Pretty good hot-pot / Korean BBQ restaurant in Chinatown Boston. Located right in the heart of Chinatown practically under the Chinatown gate. This is the kind of place that offers hot-pot and also has the grill inset into the table for Korean BBQ style cooking. Although you don't get the full BBQ experience because they don't use a real grill, and make you cook on parchment paper which ends up being more broiled than grilled. Pretty large inside with plenty of seating upstairs as well. Prices and food quality is okay, a decent selection on the menu. Not really great, but acceptable. Service not that great, very slow and you have to keep reminding them of things. read more

Every time we ordered, we only received half of what we ordered. We tried doing this on 3 separate encounters during the same visit. The food isn't bad, but this is a dealbreaker if they aren't going to adhere to the orders. Recommendation: Name of restaurant is misleading. It's not a buffet if we get half of what we ordered. I would suggest Hot Pot ClusterF*ck read more

Went here on a Saturday for dinner. Suuuuper busy and the wait was 45 minutes. A busy restaurant is generally a good sign! Things to keep in mind: 1) Decor inside is standard Chinatown (nothing fancy, not much ambiance), but it's clean and bright. 2) Food comes quickly (to be expected, since waiters just bring you raw ingredients) 3) TONS of VARIETY (different types of meats/veggies/seafood. try the pigs blood if you dare, haha) 4) Meat has definitely been frozen before. Not a problem. It's not like I can expect unlimited never-frozen beef for the price I'm paying. 5) Waiters are efficient and filling water and taking more orders. Don't expect 5-star service, though. This is Chinatown, after all. 6) $30 (this includes tax+15% tip) for raw ingredients to cook my own food...I'm still on the fence about this. If you eat a lot of meat, $30 could very well be money well spent. As the head cheapskate, I'd rather stay home and make hotpot 7) In my opinion, it's pretty hard to make amazing hotpot or to mess up hotpot. To me, every hot pot place tastes roughly the same, because you're just boiling food. Unless the vegetables are rotting or the meat is some top-notch wagyu stuff, not much is going to sway my opinion away from: "Standard HotPot Place". A "Standard Hotpot Place" deserves 3-stars. The factors that add or remove stars are service and ambiance. 8) BONUS: it's open late, until 2am! read more

The selection is good but the service sucks. When you check up the items on the menu, they would only bring you very small portion. They would give you three piece of scallops even if you tell them to give more. Spicy soup base taste pretty good, I guess that's the only part i like about this restaurant. read more

The only hot pot place around that can satiate a bunch of fatties! Hot pot never came mind as a dinner option because it just cost too much to get full at the other places, but you really cannot go wrong with 25$ all you can eatness. We went for early dinner, there was no one on the second floor. There wasn't anything that we wanted that was not on the menu. I was introduced to fuchou fish balls (meat magically packaged inside a fish ball) that night, and the verdict is... that I could order them endlessly. SO DELICIOUS. The service was good--and they were super courteous (versus giving me "the eye") when I asked if they could hold onto two birthday cakes for until the end of the meal. I would not recommend this place for lunch simply because you will eat until you pass out, which wouldn't be a great thing to do at the office. read more

Don't EVER eat in here... they have grasshoppers inside the broth and they say that its normal to have them with the vegetables.

真心挺划算的，和国内的比，总之就是有大虾，螃蟹，鱼，牛肉羊肉等经典火锅料，另外最喜欢吃鱼豆腐。平时生意挺好的，周末晚点去都要等。平时中午好像是12刀，晚上22？差不多吧。反正经常去的，蘸料也不错，一般都是留学生。就在大牌坊下面。

Came here with a group of 5 for lunch on a Sunday. We had a satisfying meal but nothing too special. It is true that they had a huge selection - everything from different types of beef, lamb, mussels, clams, and even crab legs. And if you like fish cake/balls like I do in your hot pot, you're in luck, because they had 4 or 5 varieties of those items too! We had the house broth and the spicy broth. I tend to do OK with really spicy stuff, but this spicy broth was REALLLLY spicy. We had to fish out the bowlful of hot peppers that was floating in the broth, but by then it was too late. It was almost intolerable - I had to stick with the regular broth with just a spoonful of the spicy one mixed in in my little bowl. Also, we thought the service was a little slow, and when the check came, the bill was for 6 people, though we clearly were only 5. With a drink each and having to pay for the broths (lame), expect to pay around $30/person. I'd recommend coming here when you're reallllllly hungry so you can get your money's worth. read more

