Aly C.
Yelp
New Mongolian style hotpot in town, heyyyy! Oh for those of you who are wondering, lemme just get this right off, they're NOT AYCE. Nope, JUST a la carte.
Very well thought-out atmosphere, you can smell the fume of wood once you enter and get settled from their wooden table to chair designs and overall decors. Not gonna lie, I bumped my knee to the bottom of the wooden table as I was getting into those side wall booth since the leg rooms were a bit on the tight side, kind of reminded me of sitting on those cramped airline seats. TMI but I sat with my legs open in order to feel more comfortable. Yes #longlegproblems.
Got there on a Monday night plus they only opened for about 2 weeks so still fairly new. They're right next to park presidio, I think they took over what use to be a clay pot restaurant. First off, I can't stop laying my eyes on their gorgeous pot! So intricate it's like a piece of artwork. You start off with choosing a soup base. You can either try 1 type, split half and half pots to try 2 at once, try their house special pots with toppings already preselected, or mix them up however you like on a split pot. Do want to clarify and mention for their house special pots, you'll see 2 different prices. That indicates the proportion of how much food will already be added to the preselected pots and for us, we tried their {Inner Mongolian Classic Stew -- half portion}. For the 2 of us, the half portion was actually quite filling on its own aside from us also ordering more sides.
We ordered:
{Green Onion Pancake: $4.99} -- personally on the lighter end for me. Light batter, slightly crispy.
{Inner Mongolian Classic Stew: half portion $35} -- super clean, clear, and concentrated pork bone broth that takes 6 hours to make (had the pleasure to speak with the chef, not sure if he's the owner), Plus NO MSG!! This broth includes 3 different styles of pork: meatball, sliced pork belly, and pork cubes that were initially breaded and fried. Also includes wood ear mushroom, tofu, Napa cabbage, potato slices, and transparent noodles. Hell of a pot indeed! Very hearty and delicious.
Of course how can I resist ordering more sides (per order):
{Beef Tenderloin: $10.99}
{American Kobe Beef: $16.99}
{Beef Meatballs: $5.99}
{Beef Tripe: $5.99}
{Quail Eggs: $5.99}
{Enoki Mushrooms: $4.99}
{Napa Cabbage: $3.99}
{Wang Lao Ji: $3} -- Love drinking this along with hotpot!
{All you can refill sauce: $2.50 each person} -- they'll push out the sauce cart to you for your convenience
**Must try their Chimichurri sauce, gives a different twist from your normal hotpot sauce concoction**
Food wise, I do taste the effort they put into the pot. Very thought-out with pairings. Side wise, don't see a big difference compared to AYCE sides except you have to pay for each individually so it's a good portion control since everything = more $$. Enjoyed the American Kobe.
Ending the meal with choices of ice creams... I've never seen ice creams individually packed in those round sauce containers haha. Ohhhh also, maybe it's due to not being AYCE, you DO have the options to ask for boxes for your left over soup base and unfinished foods so those won't go to waste! \^o^/
Lovely place and service, can't tell if they're super attentive due to slow restaurant time/ day of the week or they actually are, but it's always a plus when the chef/owner comes out of the kitchen and check in with the customers, giving some back stories, and taking in feedbacks. One day I'll come back and try the lambs! Keep it up!