This is one of those, next to the train station, run-down, shady, and absolutely don't-give-a-f' about healthy ingredients type of place you would find in Asia- love it. Definitely not a place for non-adventurous, non-imbibing vegans with OCD. The food- it's OK. Considering every other restaurant on Dryden Road being slightly better than having a microwavable box meal, this is the best Chinese or Asian food you'll find in Collegetown. Expect lots of oily, fatty, meaty, spicy goodness. Recommend coming after lots of drinks and trying the fish in spicy sauce, braised beef short ribs, and the hot pot accompanied by lots of more drinks. read more

This is an unassuming restaurant that is located in the basement of a building near Cornell university with a number of other restaurants flanking it on all sides. The restaurant was super busy due to graduation weekend at Cornell but we were seated promptly. It took a long time for the server to approach our table though. They seemed a bit disorganized. For example, they returned to our table 30 mins after our order to tell us that the steamed dumplings weren't available. Also, the restaurant was super hot so we had to move a fan directly onto us. Given that we make hot pot at home, we decided to order some of the other dishes. Also, we wanted to minimize the heat on the table. Nonetheless as per the strengths of the restaurant most of the food we ordered was spicy. One was a spicy fish dish----delicious, with large peppercorns in them. The fish itself was incredibly fresh. We also got the tripe "dry pot", it was good, but I was expecting better. The water spinach was delicious. We had mixed reviews on the beef appetizer. I liked it but some of my family didn't. The texture was a bit like beef belly. We also got general tso chicken and it was okay. read more

Food: 4/5 Price: 4/5 Service: 3/5 Ambience: 2/5 Spicy boiled beef ($16.99) - 4/5. Delicious, very oily. General Tsao's chicken, lunch ($9.99) - 3/5. Super Americanized chinese chicken, too much batter. read more

Food is great, but the short haired girl who works the front desk is terribly rude and even fat shames the customers... If this place had good service with the food, it would be the most successful Chinese restaurant in Ithaca. But instead the classic underground vibe is ruined by just one inhospitable staff member. read more

Went here on a Monday at around 7:30pm with 2 of my friends for Hot Pot. When we got there, there was around a 25 minute wait. We got a shared hot pot ($10) and we got 2 pork combos ($30) for a total of $40 between 3 people. We got the spicy broth. The food tasted really good. Portions of the combos were decent, although they could have had more vegetables rather than just pile on Vermicelli noodles. My friend has been here before twice and really loves the food. My only complaint is that the service was subpar but this was only because they had only 2 wait-staff for the entire restaurant so it was understandable that they were a bit too busy to tend to everyone. As the night progressed and the restaurant emptied out, the service definitely got better. read more

The hot pot is a little on the pricey side, but it's so worth it. Everything is fresh and delicious, and there are so many different options for various dietary needs such as vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free. The atmosphere is both quiet yet lively, full of students who want to enjoy a taste of home or who are curious to try something new. I speak Chinese so the servers were extra nice to me, but they were already friendly to begin with. read more

De Tasty Hot Pot - Hot Pot Near Me - Ithaca, New York

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I love this place, their dry hot pot is my favorite food in Ithaca. Their lo mein and chicken is also delicious. Really cool restaurant that feels orders more authentic than Collegetown's other Asian food spots. read more

Small portion but pricy dishes. MalaTang is only okay. Hot pot is not authentic. Dishes are good but expensive. Not my first choice for Chinese food in Ithaca read more

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Wow honestly did not know you guys could somehow erase review that are bad for you. Here it is again then, this restaurant served me and my girlfriend RAW pork. We both got diarrhoea and food poisoning. The manager refused to apologise and was just straight up horrible. She yelled at me asking what I want her to do. I don't care how you managed to delete the previous comment; I will keep posting. Let's see how much money you are willing to pay someone to delete them. Avoid this place at all cost read more

Spicy stews and dry hot pot are very tasty, probably one of the most authentic Chinese tastes you will get in Ithaca which is pretty hard to come by. Though quantities are a bit small in some cases like the noodle soups and can be expensive for some dishes. read more

