Liuyishou Hot Pot (San Diego)

Overall good 👍 I liked the Sukiyaki base the most, and aside from the meats, everything else is pretty much buffet/serve-yourself style, you just go and grab the noodles, sides, and sauces you want. The circle platter concept for the meat was pretty neat, but eventually it does start feeling like it gets in the way of the broth pot. I went during lunch on Sunday right when it opened so it wasn't too busy, and there was only one server. It wasn't bad if you're someone like me who likes to try a bunch of different hotpot places around San Diego!

Our experience here was very disappointing. The lady who seated us was surprisingly rude and disrespectful — not a great first impression for customer service. Several of the built-in hot pot systems didn’t work, and they gave us small portable gas stoves instead, which felt unsafe and out of place. The open bar food looked unappetizing and not fresh, and the meat quality was poor and didn’t seem fresh either. We only had one server for the whole area, and service was very slow. The tables were cramped, and dirty plates were left for too long. Paying nearly $200 for four people for this kind of experience is unacceptable. I truly hope management improves the quality and service — this review is meant to help others make a better dining decision.

Liuyishou Hot Pot was amazing! The ingredients were super fresh, the broths were rich and flavorful, and the sauce bar had everything. The service was great and the whole experience was fun and interactive. Can’t wait to go back!

Okay, so the interior is kinda old and not the cleanest hotpot place I’ve been to, but honestly? The food slaps. The broth is tasty, and the lunch special surprised me in a good way—$20 for a solid amount of food? Not bad at all. Yeah, you get more variety with all-you-can-eat, but unless you’re planning to go full beast mode, you’re not really missing out. Service was great too! Our server was super nice and actually took the time to help us out instead of just rushing through. Also, if you’re vegetarian, they’ve got options—three veggie soup bases for the regular menu and two for the lunch special. Overall, not the fanciest spot, but if you just want some good hotpot without breaking the bank, it’s a solid choice.

Excellent hotpot experience at Liuyishou! The broth was rich and flavorful, and the AYCE option offered fantastic variety with over 100 items . Service was prompt, and the Convoy Street location was convenient . A must-visit for hotpot lovers in San Diego!

Soup Base: Japanese Sukiyaki and Pork Bone were great, but I prefer their Japanese Sukiyaki. Meat: Order 3x of their meat and seafood you prefer. They have clams! Bar: sauce, vegetables, noodles, tofu, desserts. I love their fresh watermelon!!!

Amazing hot pot! My kids love it. The Yuan Yang (split pot) is a must-try，so you can enjoy two different flavors. The meat and fresh vegetables are delicious. There are multiple choices to order, along with a DIY sauce bar. As an all you can eat restaurant, the price is very worth it, and guarantees you won’t have to eat any more after lunch 😄

The food was terrible, and the meat was far too old. Offal like liver and intestines were clearly stale, yet they were still served to customers. The staff were indifferent and unprofessional. The prices were outrageously high for the quality of food provided. With that kind of money, you could easily eat somewhere much better. I will never come back here again.

Very good food Very good eating environment Highly recommend LIUYISHOU hotpot My favorite hotpot in SD

This is an outstanding all-you-can-eat experience with a fantastic variety of fresh ingredients, and the staff is attentive and friendly. Highly recommended for a delicious and enjoyable hotpot meal!

Best hotpot place in SD with a bang for your buck! If I could bring this to my hometown I would gladly build 10 of them. THIS IS SO GOOD, I am obsessed. I usually get the mush room broth and this spicy one. I don't really recommend getting the spicy one if you cannot handle spice, I feel like it's toooo spicy that it prevents you from eating anything else. Otherwise there is a cool unlimited food bar with sesame balls, cool fried goods and a sauce bar you can make to personalize your soup a bit! There's even fruit added if you want a fresh taste after eating hotpot! The service is amazing. They're usually pretty quick and informative.

