Gokudo Shabu Shabu: Japanese hot pot in Burnaby

Gokudo is a Japanese hot pot restaurant with locations in Burnaby and Richmond. Unlike traditional hot pot places, they focus on individual hot pots so you don’t have to come with a big group in order to enjoy hot pot – and actually, I highly recommend you to NOT come with a big group to Gokudo because you will be waiting in line for 1 hour or more.

Take it from me because I have come here as a group of 5 twice and waited from 40 mins to over 1 hour even with being on a waitlist. This review is based on 2 experiences – one in their old Burnaby location and one in their new Burnaby location.

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Interior

So the main reason why I don’t recommend you to come in large groups is because the individual hot pot burners are actually built into the table so the host/hostess has very little flexibility when it comes to seating folks. For example, if you are a 4-person group, you have to wait for a table with 4 burners to open up, and if you are a 2-person group, you have to wait for a table with 2 burners to open up (they won’t seat you at a 4 burner table).

Most of the tables do accommodate 4 burners so I think if you come as a group of 2 or 4, you may only need to wait 20-40 mins, but if you are more than 4 people it sucks because even at their new Burnaby location, they only have 2 tables that can accommodate 6 people. Their old Burnaby location only had one table that could fit 6 people 💀.

Anyways yes, we were waiting for over an hour even though we were position 0 on the waitlist because we were a group of 5. We actually had to talk to the hostess and tell her we were ok with splitting into a table of 3 and table of 2 if it means we can eat sooner. Wish the server had recommended that to us to begin with because we were starving and the waiting area is SO COLD (the wind just funnels in??) 🥶.

Once you are (finally) inside, it’s nice because the tables are really large and there’s comfy booth seating. The restaurant can get pretty loud since we split up our tables and I couldn’t really hear what they were saying even though they were right next to us. Each table also has individual filters above to get rid of the smoke, and most tables have a little side surface to hold extra plates of dishes.

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How to order at Gokudo

So this is the menu at the Burnaby location. You can see that you are not really allowed to share a hot pot at all and if you try to share, you have to spend a minimum of $18 per person, but then you wouldn’t really have your own soup base lol. If anyone can figure out how to share a hot pot at Gokudo, please let me know because as you will see from my review, I can never finish my food here.

So how it works is first you choose your soup base. The free soup base is chicken soup, but if you want anything else, you’ll have to pay $3+.

The hot pot combo comes with your choice of rice, udon or vermicelli and a big serving of veggies and 1 shrimp. You also get one beverage, although at the new Burnaby location you can only choose between green tea and sweetened green tea.

Next, you choose your main, which can be all meats or a mixture of meats and seafood or other vegetarian options.

Soup bases

In our group, most of us ordered the sukiyaki soup base ($7), and 2 of our friends got the signature spicy soup base ($6) and the chicken soup (free).

I really liked the sukiyaki base actually! It was flavourful and also unlimited – the servers will go around with a pitcher and refill your bowl if it is getting low. I also liked the mushrooms and other stuff they add in there to start.

Rice, udon or vermicelli

I don’t have a photo of the vermicelli, but this is the portion size for your carb side. The rice actually comes with some minced meat sauce, which is neat and yummy. I usually prefer udon though!

Veggie platter

This is the veggie platter that comes with every combo. You can see there is 1 shrimp, tofu, fish balls, mushrooms, lotus root, fungus, squash, tomato, and a lot of cabbage!

Meat combos

There are a lot of combos to choose from, but here are some our table tried:

Mix & Match combo – 2 kinds of mix meat ($32)

The guys like to get the 2 kinds of meat combo because you can choose between short plate, blade eye, lamb, chicken and pork. The total amount of meat is 10oz.

Lamb shoulder slice combo ($27-33)

For lamb lovers, this is what the lamb servings look like. For 7oz it’s $27 and for 10oz it’s $33. You are supposed to cook the meats in your individual hot pot and dip it in the sauce to eat.

Japanese oden & meat combo ($28)

My first time here, I got the oden & meat combo. Above you can see what the oden looks like – they were pretty good and soaked up the sukiyaki sauce well, but I couldn’t help but feel like I saw this mixture of oden at the T&T frozen section lol.

This combo also comes with 4oz of meat, your choice of beef, lamb, pork or chicken. I couldn’t finish my food and actually left most of my oden to waste so at my second visit, I just got a 7oz signature meat combo.

Signature meat slice combo ($24)

On my second visit, this is what I ordered – the 7oz fatty beef combo. I was able to finish all of it but still struggled near the end and I gave up on the veggies as well.

Really like this meet with the sukiyaki broth and the raw egg yolk (don’t add it into the soup base! Mix it as a dipping sauce) and the dipping sauce they provide.

Drink + dessert

I don’t have much to say here since these were pretty average. The green tea I chose sweetened and it was fine, but I didn’t drink it much. The ice cream I was also so full so I only had a bit – your basic vanilla in a Styrofoam cup. I will say though in our first visit, we were not offered free ice cream so not sure if it’s because during our second visit, there was a soft opening promo.

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Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I like Gokudo because I like the sukiyaki broth and the dipping sauce they make, but there are also a few things that don’t work for me. One is that I can never finish my food so it always feels like such a waste! I wish they had some sort of 2 person combo where the veggie platter could be shared because that would be optimal for me. Second is that I actually always get really thirsty after I get home from drinking that sukiyaki broth so it can’t really be that great lol (tastes great though).

Third is the huge ass wait omg. I actually cannot even fathom waiting 1 hour IN THE COLD for hot pot when I could do hot pot at home for half the price. After coming two times, I’ve decided it’s just not worth any more than a 30 minute wait. If it wasn’t for the 20% soft launch opening promo, I think I would have left hangrily.

And fourth is the price. Gokudo is not a cheap dinner because everything adds up really quickly. If you select the sukiyaki broth and get a 2 kinds meat combo, you’re looking at $7+$32 = $40 before tax and tip. If you get any additional side dishes, you’re looking at additional $4-8 per side ($4 for fried bean curds 💸).

So here are my bittersweet feelings about Gokudo. I would go again if there were shorter wait times and if the portion/prices worked better for me. I still recommend you to come try once though because it is delicious and it’s fun to have your own hot pot. I also understand not everyone can do hot pot at home. Make sure you sign up for the waitlist before you go and don’t come if you have more than 4 people.

Sincerely, Loewe