Worst hot pot I have had in my life. The soup base itself tastes like instant noodle soup, the meat are not fresh at all. read more

I love the spicy beef with tofu, it's a typical Sichuan flavored cuisine and is definitely satisfying . The dumplings, however, are good but not homemade, it's the kind that can be bought at the Whole Foods. As a Chinese guy, I think it's a quite nice. Maybe I'll try the hotpot next time to check out if it's really the authentic Chinese food. read more

De Tasty Hot Pot - Hot Pot Near Me - Ithaca, New York

I have been here a couple of times and all the dishes I have had here are pretty good. Don't order the mapo tofu though. Their cilantro lamb is pretty tender and all the vegetable dishes were tasty. Pretty authentic Sichuan food. read more

The quality of a Chinese restaurant, I hypothesize is highly correlated with the number of English words misspelled on the menu. You'll have a hard time holding in your laughter at some of De Tasty's amusing word choices and spelling mistakes. I couldn't wait to try their "secrete recipes", "doodle soups" and "shredded potato shredded potato." They specialize in hot pot and Szechuan cuisine. If you have never had hot pot before, it is a simmering pot of flavored broth at the center of the table. You order ingredients off a menu and place them into the broth to cook and eat. As the meal goes on, the broth gets more and more flavorful, taking on the flavors of the meats and vegetables you cooked. SZECHUAN MENU and LUNCH SPECIALS: The Sichuan Lunch Specials are the best lunch specials in collegetown. My favorite dish is the twiced cooked pork. I also really enjoyed their Ma Po Tofu, shredded potato, and their Fish fillet & tofu w/ roasted chilies. The Kung Pao Chicken is also tasty, but this dish is better at "Spicy Asian" on Rt. 13 (side note - De Tasty gives you a much larger serving of rice with your meal than Spicy Asian does - a huge plus in my book). The lunch portion serving sizes are quite large and cheap for $7 - $9. The specials come with a cup of soup that is usually clear broth or egg-drop (nothing special, but a nice touch considering it's free). The dinner portions are even larger than the lunch portions and a good value. On the appetizer portion of the menu, the dan dan noodles are absolutely fantastic. Over all, if you are frugal, the regular Sichuan menu offers more food for your money than the hot pot menu. HOT POT: The hot pot is good, but in my opinion the regular menu offers a much better value. The spicy broth was great, with a very distinct clove and chili pepper flavor. You first order broth for $5 per person (or $9.50 per large pot, whichever works out cheaper). Then you can either order individual items to add to the broth or purchase a combo to add a variety of items (noodles, several veggies, and your choice of meat). My suggestion is to only order one combo to share with all the people in your party and then add other items that match your individual tastes. Buying as many combos as people in your party will be expensive. They have many tasty items to choose from: dumplings, shell fish, different cuts of meat, fish balls, 25 different types of vegetables and yes they even have "fish tofu". For those who have never tried "fish tofu", it's very tasty, but just a hint, it isn't vegetarian and tastes nothing like tofu. For those who don't like sharing a communal soup, this place has small personal pots. This way, if your dining companion is really into intestine, but you'd prefer not to have intestine flavor getting all up in your shrimp, well that doesn't have to happen. The spice/sauce bar near the counter can help flavor your soup and is especially important if you ordered the chicken or herbal stock as those are less flavorful than the spicy broth. Hot pot usually works out to be $15 - $20 per person without tax and tip. CONS: Probably the biggest downside is the language barrier and sometimes inattentive service. If you don't speak Chinese, you might have difficulty communicating with them. In addition the hot pot menu is somewhat confusing, which can make the language barrier more frustrating than at other authentic Chinese restaurants. Some of the other reviews say this place is pricey given that you cook your own meal. While the hot pot can be expensive, that statement is a bit absurd; it would be like claiming you cook your own microwavable TV dinner. All of the labor is in the prep; just because you place items into the pot doesn't mean you are doing most of the work. The "cooking" is part of the fun, otherwise, why are you at a hot pot restaurant. I've eaten hot pot here 3 times and paid about $13 - 20 per person before tax and tip depending on what we ordered. Note all 3 broths (chicken, spicy, and herbal) used to have a meat stock base, so strict vegetarians were out of luck as far as hot pot goes back in 2014 [[ EDIT: a waiter now told me that the "herbal" broth recipe has been changed to be vegetarian as of 4/20/15 ]] . Several of the entrees on the "vegetables" section of the menu are vegetarian. If this place were in a big city I'd probably only give it 4 stars, but I am so excited that a decent Chinese restaurant has finally come to collegetown. They definitely get an extra star given the lackluster options within walking distance from Cornell. read more

