Brian W.
Yelp
I actually don't really like hot pot that much, but this place really surprised me with its staff and value. I came on a Saturday evening and I have to say if you want to come on the weekend, you really should make a reservation or get in the online queue early. We got there around 7:15, scanned the QR code at the desk to get in the queue and there were 27 tables ahead of us. The wait ended up being about an hour and 15 minutes, but they did tell us it would be an hour or so, and the woman manning the front desk was extremely efficient at handling questions and dealing with impatient people waiting for tables. She was firm yet friendly and it was really impressive to see how she kept everything organized and structured when it could have easily been a really overwhelming experience. After our wait, we got seated and ordered from the all you can eat menu, which was around $31.99/person.
"Best of both worlds" broth: We got this one that was half original marrow broth and half spicy marrow broth. I really can't handle spicy, so I mainly ate from the original broth which wasn't bad but didn't have a ton of taste. I did try the spicy marrow broth and it was much better - really flavorful and it really infused itself into the ingredients you put in there. With the original broth, I needed my dipping sauce to give the ingredients more flavor, but it was a nice alternative to have to the spicy version which I couldn't handle too much of.
Sauce station: This is pretty standard - there wasn't a whole ton of extra options here. You could make your sauce with things like soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, sesame paste, scallions, cilantro, sugar, salt, chili oil, garlic, hot peppers, and maybe one or two other pastes. It was definitely enough for someone who likes a simple sauce though - I ended up using the soy, vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, chili oil, and scallions.
Drinks: This was unexpected. The quality of their drinks was really good - it felt like something you'd pay $5+ at a bubble tea place to get. They had a plum drink which was sweet and refreshing and then the star of the show was the lychee green tea which was amazing - I had three full cups. It wasn't too sweet but had a strong lychee taste with a green tea base - like I said, it tasted like something you'd pay for at a bubble tea place and the fact that it was included in the AYCE price with unlimited refills is one of the main reasons this gets a 5/5 stars for being over the top great. They also include sodas in the AYCE price too which is nice.
Meat: Another BIG reason this gets 5/5 is that the meat is included in the AYCE price and it's unlimited. We got the natural prime-aged lamb, hand sliced beef short plate, and the marinated garlic beef. And then we got all 3 a SECOND TIME for no extra charge. A lot of other AYCE hot pot places give you free veggies, noodles, and fish balls, but you still have to buy the meat so this is an amazing deal to get all of the meat you want included. The lamb and beef slices were nice and thin with a good balance of meat and fat. They cooked really quickly and were really nice to eat with sauce or just by itself. The garlic beef was in bigger chunks but it was still really soft and flavorful. All around incredible selection of meats that were really tasty.
Fridge: There were FOUR fridges of extra ingredients you could get. FOUR. And there was so much really good stuff that it was hard to not fill up on just the fridge stuff before the meat arrived. Some of the highlights were clams, shrimp, fish, calamari, shrimp paste, fake crab, tofu in all different forms, fish balls in all different forms (squid ink, stuffed, tofu, tons of other flavors too), luncheon meat, intestines, tendon, fake crab, lotus, all sorts of noodles, all sorts of mushrooms, all sorts of veggies, seaweed, sausages, and even mini cakes. There was so much stuff here it would still be a good value if there was no meat you could order on the side.
Hot food: AND there was hot food. It wasn't the best, but I liked that it was there. There was rice, fried rice, braised pig trotters, sesame balls, some taro based sticky deep fried ball dessert, spring rolls, and some other stuff that there were signs for but I didn't actually try.
All in all, this gets a 5/5 even though I don't particularly like hot pot that much. The variety here is god tier, and everything was good. The staff was also super attentive - they would pick up our empty meat plates almost right when we finished them and would take orders for new meat at the same time. The restaurant also closes at 9:30, but the staff made sure to tell us when last call for orders and fridge food was (and still they left it open for 15 minutes more after announcing last call) and then made sure to let us know we could stay until 10:30 to finish eating. On the way out, we also got an ice cream cup to go. There's definitely a wait if you show up with no reservation, but it's worth the wait - AMAZING place!