I've been here twice and they were pretty different experiences! The first time I came wasn't a great experience: we had to ask for certain things that we ordered multiple times throughout the dinner and by the time they had brought it out/remembered, we were full. They also will run out of certain drinks which is unfortunate, when you pay for the expensive menu for the unlimited drinks. The service was very slow that first time, so maybe they were understaffed! As for good experiences, the food and options are great. We pay for the more expensive menu for the unlimited drinks/juices, which are delicious! We like the fruit tea and the watermelon juice. As for the broth, I think they recently added the sukiyaki which is always enjoy! I also like the mushroom broth. If you get the tallow broth just note that the mild is already pretty spicy in my opinion!

I thought my experience here was ok. I thought the servers were awesome. They were really friendly and attentive. The sauce bar was nice, they had a nice selection of toppings and things you could add to your sauce. I did not enjoy some of the meats they had. Some of the beef they gave us were meh, the beef tongue we were served was just not it. The lamb was great though and so was the oysters and scallop. The drinks were they had were great as well. The chairs felt weird, it felt like my back was being pushed forward. I did not like the chairs but the booth seats were ok. I don't think the AYCE was the move cause it was really pricey compared to other hot pot places I been to. It was a really mid experience for me overall and I don't really see myself coming back here.

We eat here pretty frequently- usually in a group of 6+. At one point my husband and I came in weekly. The price is very reasonable for an AYCE hot pot place. Their house spicy broth is my favorite! The cuts of meat are what you would expect for the price. We stick with Lamb, Chuck, and Pork Belly. They have a pretty big variety if you're not a picky eater. For vegetables we only really get Spinach, Enoki Mushrooms, and Bok Choy. Their portions for vegetables are on the smaller side, but you can ask for multiple orders. They seem pretty short staffed everytime we come. We always have to flag someone down to order something. No one really comes by to ask if we need anything else. There were multiple times we had to flag someone down for water because our pitcher was empty for the longest time. Sauce bar is always low whenever I go, but it's good enough to make a small bowl. Also, I have to check stacks of the bowls for a clean one because I always find some kind of dirt on them.

The broths here are amazing!! I rank this place so highly based purely off the fact that they have top tier broths. I recommend the pork bone or chicken fish maw soup bases-- they are not oily at all and have so much flavor without feeling like you're ingesting an absurd amount of sodium. They have a sauce bar which is well stocked and allows you to get creative with what you want to dip your meat in. Their menu is very extensive and provides a lot of variety for tofu, vegetables, fish balls, and seafood. The service can be a little bit slow, especially when it gets busy but the staff are pretty friendly overall. Upon walking in, there is a strong smell in the restaurant but this is definitely a great place to stop by when you're craving something warm and comforting.

Took my son here & he loves it!! The sauce is the best part! It goes with everything. He enjoys the snacks they put out too!

Definitely an Instagram worthy spot. I've never tried a Chinese style hot pot place before. It was good but probably not my favorite hot pot I've tried. Food: 3/5 The meat selection was good. The presentation was nice but personally I thought that the flavor of the broth was lacking. I got the pork bone broth. Not too much flavor... kinda disappointing. We got the spicy broth extra extra mild but it was overly powered by the peppercorns. I also wish the veggies were self serve because I feel like I overate so there wouldn't be food waste. I liked the self serve sauce bar but the sauce choices were average. The hot food selection was just okay too. Service: 3/5 It was about 5:30 p.m. when I came in. Not crowded yet but our server didn't check in on us. We had to wave them down multiple times to order more meat and to get the check. Ambiance: 4/5 No complaints but I wish the veggies were self service. There's a parking lot but it definitely fills up around dinner time. Overall, it was cool to try but I would try another hot pot place the next time I'm in SD.

After trying a bunch of hot pot places, I would rate this place as below average. Don't get me wrong, anything AYCE is always good, and this place is worth trying, but I don't really see myself coming back again. The food is average. Good selection of meats and proteins. Wide amount of vegetables and other toppings for your hotpot. What I didn't really like about this place was that they only had a self serve sauce bar compared to other places that had a self serve veggie bar. You have to order your meat and veggies. On the other hand, the presentation of how they served the meat is nice because they place it on a wooden ring that goes around the hotpot itself. BEWARE OF THE HOUSE SPICY SOUP BASE. The waitress warned us about mild still being spicy, and to order it extra mild, but then warned us that it is still spicy. As someone who has a low spice tolerance, I tried the extra mild and it was still spicy. But don't worry, I was fine the next morning when it came out. Service wise it was okay. The workers seemed a little busy preparing a bunch of things behind the counter, and we had to flag down a waiter to order more meat and veggies. I think it's worth trying, but definitely room for improvement with this restaurant.

