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Like its name, Chinatown’s Emperor Japanese Tapas Shabu’s cuisine is more an assemblage of disparate cooking styles than a logical fusion. The menu offers some Japanese classics (wagyu beef, bento lunch specials), some Chinese dishes (cilantro with preserved egg shabu shabu), and a few regrettable inclusions (French fries?). Fried potatoes are one of the closest thing to tapas here, however, as most portions are quite large. Décor-wise, Emperor is more suitable for a dinner date than other feeding stations in the neighborhood: it’s spacious, with sleek red and exposed brick walls, and only a few paper dragons hanging from the stairway. To share, a large stock pot of shabu shabu lets diners cook thin slices of meat and vegetables at the table, but greasy broths and watery dipping sauces mask fresh ingredients; prime rib eye loses its succulence after a bath in over-seasoned Szechuan peppercorn broth and swish in bland sesame goma. Worth ordering just for novelty’s sake is the fish paste, which comes served in a tube and forms springy, gummy noodles when squirted into boiling broth. Another odd success: foie gras in red wine sauce, perfectly seared with a classic, buttery interior, and only moderately impaired by garnishes of sad litchi and mandarin orange slices. — Hannah Geller

Daily, 11 a.m.–4 p.m., bento boxes are $6.75, additional discounts on shabu shabu items.

Foie gras sauté, $16.95