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Horrible service. Totally disorganized. They messed up the menus and we ended up getting totally different things, which eventually they charged us for the wrong price. A ridiculous anecdote is that when the owner realized we had the wrong stuff she just took it away so quickly when there was still food in the plate. She said oh my god this is expensive why are you guys eating this expensive dish. I feel strongly compelled to register twenty yelp accounts to make this place one star to save other people. read more

I've never ordered hot pot; this is about the regular menu. The best Chinese restaurant in Ithaca, by far. What a treasure. My very favorite dish is the fish and tofu in chili sauce, rich and flavorful, but there are many excellent options. Pea shoots with garlic, yum. The chef is from Sichuan, according to wait staff. I have always found the staff extremely polite and helpful. Bargains available if you can get there at lunch time. read more

UPDATED 161114 ------------ The lunch specials are pretty solid - only $9 for a decent portion of food, a bowl of rice, and a bowl of hot soup. I think many dissatisfied customers of De Tasty Hot Pot may have had the wrong expecations of Chinese restaurants and Szechuan cuisine. Szechuanese cuisine is often spicy, salty, fried, and oily. That's just the style of the cuisine. As for the service at a Chinese restaurant, De Tasty Hot Pot is clearly not the Statler - judging service in stereotypical Chinese restaurants by Western standards will only lead to dissatisfaction on behalf of both parties. But as David Chang wrote so eloquently: "Here's the deal: things do not work the same way in a Chinese restaurant as a Western one. The waittress does not come to the table and tell you her name is Amanda and the chef has this and that special and blah blah blah. Instead, she lurks around wherever she likes until you snap your fingers or wave your hands to let her know it's game time." -Lucky Peach Magazine Issue 5 (2012) I'm sorry if the waiters aren't coming around to ask for your order - the Western style of service is simply not something they're culturally versed in. Please give the food a try (see top items at the list below) ------------ This place is pretty solid. Don't get the hotpot, order from the menu. The dishes are really authentic, decent portions. The cuisine is mostly northern chinese and often spicy. I'd highly recommend the Sauteed Potatoes Green Pepper & Egglant, Dry Sauteed String Beans, Twice Cooked Pork, and the Dry Pork Intestine read more

We went to the restaurant tonight and loved it. Our experience was unlike any of the negative reviews here. The waiter spoke fluent English, walked us through the hot pot menu options. Food arrived promptly and was beautiful. We had a chicken broth and a spicy broth for our single pots, and a seafood combo and a meat (pork) combo. We also added one plate of cabbage dumplings. The seafood combo included whole head-on shrimp, mussels, fish, surimi ("crab" sticks), squid along with a plate of different vegetables, tofu and vermicelli. The pork combo had a plate of micro sliced pork and the same vegetable plate. The broths were complex and delicious. There was a table with additional sauces if we wanted to add more flavor. During the meal we talked about how much fun we were having. As non-Asians we were definitely a minority in the restaurant. We were offered forks, which we declined, as part of what we felt was excellent service. The total bill, including tax and the 20% tip we added was $52 for the two of us. While slightly higher than many of the Asian restaurants in Ithaca, we felt it was offset by the taste and fun. In addition, the hot pot meal takes a bit longer and the pricing may reflect the less frequent turnover. As for the spelling errors in the menu, their English abilities far surpass my Chinese ones (which are mainly limited to eating delicious food). We will be back again soon. read more