This place is awesome! I got two soups, I really recommend the duck one, it's amazing. You make your own dipping sauce and they have variations on the menu. We unfortunately did not get to sit at the table with the ring of meat but nonetheless still had a great experience. There are many sides and veggies to choose from, great drink options alcoholic and non-alcoholic available in pitchers to share amongst the table. Employees are friendly. We paid almost 60 pp with regular AYCE and drinks. Doesn't feel claustrophobic here like at other restaurants there was a nice distance between us and other tables.

Came here with a few besties to get our hotpot fix while visiting San Diego for vacation. This place was recommended by one of my cousins who is a local in SD so of course we had to try it to see what's up! Upon entering, the restaurant is pretty big - lots of wide space, booth and table seating, shelves next to tables to store plates, etc. We came on a Friday night and it seemed pretty busy. From the text we received after putting our name down, there were 7 parties ahead of us and were told a 20-30 minute wait. We were actually seated within 5-10 minutes of us waiting! Although we wanted to do the family style large shared broth bowl/circle meat platter, the next available table was only individual bowls - but we took the table since we were getting pretty hangry. The host also asked if we were okay with the individual bowls in advanced which was appreciated. I got the mild spicy soup base and oh my goodness it was super spicy! My friend got the medium version of the spicy soup base and he also thought it was spicy but bearable for him. Unfortunately it was not bearable for me but I still continued to eat my hot pot with it - still delicious! I wouldn't get it again just for the sake of my spice tolerance. My tip is to be very mindful of your spice tolerance and what you decide to order lol. My other friend got the tomato soup broth and that was SO GOOD! If I were to go again, I'd get the tomato broth for sure. The beef, lamb, and pork belly were all of great quality. I don't usually eat lamb but the order we got was really good - I couldn't even taste the difference between the lamb and the beef. The star of the show was the lobster balls. Seriously downed like 20 of those. One thing I think the business can improve on is the spoons used at the sauce station. Regular serving spoons were used to grab the sauces and it was really tough trying to get a lot of the liquid onto the spoon and into the bowl. Ladles would be a better serving utensil in this case. I noticed other customers struggling with the regular serving spoons and because it's a high traffic area with everyone lining up to get their sauces, I think ladles would help tremendously! Overall, I would come back! My friends and I left content and with a full belly. Quality of the meats as well as the service was excellent.

After I heard that this place changed from a la carte to AYCE hot pot, I was excited to try it out! There is a good selection of meats, veggies, seafood, and sauces at the sauce bar. Most items will be ordered through the waiter, and the sauce bar and some hot food items will be buffet style. There is a warning that must be said here: be careful how much you order in the first or second round because the amount of meat they give per order is mountainous. MOUNDS of meat really, and my family and I had trouble finishing everything, and we only ordered 1 round of meat. They aren't skimping out on the meat so that is nice, but its hard to try more items because they do that. It can get busy here and the walkways can be tight with everyone getting up to get their sauces and waiters running around so it can be a bit chaotic. I have noticed that they are desperately understaffed here and it takes some time for staff to retake orders or fix orders and such.

I've been to hot pot before in San Diego as well as in other cities and this place is at the bottom of my list. First, my friend ordered a meat based broth and I ordered the mushroom base. The server would come over and fill it with some slightly yellow tinted stuff. After the 3rd time of him filling it, I asked what it was. He said it was their chicken base!!! Yet I ordered a veggie base because I'm vegetarian! He offered to replace the broth but I had already been eating it so no point. It also completely changed the taste of the broth. I would prefer they refilled it with what we ordered like they do at other hot pot places. That just seemed cheap of them. Their veggie options weren't that great. They didn't even have bok choy. My friend was satisfied with his meat & seafood options. Lastly, the service. wow. At one point, we could hear a server cursing right behind us. They would also scream over our table at each other. And our server never came around to see how we were. We had to get up and ask for things several times. Overall, this place seems like the mcdonald's of hot pot. It's affordable but you get what you pay for. Go somewhere else!

