompanying the shabu shabu sauces would add a silky, luxuriant richness. And once the pots are empty of all but the remaining broth, it would be great to get cooked rice tossed in to make a final filling porridge. We’re hoping that Tai Ke’s new specialty will be popular enough that the management can add these touches—and some beers beyond Bud Light.
Note too: The original Tai Ke’s menu is still available, especially those wonderful street food snacks that had the old place regularly packed. The menu is virtually a tour of Taiwan’s regional specialties. Pork belly is nestled into light fluffy buns with sour, piquant mustard greens. “Hot dogs,” smoky spiced Taiwanese sausage swaddled in another sausage and filled with sticky rice, is an iconic Taipei street food. Beef shanks braised with noodles taste like Szechuan—for a reason. Many of the region’s cooks fled the mainland after the Communist takeover and brought their recipes to Taiwan.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Braised pork belly with pickled vegetables
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Fried oysters with basil
Plump oysters are deep-fried, in a recipe from the middle of the country, in a light cornstarch-like coating. From the southeast, there is Taitung-style soup, made with pork blood. Braised pork belly is ringed with pickled vegetables.
Fat, meaty trumpet mushrooms are braised in soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and rice wine, the famous “three cups” preparation. “Night market steak” is Taiwan’s take on teppan-yaki, with the meat quick-sizzled and the aroma as enticing as the taste. (Somebody’s eventually going to figure out a way to have Asian-style night markets in downtown St. Louis that will revolutionize our city.)
For now, the addition of shabu shabu at Tai Ke brings a new culinary adventure to town. Get to dipping and swishing right away.
