Chubby Cattle restaurant in Novi is a fun, flavorful meat fest

Novi — Get in, carnivores, we’re going to Chubby Cattle.

The new restaurant brings Japanese-style shabu shabu dining to Metro Detroit via the new Sakura Novi development. The bright, engaging and interactive experience is similar to other hot pot restaurants, but Chubby Cattle Wagyu Shabu House has some higher-end elements.

The main difference is the beef. Chubby Cattle specializes in American, Australian and Japanese wagyu — served raw so thinly sliced so you can cook it in the pot at your table in seconds — as well as gourmet dishes like the super rich and buttery wagyu bone marrow, wagyu tartare and wagyu beef nigiri.

Like other hot pot experiences around town, this one also has an all-you-can-eat model (limited to 90 minutes) and offers a small buffet of fried snacks, salads, fruit, rice, noodles and customizable dipping sauces.

There’s a lot to eat here, and the choices can be overwhelming, so I’ll share the flavors I enjoyed most and a little about how the service style works.

There’s a hot pot that can hold two different broths at your table. Your Chubby Cattle server will explain how the menu and pricing works, and how to order different ingredients to cook in your boiling hot pot. Raw meat and side dishes like dumplings, eggrolls and special dishes like the bone marrow are ordered on an electronic tablet. (Some of the tablets are a bit beat up, especially considering the restaurant has only been open for four months.)

We chose the spicy tonkotsu broth, which had a very subtle hint of heat and a creamy, almost silky texture. Our server also recommended the sukiyaki broth, which was deep brown, sweet and had hints of savory soy sauce, but wasn’t overly sweet or salty. As you cook and eat, the broth diminishes and your server will refill, but the spice level seems to wane as the meal goes on.

Beef is my favorite hot pot ingredient, so to see our server bring tray after tray of rose-and-white marbled slices was super fun. You have to ask which beef is which; the trays aren’t labeled, and after our first round of the primo stuff, it didn’t matter much.

I created a dipping sauce from the sauce bar with a ponzu base, plus extra garlic, sesame oil and a boatload of chopped scallions. This complimented the beef wonderfully, but the thin, buttery slices were also good totally on their own, flavored only by a few seconds’ time in the spicy or sweet broths.

You can further flavor the broth at your table by adding vegetables, mushrooms, noodles, eggs or bespoke sauces you create from the sauce bar. The possibilities for different flavor profiles are kind of endless, and that’s what makes the experience fun and communal.

Beyond the broth-cooked cuisine, Chubby Cattle will fill you up with its rice dispenser that lets the user parcel out whatever size portion they want. Add some wagyu beef stew (with or without curry) to that, or just mix the rice with what you cook at the table.

The hot bar has small sesame balls with sweet paste inside, and rich and creamy mini egg custard tarts that I loved. For savory snacks, there were chicken nuggets, pork gyoza and chicken skin dumplings, which my dining companions loved but I thought were too chewy after being under the heat lamps. The salad bar had lots of fresh, palate-cleansing dishes like fresh melon, bright green wakame, spicy kimchi and a hardy woodear mushroom salad that you rarely see in all-you-can-eat situations.

There are also snacks on the tablet that you can order fresh from the kitchen along with your raw beef.

My favorite of the small bites available from the tablet were the shaomai, open-face rice-stuffed savory dumplings that comes two to an order. The chicken eggrolls infused with ginger and the pungent kimchi xiao long bao were also fresh and flavorful.

If you don’t fill up on egg tarts and sesame balls, you can order a sweet finish from the tablet, too. We chose the many-layered matcha cake, which was creamy, earthy and a lovely bright green color.

Next time — and I am definitely coming back here — I will probably get the silver tier, which is $20 cheaper and gives you fewer high-end beef options, but still an unlimited amount of Australian and American wagyu. For the gold tier you are limited to one serving of the Japanese A5 wagyu chuck and shoulder cuts, but unlimited brisket, which is where the value is in getting the gold.

All tiers also include chicken, lamb and pork to cook in your hot pot, but the beef is the star. (The American and Australian varieties are also halal.) Gold, silver and diamond tiers also come with one seafood platter.

One thing I wish was clearer ahead of making my decision is the the specialty dish: wagyu nigiri, sweet shrimp sashimi, wagyu tartare, and wagyu bone marrow. They are listed as being “limited one.” That’s one of those four, not one of each. I was more than happy with my choice of the buttery, rich wagyu bone marrow, which is served in-bone with a spoon and a few pieces of white toast. For added texture, it’s got charred beef crumbles on top of the rich and unctuous marrow.

For beverages, you can serve yourself from the fountain pop machine, a milk tea dispenser, or grab a bottle of water or can of soda. Chubby Cattle Novi just got its liquor license this month, adding a small selection of sake. Beer, soju and cocktails are on the way, including Kirin Ichiban, Sapporo, Asahi and Korean beer Cass on draft.

Chubby Cattle investor and operator for Michigan, Eric Mai, says that since opening in November, the Novi Chubby Cattle has been going “better than we expected,” and he says there are plans to bring more to the area.

“Right now we are actually looking at a few different spaces, potential spaces that we would like to open other concepts as well,” he said, referring to the interactive barbecue restaurant Chubby Skewers, a Japanese yakiniku-style chain that has locations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta and elsewhere. “We have a lot of amazing concepts, exciting concepts that we want to open in Metro Detroit.”

While Chubby Cattle is excellent for large groups because of the communal dining aspect, it’s probably not a place for vegans. The restaurant has some gorgeous vegetables, interesting mushrooms, noodles, salads and a ton of fresh-cut fruit. There’s no discount if you don’t eat meat, however, and with all the high-end raw beef flying around, I recommend that plant-based eaters skip this. Also, those with a shellfish allergy should take care.

Considering the landscape of hot pot experiences in Metro Detroit, Chubby Cattle is top-tier. Comparing it with other Asian buffets in Metro Detroit, the new Novi destination is an excellent value considering the variety, quality and service.

mbaetens@detroitnews.com

Chubby Cattle Wagyu Shabu House

42768 Grand River, Novi

(248) 712-3479, chubbycattle.com/project/chubby-cattle-shabu-novi

Rating: ★★ (very good)

Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Closed Mondays.

Prices: $48-$98 per person for 90 minutes of unlimited food; kids under 4’3″ can eat for half price and kids shorter than 3’3″ can eat for free.

Reservations: No. You put your name in the tablet when you arrive and you’ll either be seated right away or you will get a text when your table is ready. Certain club members can gain priority seating.

Carryout: Not yet, but they’re working on a carryout menu, especially for lunch.

Outdoor dining: No

Noise level: Medium

Dress code: Come as you are

Accessibility: No barriers

Child friendly: Yes. Baby-changing tables in restroom, highchairs available and there are kids’ deals.

Parking: Plentiful free parking

What the stars mean:

★ — good

★★ — very good

★★★ — excellent

★★★★ — extraordinary

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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Review: Chubby Cattle restaurant in Novi is a fun, flavorful meat fest