Hands down my favorite AYCE hot pot in San Diego! After moving here from the bay I've been looking for a new go-to and yall this is the one. Leave a yelp review this month and get a FREE WAGYU ORDER! Thank you Alex for hooking it up and giving such awesome customer service.

Came here for bday get together. This place is pretty bomb for all you can eat. The hotpot broth is delicious and there is many selections of meat. From a person that can handle spice, their spiciest broth was too spicy. I would do medium next time. One thing I can say that stood out to me was the amount of herbs and Sichuan pepper In Their broth was too much. Every bite I had a pepper corn that I am not too fond of. They also have ice cream and hot food station. Also dipping sauce bar . Service was fast!

Came on a Friday night around 7pm.. parking was difficult to find. There's a waitlist you can sign up for that will text you when your table is ready. 10 people were ahead of us and that was about a 40 minute wait. Ayce is about $40 (after tax) each person, it comes with a sauce buffet, choice of unlimited meats, seafood, and veggies. You can order 1-2 meats that they present in this unique, appetizing meat ring around your broth. I recommend their house duck broth, it's super rich! We also ordered the spicy schezuan level 2, medium, and it was way too overpowering for me. Service was good, when we asked to switch out the broth, they were really nice about it. They also are very attentive, always taking your plates away. You also get your own little shelf to put things away in. I loved ordered the wide potato noodle and the shrimp paste. They didn't give us the spice cow like I've seen at other locations. When I work up the appetite again, I would come back again and order a different broth

We decided to come here the Saturday before Christmas Eve & it was surprisingly not too busy. The wait was still about an 45 min though. Parking was also difficult to find, so I highly suggest having one person put a name down on the waitlist while the other goes to find parking. First of all, the broths. I was super excited to try the soup base with the beef tallow man, however when ours came, we didn't get one. So that was a little disappointing. The house spicy broth was sooooo spicy & I even got it mild.... Didn't think my spice tolerance was so low. My boyfriend couldn't eat it at all. After all the suffering trying to eat all the foods in that side of the pot, I decided to take out all the chilis upon recommendation of the server. It was still spicy, but I was able to just cook the meats in it. I don't recommend letting anything cook in it for too long because it soaks up all the spices & burns your mouth and throat. We were still able to enjoy the duck broth on the other side and thought it was really good! If we come in the future, we definitely will not be getting the spicy broths. The meat quality here is good & all the meats were yummy! I really enjoyed the fish balls filled with mochi. Highly recommend getting the chinese donut with shrimp paste as well. It was sooooo delish!!! Service was quick. Our food always came out fast & the servers were friendly as well. They always came by to ask if we needed anything else & to offer us water!

Love the hotpot here. We had premium, the meat is very high quality . Staff are very attentive and friendly.

We're trying to hit up all the hot pot places in SD. We came upon this because of the meat ring and beef tallow man. Unfortunately, we wanted our own individual pots so we didn't even get the beef ring and little tallow pig (only for big pots). Happy to say we'll come back though for it. I got the Liuyishou house spicy broth, medium and it had a good spice. So flavorful and delicious! My husband got the mild spice and had to trade it back in for the pork bone broth. LMAO. It's an extra cost to switch btw for the individual pots. Hahaha. Loser. He couldn't enjoy it. It's AYCE, comes with broth, meats and veggies. A nice variety of meats and veggies. Better options then Kanpai. You order from the servers. Takes a little slow to come out, but the meat quality is better than Kanpai. Broths are good. Good veggies include cabbage, mushrooms, spinach, bok choy. Nice sauce bar, but no ponzu sauce! No ice cream desserts, but AYCD option (soft drinks) that whole table needed to get. I would say this is pretty up there for hot pot joints. We'll be back for that beef ring and beef tallow man!

