I do love this place. Something about unlimited meat and fish, plus sushi to boot pleases the inner glutton (is it really inner?) in me. I’ve also always liked this room more than the Granville branch – it’s amusing that I’d find parking easier in the middle of downtown than off-downtown, but there it be.

A great sushi and Korean bbq spot. Sushi is ok, and meats are pretty good. We go there for the all you can eat, and we eat it all. Get the coffee jello! An excellent pick-me-up before a movie. Pretty busy, so make sure you get your order in quickly!

Meat Quality isnt as good as it was before. And the quality of the sushi, IS NOT, up to par with Japanese standards.

One of the best places to have an affordable All you can eat Sushi and Yakiniku. Recommended to come here at lunchtime on Sunday then the yakiniku is also included in the price of 12.95 bucks.

Food 4/5 | Service 2.5/5 | Ambiance 3.5/5 | Overall 3/5

Food

For BBQ this place is awesome, the all you can eat sushi menu is fairly small compared to other places in downtown. (i.e. robson sushi, Tanpopo). I started frequenting the Granville location first before i found out about the Burrard Street location. Now this is how I do it when we go there, first off regardless if no one else is using the BBQ, which for some reason during lunch no one tends to use it. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT. Here is the key to success with the BBQ they have 3 different flavors, Chicken, Beef, And Pork… Okay the thing with the chicken is it takes a lot of effort to keep it going, so i usually stay away from it, the spicy pork is not soo bad and the beef is perfect, so we load up usually 3 orders of beef at a time, and try to order everything you want form the rest of the menu right then and there.

Service

The place is super busy alll the time, service at least for ordering is slow, and you may want to make reservations on the weekend. The food will come quickly once your order has been taken, but thats the tricky part, getting them to TAKE YOUR ORDER!!!

Ambiance

This is the cool part about Korean BBQ, they have a little barbecue in the middle of your table, where you control the barbecuing part., the decor is interesting as well, they have a sort of boat table where you must remove your shoes to sit around… this is a great place to take large groups. The Granville location boast private rooms with seat for those extra large groups, I think we had a table for 15-20 before.

The resons why I love Shabusen are multi-fold. Firstly, it’s an all-you-can-eat sushi and Korean BBQ restaurant in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Secondly, it’s one hell of a deal (less than $20 CDN for all-you-can-eat sit-down lunch on the weekdays + Saturday). Thirdly, they don’t scrimp on quality… the tuna and salmon are tender and have that melt-in-your-mouth quality, the Korean bbq meats are choice cuts, even the tea isn’t watered down.

A meal here requires military-grade planning though, since it’s all-you-can-eat you get penalized for leaving stuff behind (waste not, want not!), you have a 2 hour time limit and you want to optimize your meal (take it easy on the rice and carbs, go for the sushi and BBQ). The wait staff takes a while to make their rounds since the place is so busy, so you need to make the most of each order, but after 3 visits, our family got it down pat (order sushi in multiples of 10, skip the fried rice and most nigiri, load up on sashimi). I love Shabusen and every visit leaves me feeling overdosed on sushi/sashimi and ready for a year-long hiatus but I always end up coming back.