Dip Dip Dip Tatsuya

For our 1st meal in Austin, we landed at Dip Dip Dip.

It's at a very low key strip center.

But details everywhere...

While we wait, the bar outside got our drinks and give us some time to get acquainted to the dining experience.

Here's your map to your dining table.  This is a personal shabu shabu, and they lay out what to expect and what sauces they have for you to pick for your food.

Chart to teach you how long to cook each type of food.

More details, they literally put thought into from the eating area to the share we sit on.

Ahh, here's our own pot and place for the sauces and such.

So you see your main shabu pot in the center (I got the Tonkotsu soup base), rice to your left and ponzu sauce in the middle and sesame gomadre (like a light peanut dip) on the right.

As soon as the soup is bowling, they immediately do a quick presentation of the chicken meatball.  It was in a bamboo container and you have to fish them back out as it cooks for 3 minutes.

I ordered the Tatsuya Omakase - it comes with Texas Waygu (top tray), Kurobuta Pork belly (middle tray).  Bottom tray has 2 types of dumpling - crab with lemon butter and shrimp with cheddar grits.  The middle is a raclette and mushroom tofu pocket sewed up with a bamboo stick.  Then the beef roll, I highly highly recommend.  It is foie gras and daikon wrapped with beef.  So good.

Since it's all meat, we ordered the Vegetable Box which comes with various types of veggies for you to do a quick dip into the soup to cook.

This is the Truffle Sukiyaki Dip with a 45 degree egg and soy plus the truffle.  You're supposed to break the egg and mix everything together.  That said, we do the same in Chinese hot pot with Sa Cha sauce and egg, however, this flavor is very light.  I like the novelty of it, but can also skip it too.

So, if you don't want to do the omakase, you can order a la carte, and here's to give you some ideas of what you're ordering, they'll push these carts around to show.

These are sausage, and the twofers are stuffed tofu skin.

Seafood that they have to offer

There are gourds, more beef rolls, and in the wooden container are tofu.

We a la carte the mushroom because it actually went very well with the soup.

...the tofu skin and the tofu.  

The Omakase came with noodles, you can tell the noodles was made in house, and they basically pre-cooked them.  By the time they get to you, their instructions was for you to put in couple scoops of soup to the noodles.  However, the noodles already cooled and stuck together, so it takes more than just a couple of scoops of soup to soften it up.  Though, they did say not to put the noodles in the pot, we found that actually was the best to yield flavor and texture.  Try at your own risk.

For dessert, they gave us the melon frappe with creme fraiche and edible flowers.  It was sprinkled in with some salt, just to balance out the sour and zing.  But by this point I was so stuffed that I barely touched mine, and this is complimentary, by the way.

Just some art around the place.

Very nostalgic

In Kanji and Romanji too.  Very cool!

So, take-aways.  First and foremost, make a reservation, that is no joke.  We've seen folks walking up and get turn away because they don't have opening until 8:45 or 9pm.  If you get there a few mins before your start time, they also don't seat you right away, so be prepare to enjoy a beverage outside because remember their bar is on the outside.  In this heat though, they do have misters and fan going.

In terms of food, we were just talking about that.  If we had ordered 1 order of the omakase and then do the a la carte, it would've been good and get what we wanted.  The dumplings I wouldn't try again, but the beef rolls I don't mind getting extra ones.  

As much as an individual experience, you can share food and space, so it actually is pretty fun and unique.

Dip Dip Dip Tatsuya

7301 Burnet Rd

#101

Austin, TX 78757

https://www.dipdipdip-tatsuya.com