This is my favorite place !! I miss it so much, and if I were back there, I'd want to eat it everyday. The service here is pretty good. They've all been really nice to me. And the food is the bomb.com!! If you ever get a chance to visit Boston, this place is the place to go! read more

after months of wanting to try hot pot buffet, we finally made the time to trek to c-town for some hot pot. i always go extra hungry when going to buffets, and i'm glad i did as food was plentiful. we started the meal with the choosing of broths. the different broths are complimentary , and there were quite a few to choose from. i got the chinese spicy, which helped add some greatly needed spice and flavor to my meat. to order, you're given a menu where you just check what you want. there were 'do not waste food' signs at every table. i can sympathize with that. i can only imagine the amount of food that gets wasted there daily. there is a pretty generous variety of food offered given the light $20 price tag. the quality of food is somewhat to be expected, just average. all the seafood definitely frozen before. on the other hand, i give 2 thumbs up for the waitstaff there. the servers were very attentive and always made sure we had enough food. 45 minutes later, i am stuffed. i look down at my big, protruding stomach and think yeah, i got my money's worth. read more

DISGUSTING! The meat tasted like paper. The spicy pot was like pure water. The spoon holder had mold on it.

In terms of value this place has got it. The food was good and if you close your eyes its the same place as Shabu Zen and Kaze... only cheaper and less of an atmosphere. Because if you think about it. All these restaurants prob. get their ingredients, veggies, and meats from the same supermarket. read more

Joining other Hot Pot places in Chinatown (though more are of the Japanese shabu shabu style) is Hot Pot Buffet. In business for over a year, a constant flow of traffic has funneled right in this two level restaurant located [70 Beach Street, Boston, MA (617) 338-0808] adjacent to the welcoming Chinatown Gate. The restaurant is open Monday through Friday 11a.m.-4p.m. for lunch or 4p.m.-2a.m. with lunch being cheaper than dinner. We paid $25 each person on a Saturday night. Please not that on Sundays and holiday lunch pricing is not offered. Hot Pot Buffet offers fresh ingredients, no MSG and very little oil for a tasty and healthy dining experience. Hot Pot (aka steamboat) has a history of over 1,000 years and is enjoyed all over China with variations in other countries. It is a fun way to share a meal and eat with friends especially if you like to cook your own food. It is very easy! First you choose your desired broth out of four options- Chinese Herbal, Mala (Spicy) Soup, Black Chicken Soup and the House Special Broth. Then you can pick your desired food to cook. The sheer variety of food options is amazing and there is something for everyone! Lobster is at market price ($8.95 each on a recent visit) along with 19 other seafood items to choose from ranging from salmon fillet, shrimp, clams, crab legs and fish tofu. Then there are six types of noodles, 33 items under vegetables (tofu and rice cake too), as well as four types of dumplings, six types of seafood and meat balls, and 11 choices of meats. A few exotic items that stand out are the Beef Tongue, Fried Pig Skin, Pig Blood, Quail Eggs, Pork Intestines, Fried Gluten Balls and Wood Ear Mushrooms. Now comes the fun part! Once you get your broth and food, then you wait for the broth to boil and then you slowly put in your food. The items you choose will determine the cooking time, for example tofu and noodles take longer to cook. Veggies and the thinly sliced meats cook very quickly after a few swishes in the hot broth with your chopsticks. Sa cha sauce (made of chilies, shallots, garlic, soybean oil, dried shrimp and brill fish - which gives it a nice savory slightly spicy tinge found in Fujian, Chiu Chow and Taiwanese cooking) is offered for dipping. Hot Pot is a great group meal. You can take your time and eat whatever you want. But the best part is the broth at the end of the meal. The soup will have garnered an abundance of flavors from all the food that was put into it and it is the highlight of the meal! It is the best part for me! To top it off, sliced oranges were offered with the bill at the end. So if you are hungry and want something healthy, check out Hot Pot Buffet. read more