Liuyiahou aye hot pot is delicious. Hao was a very helpful server. I recommend coming here if you love hotpot.

For all you can eat option, they removed charge for soup base and limited the dining hours to 1.5 hours. Although the restaurant was half empty for lunch, they still tried their best to "kick you out" after 1 hour and 10 min sitting down. I was so unhappy and will not come back though the food is good.

Might be our new go to ayce hot pot! We did the Lui's house spicy soup base and the chicken soup with fish maw - both were really good and flavorful. Just a warning the spicy is really spicy. It's authentic Chinese spice level! The meat and vegetables were the expected quality for all you can eat. But nothing was bad quality or made me worried that I was going to get sick. So that's a plus. A pitcher of beer is also only $10.99! All in all a really good deal for an ayce place.

My first time at an AYCE hot pot spot and it exceeded my expectations! We got the pork bone broth and the duck broth to keep it light, and I love how there's duck bones in it as well as some chinese herbs which made it super refreshing and not too heavy. There's so many options on the menu in terms of meat and veggies so you really can't go wrong with anything. We got oyster mushrooms, corn, shrimp paste in the chinese donuts, corn, ramen noodles, and of course the meat ring platter with lamb and beef! My favorite part is the diy sauce bar where you can customize your own sauce and they even have recipes posted on above so you can make the perfect combination. For $30/person, I think it's well worth but keep in mind you have to pay extra for the broths you select since that's not included in the price.

Pretty cool here, nice cold dish and sauce choices, fun to enjoy hotpot with family Really nice ambiance and presentation They leave the veggies and extra things you order on a rack behind your table.

Came with 4 friends who also love hot pot, because I loved the San Jose location. Before taxes, it's about $36 per person for ayce hot pot and $3 per person for all you can drink (nonalcoholic). Food is honestly lacking flavor and is watered down. For the pork bone broth, the pork bone was either not a good ratio to its broth or it did not cook long enough for a flavorful broth. The sukiyaki was watered down too. We asked for more broth to be added and it tasted the same. We literally went to the sauce station to get soy sauce and sugar to adjust the flavors of the broth. Our passion fruit tea was also room temperature and lacking flavor. From lamb to thin pork belly to wagyu, the meat quality was lacking. It was nothing like the San Jose location or even like any hot pot I've had in restaurants and at home. Service is not bad; employees will help you if you ask. Ambiance is alright. It was just disappointing to have to spend so much money on food that was not worth it.

Wow great selection of ingredients, soup base is powerful! Careful even with the spicy mild, meats quality is good and they even have marinated thick cuts, a lot of sauces at the bar and service super friendly. Highly recommend!!

I love this hotpot spot! Hao was our server, he was super attentive and very friendly. I would recommend this spot any day! Top tier service.

I love coming here because the AYCE menu has so many options and the broth is really good! Hao was a great server i would definitely recommend coming here.

We LOVE this hotpot place. It's one of our go to spots for date night. Got here at about 6:50pm on a Thursday night and Hoa (one of the staff) seated us to a table right away. Food came out within less than 10min. Our favorite fun things to see is the giant meat platter. They have tons of veggie options and the sauce bar and hot buffet bars are THE BEST!!!!

Ordered the premium all you can eat although saw all the other tables got the regular version coz all the food we were interested in was in the premium section. Servers were busy w only a few tables and had to flag to get their attention. Compared to other AYCE liuyishou it was on the pricey side. No wait on weekday 6pm

Hao was amazing. Very helpful with the ordering process. Great customer service! Enjoyed my first experience dining here.