I ordered the smoked wok tossed chicken with roasted chili and dry sauteed string beans. Pretty pricy for the portion and food considering the ingredients weren't anything luxurious, just chicken and veggies. Including the delivery, it was $35 for just two items! But the food was very good, although the green beans were on the salty side. read more

De Tasty Hot Pot - Dry Sauteed String Beans - Hot Pot Near Me - Ithaca, New York

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Unassuming basement restaurant serving authentic Szechuan food. Excellent quality food with mediocre service and atmosphere. Recommended for lunch specials. (12/19/16) Food 5/5 | Atmosphere 2/5 | Service 3/5 | Value 4/5 Pros: Authentic flavors; great lunch special prices & portion sizes Cons: Restaurant decor is closer to a nightclub than a restaurant; basement ventilation not great Tip: Lunch special prices are 1/2 the price of regular dishes at decent portion sizes! ----- Food 5/5 This isn't your fake American-Chinese food. The chef here knows how to cook, and it shows. Meats are always cooked perfectly with delicious flavors. I like to order the Shredded Beef with Chili and Mapo Tofu dishes. Atmosphere 2/5 Situated in a basement, the decor is reminiscent of a nightclub rather than a restaurant. A bit dim and poorly ventilated, the physical space itself leaves much to be desired. Service 3/5 Having gone here several times, the service is average at best. Language barriers probably have to do with a lot of it. They are generally attentive, but don't expect to be treated like anything but paying customers. Value 4/5 Lunch special value is definitely a 5/5. It compares to other American Chinese food places in terms of price, but much better quality (& authenticity). Regular menu price is high. read more

Horrible service! The staff didn't understand much English. Moreover, they returned back twice after taking the order to tell us that some of the dishes we ordered were not available. And some of the dishes we ordered finally never came. They did charge us for those initially and we had a hard time explaining this to them. I would give 2 on 5 for the food but the overall experience would make my rating less than 1. read more

Absolutely terrible hot pot. Extremely condescending employees, and the price was $3 more than the menu stated for most of the items we ordered. There was no communication about the price differences. The hot pot broth had no depth of flavor or spiciness to it. Never coming back and would recommend no one else tries to eat here. 0/5. Created this Yelp account to make this review because this was so bad. read more

The people who gave this place one star have no idea what they're talking about. De Tasty has some of the best Chinese food that I've had (and I'm Chinese, so I've had a lot). I haven't had their hot pot yet, just their regular dishes and it's delicious. It's really authentic Chinese food and arguably one of the best Chinese restaurants I've been to. It's a bit pricey if you get non-noodle dishes and the portions aren't the biggest, but the taste is definitely worth the price. If you want to get a cheap meal, their noodle soup dishes give you a TON of noodles for around $9. If you like Chinese food, you're in for a treat if you go here. If you want to go for dinner between Thursday and Sunday, make a reservation otherwise you won't get a table. While yes they took some time to figure out the service, they've greatly improved since first opening. I wish this place had opened up sooner so I could've gone throughout my four years of college. But alas, I must just enjoy it for the remaining semester I have at Cornell. read more

Just opened in college town, it's still super disorganized and service is very very slow, because they only have a few employees. Our meal took 2 hours... Sauces are EXTREMELY lacking and portions are very small for the price, unfortunately. Get the spicy broth (it's not very spicy) over the chicken, as it's pretty flavorless to begin with. By the end, however, it was pretty tasty (after adding a lot of pepper, some vinegar, and a few spoonfuls of the spicy broth). Maybe the herbal broth would have been better but we didn't try it. Also, we didn't try any of the non-hot pot dishes but they looked pretty good! read more

All the other restaurants were closed. Didn't feel like hot pot in the middle of summer but had little choice. Kinda shady basement space and almost walked out. I'm glad we didn't. Ordered from lunch menu, and the food was excellent! 4 dishes from lunch menu fed 5 of us. We ordered egg plants, Kung Pao chicken, flounders, and pulled pork with garlic sauce. Highly recommended! read more