Wouldn't come back here anymore. The lady was demanding $20 tip! And when we asked she didn't even explain, she was mad about it and talk bad about us to other employees. We also found hair in the food but we didn't say anything since we were being nice about it (we stopped eating after that). I know giving tip is voluntarily and we wouldn't mind giving a good tip for them but the lady was rude to us, plus there wasn't any signs that groups of more than 5 should tip $20! It's okay, we wouldn't come back here anymore tho. Hopefully next time they should give a proper receipt that tells customers that and not a written one. read more

I came here during lunch time with my brothers. It was only $15 per person and obviously we'll eat more than $15 so i find that part pretty good. I love the clams, muscles, ox tongues and the flounder. I love the flounder the most. The service is somewhat decent today, 5 minutes after filling out the menu, they were able to bring out the food within 6-7 minutes, which i find pretty fast compared to other days. However, they would take forever to refill our water today, but i wasnt really thirsty so i was fine with that. We ordered around 2 times and i got pretty full already. The meats and the vegetables filled me up quickly. In the end, it only costed around $60, with tips, for such a filling and healthy dinner. :]. love this place. read more

good hotpot place in Bos for $25 pp. loved the sliced meat and veggies. the shabu zen nearby might be a better choice for fixed amount of food read more

Honestly I thought this place was gonna be a whole lot worse. . . but this was based off my friends saying this. . . Anyways, still wanting to give this place a try, i went with 5 other ppl and had a great time overall. The service was pretty bad, but honestly its a hot pot buffet place (and if your asking for good service at a place called, "hot pot buffet" then you need to get your head checked) so i was surprised there was any waitstaff to begin with. . . Moving past that, the food wasnt too bad, the price of it being 20 bucks all you can eat was nice and it was pretty much like being at any regular hot pot place (except for the service, atmosphere, and certain food items). I guess i liked this place cause i always eat more than 70 bucks worth of hot pot anywhere else just to get full, but here i can just eat eat eat and not break the bank. The meat was pretty good to say the least, the veggies were delicious, and the seafood. . .was okay. I liked the octopus, the cod fish paste, the mussels, and the squid for seafood, i didnt like the clams so much (really big, but also really grimy, i was chewing on sand for the most part) and the dumplings arent really appetizing (there were stuck together and were tiny). The boba tea here is terrible by the way, so dont get it. . .its milk tea and not good. the beef tongue (back, not front) is good and the prime rib is pretty good too. so is the lamb. word of advice. . . they tend to bring the cheaper food options u order first, so you fill up on them faster, and they bring the meat out last so you dont eat so much of it. Also, they dont bring much of the meat, so just keep asking for more and more. The waitstaff dont really check up on you, so you gotta flag em down, and they'll get it for you then. Honestly i cant rate this place higher cause of the intangibles (service, atmosphere) being bad, but this is def a good place to go for hot pot cravings and not having to spend the money for it. read more

Credit Card Fraud!!! Do Not Go There. I went to this place at Dec 26th 2014. Food was okay, average level Chinese hot pot. When we pay our check, the waiter took away my credit card and came back for long time like about five minutes. Two hours after we ate there, I got a call from chase fraud department said someone tried to use my card to buy some online game coins from a European website. I am pretty sure they did the fraud on me because I kept my card in my wallet all the time and I did not used that card for at least ten days before I went here. Also I did not present my card to anyone else or make any transaction after they swiped my card. So people plz stay away from this restaurant! If you have to eat there, USE CASH read more

Hot pot buffet is THE BEST hot pot around. Better than shabu zen, better than whatever place your friend is telling you about. I have tried every restaurant and I'm never satisfied. It's a waste of money to go anywhere else. This place has the best sauce. The service is slow sometimes and it's not a fancy building, but your meal is amazing. read more