Wish sign was Liuyishou Hotpot vs Liuyishou San Diego, would have tried sooner haha. Have a decent baseline for hot pot and this place surprised me. Ayce can be rightfully expensive, but $35+$3 aycDrink was very reasonable for everything offered. Place has a lax, non-pretentious feel. Several solid soup bases to choose from (Mala/Mushroom for us), meat/seafood options were great along with dozens of other staples. Food service was fast and staff were all very friendly/helpful, no sign of "being annoyed" at your requests that I feel a lot of places don't manage or temper enough. Oh and they even cover dessert. Shoutout to the $3 drink add-on with fresh watermelon juice, herbal tea and passionfruit options. Definitely making it back here. Note: We went Monday early dinner service 5pm, so unsure how it is when really busy.

Tasty food, great service, chill and nice atmosphere Highly recommended this place!!!

So much food that's definitely worth every penny! The meat quality was great. Lamb should just melted in your mouth. Beef Chuck was so delicious with just the right amount of fat in it. We chose the spicy soup and the chicken soup base. The spicy is reeeeaalllyyy spicy because of the oil that's in it. I asked for a lighter spice which still kicked me in the butt. So many great side items for you to choose from. Loved the dipping sauce bar which you can create your own or they have different recipes you can choose from located at the bar as well. Very similar to Hai di lao but for such a great price. Approximately $39/pp for all you can eat. Can't beat that! We came here at 1pm so there was no line at all and it was not crowded. Perfect place for a rainy day like today.

One of my favorite hot pot places! I love the idea of having a ring of meat around the pot, however it's not very functional. The meat quality was great. I loved the tomato base, it was very flavorful. There was a wide variety of veggies that we could get too! The sauce bar had plenty of options and was fresh. I really liked the unlimited drink refill with the prune and watermelon juice, which were very refreshing! The place is often packed during business hours, but the wait wasn't very long. It was also a bit loud inside. The service was, okay. However our waiter would dissappear for long periods of time, which got frustrating.

If you enjoy Little Sheep or Happy Lamb, this place will blow you away. I was genuinely impressed by this hotpot place. We went as a group of four and ordered the premium meat options which come with all you can drink (non-alcoholic) along with the premium meat selection. The array of soup base options vary from mild to spicy. The service was quick and efficient. They also have dessert options in the all you can eat menu. This place is great for larger groups and if you're hungry. The meats included wagyu, beef tongue, and beef tripe to name a few. The wagyu you can only order once, but everything else on the menu is free game for repeat orders. The price does seem steep for the premium price, but I'm sure you won't regret it. Worth every penny. I will be making a future visit.

This is hands down hotpot I have ever had. Very clean and good service... give Hao a raise!

Liuyishou came out with a new AYCE option and we all wanted to try it out and compare to other hot pot places in San Diego. Don't let the price fool you...while it's only $30 per person, you actually have to pay for the broth. And although it's not that much more, especially if you're with a large group to split, it felt misleading. They have a self-serve sauce bar but when we visited, they weren't able to keep things refilled. Maybe they were short-staffed that day but the servers were running around a lot. For an AYCE restaurant, they had a pretty good variety. And their portions are huge! Do not over-order the first round...that way you can gauge the portions and figure out how you want to go about with the second round. The only disappointing order was the marbled beef. What we got for marbled beef did not look like the pictures and it was leaner than a regular beef belly/beef short plate. The pork belly is really good here! Like any other AYCE restaurant, if you are wasteful and unable to finish your food, they'll charge you extra. For dessert, their oranges are really sweet and they have deep-fried mantous with condensed milk!

Really enjoyed Liuyishou Hot pot! The service was great and friendly and of course there's always plenty of parking at UTC.

The food is delicious. The waitress are nice and you are seated fast. The music isn't too loud. Overall it's Al great experience and I will be definitely coming back again.

