Tiffany C.
Yelp
I've been to the SGV location of Little Sheep and didn't think much of it, so I was surprised when my friend claimed that he enjoyed Little Sheep more than he expected. While I would have loved to take advantage of the Groupon deal, it's hard to make it out to Pasadena on a weekday for lunch. Instead we ended up here on a Saturday night - restaurant was pretty full, but we didn't have to wait before we were seated.
So apparently Little Sheep has lunch specials on the weekdays and AYCE on Tuesdays. Otherwise, you order off the a la carte menu. When I took a look at the menu, all I realized was - wow, these prices are quite high ... and how much are we getting for the price you pay? So I kind of went a little crazy with what we ordered. Definitely order less and build up if you're still hungry, otherwise you'll be too full to enjoy the quality of the ingredients.
We ordered the duo broth - one tomato and one of the original "milky" bone marrow broth for $3.75 each. The broths are definitely quite memorable, considering the price you pay for each one. I thought the milky broth was more bland than the tomato, but I could appreciate the flavor, especially after adding all the ingredients. I really enjoy tomato soup, but I felt like this one was a little too strong in my opinion for hot pot. I saw a ton of people ordering it, so I figured it must be good - it definitely carried its flavor over to all the ingredients that were added into it. By the end, the broth became quite thick. But even cooking it the next day, it wasn't too bad as a second-night meal.
As for the meats, we ordered the angus ribeye for $11.95 and hand sliced fatty beef for $7.95. The angus looked like quality meat, with just a touch of fat at the ends. I really enjoyed the fatty beef, but it was definitely a bit too fatty for me. And my friend didn't help me eat much, so I pretty much finished most of it myself. I will say that the fatty beef had a sweeter flavor than the angus, which I was pleased with. For the amount that you pay, I think you do get pretty top-notched meat.
We also ordered the veggie combo platter ($8.95), tofu combo platter ($6.95), fresh thick noodle ($3.95), beef tendon ball (5.50), and one bowl of rice for $1.00. Wasn't realizing just how much that was because once it all arrived to the table at the same time ... I began to regret my decision just a bit. So the veggie combo gives you a little of everything - loved that they had kale, kombucha, some bell peppers, etc. Everything looked very vibrant green. Tofu platter - how much tofu do you really need? Answer is not that much. This isn't worth it unless you love tofu. I loved the bean curd, but having different textures of tofu just wasn't that great. The beef tendon balls were pretty good, and the price is quite decent for the quality. I thought there was a springiness in the meat, which I enjoyed. As for the noodles, I really like udon, but seeing the word "fresh" sold us both. My friend said he really enjoyed the chewiness of the egg noodles. I thought it was pretty decent. We put it in towards the end, but it was just too much so I ended up taking it home and finishing the next night. Surprisingly the noodles still tasted pretty chewy then.
I do appreciate their little sauce bar and snack bar. They have sesame balls, shrimp chips, and some fruit that's periodically refilled when it gets low. They only refilled it once that night while we were there, but when you're filled up on hot pot, there's not much of it that you can eat. Service was alright. Workers are always scrambling from the kitchen to the tables, so it was hard to flag them down to get things that we needed. They had a decent variety of sauces, which was nice. We ended up spending way more than necessary for our dinner.
tl;dr - I will say that Little Sheep does serve good quality ingredients, but eating hot pot while ordering a la carte can get pricey. I think you get what you pay for, but I'd rather go elsewhere for AYCE hot pot and get way more ingredients for a lot less. The meat selection is pretty good and I think I enjoyed the meat the most out of the entire meal.