Best Chinese food in town, hands down. The chef has been on a known cooking competition on TV, which is apparently why most dishes can't go wrong. They have also recently hired some English speaking staff. So any Chinese food lovers should all try here and bring the stars up. There is no way this restaurant is only given a 3 star average review. read more

Back to the time when I was at college, friends usually asked me that what do we eat in China. I'd take them to this restaurant if it was opened by then. Actually even in China we don't usually have that quality of food in restaurants. They are super strong at Northeastern dishes and Sichuan dishes. And I believe the chef is much more versatile than their two-sided menu. I can understand those 1-star reviews that are made about a year ago when the restaurant was just started. I experienced the similar service, and didn't feel good about the long waitings, wrong dishes, etc. But after the first taste of the food, I gave up any complaints. I've had dishes from some 'super cooks' in China, and I could see big potential of this restaurant. They may need to improve on services and the capability to handle rush hours, their Chinese dishes are close to impeccable, even better than what you can find in NYC. Here my review is limited to dishes, not including their hotpot. Since I've never had a chance to try the hotpot. Here I recommend two of my favorite dishes, Broiled Sour Cabbage Pork w. Rice Noodles and Hot Spicy Stew. The first one is authentic Northeastern food, very well made with home fermented Bok Choy. The latter one is a variation of the original Sichuan dish (kebab style) but has all the flavors I seek from it. Plus its great value (You'll know if you try to make it by yourself). read more

Terrible customer service. Tried to order delivery from the restaurant twice in the past month. Both times after waiting over an hour, my order never came and nobody ever picked up the phone when I called to ask for it. Would not recommend if you plan on ACTUALLY trying to eat that day. Was going to even walk down to the restaurant and order in person instead. Changed my mind quickly though. Figured they probably would be open, but most likely won't even open the door for me if I went down there because they can't even answer a phone or complete an online order. read more

I've been meaning to review this place for a long time - simply put, I love it, but you can't be high strung about the service, or you at least have to go in knowing what to expect. The bad: Fairly confusing ordering process and the well-meaning waitstaff (at least when I went) didn't as a group speak very great English (there was one guy who spoke perfect English who seemed to be running around extra to help the others), but it was part of the experience. All is forgotten when the food is served. The good: Hot pot is fun! You get to add your own ingredients and sauces and cook it on the table. They serve a variety of delicious Chinese foods that are hard to find in Ithaca, the space is cool and roomy, and the broths are all good. Be careful not to add too much of the chili sauce to your pot because you can easily ruin the whole thing. Definitely give this place a try especially if you're with a group, not in a rush, and looking to have a fun experience, not just a meal. read more

We had a great experience at De Tasty Hot Pot. Our server was kind and courteous, even though he was also tending to every table at the restaurant. The atmosphere there is friendly and the decor is representative of the Sichuan culture. My stew was also very delicious. I asked for the Spicy Lamb Stew which also contains glass noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts and various other vegetables. I asked that it be made less spicy, but it was still REALLY spicy. If you don't have good heat tolerance, choose your entree carefully as everything is very, VERY spicy. The stew was a little over oily because of the large amount of chili oil that was added to it. Overall, I enjoyed my meal and the Chinese beer (Tsingtao) I had with it. Another thing: portion sizes are great for the price. I ate at the restaurant and my leftovers were still enough to last me for dinner the next day. The soups and stews come in massive bowls. Highly recommend this restaurant and I am excited to go again! read more

De Tasty Hot Pot - Spicy Lamb Stew - Hot Pot Near Me - Ithaca, New York

This place is absolutely fantastic, particularly when you are craving real, non-Americanized Chinese food. Two of my favorite dishes are salt-baked prawns with pepper and stir-fried prawns with pickled chili and minced pork. Don't bother peeling the prawns -- just eat them shells and all. They are delicious. I have also enjoyed the twice-cooked pork with garlic and leek and the dry cooked string beans. The restaurant has had some growing pains, particularly with respect to timely service (as can be seen by previous reviews.) I typically solve this problem using IthacaToGo, so I can do something productive while waiting. The restaurant appears to stop taking to go orders during busy times (e.g., Thursday - Saturday dinners), so be forewarned. Having said that, the service issues appear to be getting better. My one complaint is that the dumplings are often served steamed when fried are requested. Even though I know about this problem, I can't stop ordering the three type dumpling... read more