This is hands down one of the best AYCE Chinese hot pot restaurants in San Diego. Diner is $36/adult and children from 1m to 1.4m tall are half price and those smaller than 1m tall eats free. They have a large variety of appetizer dishes you can help yourself to (braised eggs, custard buns, stirfriend long beans, woodear salads, assorted fruits, and more). The best thing is, they don't charge you extra for the sauce bar the way Haidilao would. If you want, you can add AYCD for $3/person and upgrade to their premium AYCE meats for $10/person extra. Everything from the meat to the veggies were fresh and delicious. The soup base was also delicious. Service can be a bit tough during rush hours, so guests may have to be very proactive in getting up and asking for what they need. The restaurant itself has high ceilings so it doesn't feel crowded and I feel each table had good privacy without feeling like you are brushing shoulders with your neighbors

Awesome place - great concept and I enjoyed the experience a lot. The price is around $36/pp AYCE right now and it includes a large variety of hotpot items as well as a sauce/snack bar. You can opt in for unlimited drinks for an extra $3 as well. The menu was multiple pages and you can find all sorts of typical hotpot dishes. While the selection was great and I love hotpot, this didn't blow my mind or HIT the spot for me. It was also a little hard to justify the price because I can do hotpot at home or other locations for much cheaper. Not a great value if you can't eat a lot but it is still fun and tasty.

This is my several time to visit Liuyushou, special after they remodel and change it to all you can eat . Love the good quality food and environment. Also the services is great and server is super patient because we have a lot of order . Super recommended this place and is good for family and friends.

It is a pity that I could give you 5 star. Food quality was not bad as you can see, and they also had a hot bar which served delicious spring roll and green beans. Here is the reason for 1 star. I told the server just gave me water plus tomato, no soup base and any additives, as I had some allergies to that. Obviously the kitchen missed this note. I asked for a change, telling them that I had the allergies. The server said they added two scoops of tomato paste plus lemon and . I had tomato paste from supermarket before and was totally fine. So i didn't insist a change. And now I have to leave this 1 star review while suffer from headache and nausea. Apparently, the tomato paste is actually tomato flavor soup base.

My new favorite hot pot in San Diego! It's AYCE so come hungry. No reservations unless you have a party of 6+, but I came on a weekday around 8 and only waited about 15 minutes. They have a premium menu with quality meats but honestly, I liked items from their regular menu better. The quality of meat is great. I especially loved their short rib (fatty) meat and mochi fish cakes. They also have a small hot food buffet and sauce bar. My favorite broth was the chicken with fish maw (reminds me of The X pot in Vegas). Can't wait to come back!

This place is a must for good hot pot. I make a point to come here whenever I'm in San Diego.

My friend and I ordered the mushroom and mild spicy soup broths. Both were delicious and not too salty. We also ordered the chuck beef and pork belly platter. It was plenty of meat and was very tender. We also enjoyed enoki mushrooms, ramen noodles, and muscles. They had a great selection to make a tasty dipping sauce. The waiters were pleasant and literally running to other tables to tend to them which I thought was great service. My friend and I felt we were taken good care of. The restaurant was clean and air conditioned which is always appreciated during hot meals like this. Overall my friend and I had a great experience and truly enjoyed our meal for the price we paid (AYCE @ $38.99).

I saw this place as it went viral among San Diego foodies on instagram. We initially went on a Friday night and it was a two hour wait! They quoted 50 minutes but we waited so long at that point when we reached 50 we just waited. We went on a weekday, Wednesday, and were seated after like 10 minutes. They also had individual pots or a big one for sharing. We got the individual pots because they were the only ones available which kinda sucked. The food was pretty good! I liked the sauce bar and the hot food bar had a good variety. We have tried three broths; pork bone, tomato, and mild house spicy. The tomato one was too sweet and tasted like ketchup. The mild spicy was super spicy, though we did get the individual size so maybe that affected the spiciness, had a very Sichuan spice. We liked the pork bone broth but took the cucumber out in the beginning haha. I really enjoyed the variety and quality of the meats, vegetables, and all the other choices. The service was good but they were understaffed so we had to wait a long time to order and were waving people down when there were mistakes. We saw the same like four staff both times we went. I felt like an inconvenience waving the waiter down repeatedly. The waiter was also the host which is why it took a minute to be seated. Overall, I enjoyed the food a lot but the lack of workers took away from the experience. The price and quality were good though so I would come back and despite understaffing, still would rate this as one of my top hot pot spots.

Very sad to say I won't be coming back here. I've been here a few times and every time, they are out of something on the menu. Service is very slow and employee doesn't seem to care.