Never tried hotpot but watched enough YouTube videos that I wanted to try it. The restaurant is new so it's clean. Check.
We were the American minority at this restaurant which is great. Apparently hot pot is a Chinese thing but its in Japan and Singapore too. There was a language barrier and I have a lot of patience for that because of the illusion it's authentic. Check.
Being new to this our server had to be patient. We were given some instructions and a sheet to fill-out what we wanted. That was the hardest part. We had a picture menu and a paper to decide what items we wanted. Each person gets one broth selection from the menu so we did that. Then you get to choose the all you can eat items from the sheet. You order meat, fish, noodles, vegies, mushrooms, tofu, etc... all that go into the pot. That was all fun.
They were very busy so once we were done ordering we had to wait. Note: the napkin dispensers had buttons on them to get service--don't waste your time here. Even when pushing the button, I wasn't sure if the button was for our table or the one next to us. There honestly wasn't enough staff in the restaurant to monitor the calls so this is a 'would have been nice' feature.
It took quite a while for our waiter to pick up our order form. I still didn't know anything about the ordering process I had to ask our waiter if it looked right. He said it did.
They brought vegetables, tofu and mini sausages to our table. We didn't order any of that. We got the attention of someone but with the language barrier, we couldn't tell him that it was the wrong order. He got the attention of another server and there was still a language barrier. It was really difficult to tell them to take it away (they never understood why.)
Next they brought out our meat selection and our noodles. It was right but some of the meats were twice what we ordered (I guess because there were 2 of us and because it was all you can eat.) hmmm.
The broths in the pots came out and our waiter had to instruct us how to turn on the heating controls to our pots. Okay fine. Then we were instructed how to get our utensils and our sauces which were located along the bar. Okay. Another fork in the road we weren't aware of, but it was still something of an adventure; although, being a newbie I wish I would have been told about this in advance.
We dropped our meats and noodles in the broth and cooked them and they were amazing. The sauces helped but we were still unsure how to use the small dishes we got at the sauce counter. There were many of them and we had little knowledge how they were properly used.
Then it came down to the wrong vegetables and mushrooms we ordered. I asked our waiter if they were going to come later because I watched YouTube videos where they were both provided when the meat and broth were brought out but I also saw videos where they were brought out later. I described how they had brought out the wrong order to our table and he said he should have been told that the mistake had happened--this one isn't my fault. We couldn't communicate with the staff at the time it happened and they didn't bother to get our waiter who understood english. Sigh.
I was asked to fill out the order form again for what they had misplaced on the order so I added the shrimp balls, mushrooms and other things that they honestly should have had a copy of our order in the kitchen.
We got the other stuff late, but it was still a great meal.
Look, I know this sounds like a trainwreck. But the meal was tasty and wonderful. Our waiter was great but a little overtasked and I wanted the hotpot experience. It was unlike any other dining I've done in my life.
It did have a few bumps in the road, but our waiter made me feel like he wanted to do things right. He corrected the mistakes as soon as he was aware of them.
The price point doesn't make this fast food. We won't be able to do it as often as I like, but we plan on going back. Honestly the place was fairly packed when we arrived and there were people waiting while we were dining. I believe they could have used 1 or 2 more people to staff the restaurant but it was fine.
Aside from the mistakes, the meal was great. We had a wonderful experience. Boiling the food at your table isn't something you do quickly but if you have the time, enjoy. We did. I look forward to doing it again only next time I want to do it with many, many more hot peppers. Like a 12 pack a day smoker, I fondly look back on the days when 1 pepper was enough. Sriracha is ketchup to me. read more