Ordered the sweet and sour chicken; the dish itself was bland and not worth the price, but the cherry on top was it kept me up all night with the worst food poisoning I've had in years. Never again. read more

Tasty good. But the dish is small. Wish they had bigger ones. Rice is $1.5, very small

I've eaten here twice and each time had the same problem. Someone orders a combo, carefully describes what they want to the waiter, then receives FULL servings of 9 different items instead of one plate of 9 items. The waiter then feigns helplessness, refuses to take any of the extra food back and you wind up paying for 5 times as much food as you wanted. A ongoing scam, or just a really bad language issue? You decide! That being said, the hot pot here is delicious. I really enjoy it. There are lots of vegetarian options, including a vegetarian broth (previously unavailable). You can expect to pay about $20 per person unless they mess up your order, which is always a possibility. read more

Bad services and below ground environment. People in the town usually go because it is almost in the campus and a little more traditional Chinese flavor. read more

De Tasty Hot Pot - A dish and a fly... - Hot Pot Near Me - Ithaca, New York

Would give this place negative stars if possible. The absolute WORST customer service experience I have ever had. I went on November 19th with 2 other friends to try out one of the newer restaurants in the area. Upon sitting down, we noticed that all of the staff did not speak very much English which is fine and not in any way a negative as long as the items on the menu can be clearly explained and the customer knows exactly what he or she is purchasing with their money. The menu was very confusing, full of misspellings and not clear in terms of the pricing: whether for the combo if you had to pay for the pot PLUS the combo price. Therefore, we decided to ask and were given answers by TWO separate staff that we would only be charged $11.95 for the combo, and not $17. In terms of the food, it was nothing special. The chicken that was given was cut into very very thin pieces and you barely get noodles so you don't got your value's worth of food especially because WE were cooking and not them. Nonetheless, for Collegetown prices $11.95 did not seem completely outrageous given this new dining experience. Once we received the check it said that we each owed $17. Trying to ameliorate the situation, I asked the waiter why this was true if we had been given the information that it would only be $11.25. What started off as an easygoing question to clarify turned into the waiters laughing at us, ignoring our questions and referring to our friend who understood Chinese (but had no part in this argument) to "translate"on their behalf. Not only that, but they proceeded to put the blame on our friend for her "poor translation". After the waitress continued fighting with us, I said "Either I pay $11.25 or I am leaving" did the waitress automatically begin to speak rather great English and told us we can leave. So, we did. Point is, it was a horrible experience and I will be telling everyone I know to avoid that place at all costs. There are plenty of other great Asian restaurants in the area and please do not waste your time and MONEY (especially as a broke college student). Having a language barrier is understandable but to be rude to customers who are not of Chinese descent is incredibly rude and disrespectful. Giving customers inaccurate information and then blaming it on them is unfair, unprofessional and unacceptable and I will never tolerate that. read more

Food was overpriced. Way too overpriced. One eggplant is around 10 dollars. I ordered a spicy broth noodles and it was good. But the rest of the order was ok. The mushroom was dirty it looked like when you just took the mushroom out and did like nothing with it. The egg soup my friend said it tasted like water. The meat was greatly seasoned. What the worst thing that happened. It was when we finished the food they charged us a 20% tip and overpriced taxes. We thought this was ridiculous and this was the last time we are coming so we paid anyways. read more

Best fried rice I've had in a really long time!! Friendly service, easy and safe contactless pick up.

My first time ordering, the people were great....the food even better.. Truly a great Satisfying experience. Highly recommend anyone to try. You will not be disappointed. read more

Absolutely disgusting! Food was nasty and cold! Did not get what we ordered after several requests, so we ended up giving up! Will never go back what so ever! My advise is not to waste time or money going to this restaurant! Servers don't really speak English so most likely you will not get what you order and you receive what they feel like giving you!! read more