Machines do excellent work.

Really, kudos to all the robots out there.

But sometimes it's better to do things by hand.

Like when a restaurant starts butchering its own rib eyes and delivering them to your table for you to cook yourself.

Introducing Prime Rib Shabu—a new Inner Richmond shabu-shabu restaurant brought to you by chef/owner Luke Sung (Isa, Domo) serving hand-cut rib eyes and other fresh ingredients for you to prepare tableside—open now.

Ideal for a chilly, fog-filled night (which, let's face it, is just about every night in the Richmond) this is where you'll come with your buddies to cook all the steak you can eat in a boiling broth-based dashi.

While you can't miss the Prime Rib Shabu sign above the door, the steamed windows and steaming cauldrons on each table are what'll lure you from out of the cold. That and the heaping platters of meat, including the precious marbled cut-by-hand hunks, as well as the more traditional thinly sliced rib eye, lamb shoulder and seafood (think: head-on spot prawns, little neck clams and Hokkaido scallops).

Slide into the front booth by the window and start with a round of large Orion beers. Splurge for the nightly all-you-can-eat, which gives you full reign of the entire menu. And as the plates loaded with meat, veggies and noodles pile up at your table, keep dipping it all in the broth to cook, then in the chili- and parsley-spiked sauce before taking a bite. Then do it all over again.

Steady, like a machine.