Went out to dinner around 12am with a party of five for my boyfriend's birthday and from the moment we stepped in we felt as if we weren't welcomed. The host sat us upstairs and was super friendly and polite. However, after waiting 15 to 20 minutes to be asked what we would like to drink or to even check to see if this was our first time (which it was) to explain how the hot pot style of dinner went, we just started to watch the other servers serve the table next to us and the others across the room. Soon after, we had our server come to the table to ask us what we would like to drink and grew immediately restless when we did not answer her fast due to the fact that no one pointed out on the menu where the drinks were nor gave us enough to read collectively. I politely said "We just need a few more minutes" and she stormed off. Another 10 minutes past and we knew what we wanted for a broth and the sides and even our drink orders, she eventually came back to put in our orders. Another 10 minutes went by and we still had no water or our drinks. Shortly after noticing that it was taking longer than we thought, our drinks came from two other servers. Eventually our broth comes and no one turned on the stove (by this time we ordered our drinks and food all at once but only the broth came first) and had us wait another 10-15 minutes. By then we'd finished the majority of our drinks and needed napkins but our original server was on the other side of the room just talking and laughing with another co worker. When our food arrived we enjoyed it a lot. However, we still needed more napkins and refills but our server was still talking and laughing with her co worker. There was no way for any party at my table to at least wave our hand to get her attention due to the fact that she was half way between the kitchen and the other side of the restaurant. Thankfully the other servers helped us and served us while their co worker was just laughing and eventually ONLY SERVING THE OTHER TABLES ACROSS THE ROOM WHO LOOKED LIKE HER. The second time we saw our server she only brought us the bill and then acting super friendly. She did not like the fact that we were all persons of color and barely tried to interact with us. The server had the nerve to ask (more like scream) "No tip? No tip?" I stated "No." and my boyfriend said "No, you did not do anything" she stormed off. I also wrote on the bill "Poor service" just in case she did not understand or get the message and she took a picture on her iphone. We weren't mad or rude/disrespectful to our server or anyone in the restaurant and in fact we were all pretty quiet just waiting for our food and drinks and towards we did laugh all together very loudly after she asked for a tip. Other than that, we did not understand why we were being treated as such and just wanted some food and more napkins. Please be aware that this type of atmosphere is very common in many restaurants in Chinatown due to the experiences I had and other friends/family members experiences. We will not being going back just because the color of our skin was not accepted or stand to be treated any differently whatsoever. Only gave two stars because their food was really good and fresh. read more

Order the twin pot (half spicy half regular broth). Very good veggie selections esp love Chinese water crest. Bill with tip $20/person. Don't really recommend the seafood, stick with the meat and veggies, and of course Tofu always my favorite for hot pot. read more

Not a great deal for someone who doesn't like meat. Quality is not as good as Shabu next door, but for the amount of veggies I ordered, it would have been around the same price. Don't expect gourmet food (or anything close) when coming here. I.e. Pig blood too hard, crab tastes old, dumplings a bit stale. BUT it is a buffet and the spicy sauce is decent (again, not as good as Shabu's spicy Szechuan). Service is great though. read more

I went there today with my bf and we been to a couple of hot pot places such as shabu-zen and shabu shabu toki, we both got the mala spicy broth but its not spicy enough for my taste because i love spicy food. they have a sauce which is similar to shabu zen it taste like the soy with the korean bbq paste already mix together instead of mixing it yourself, you have to ask for the scallions, hot peppers, and garlic, so they give a menu with a list of stuff and you just check it off and they do have lots of options, so i check off almost everything not sure if i got it all but it was plenty of food i was so stuffed i couldn't eat anymore you definitely get your money worth, the only thing different is when they serve your food to you its not as neat as shabu zen, looks like a big pile of mess but still a great value and i definitely recommend this place i will definitely go there again. read more

This is not the traditional Chinese "Buffett". You cook your own food in "hot pots" at your table. You start by selecting which raw food you would like then to bring and then cook in a broth (think Melting Pot for Chinese food). The quality of the meats and vegetables was very good. The service was good and the restaurant is clean. I would recommend as something different to try. read more

Individual hot pot makes this nice for different broths but all the meat were definitely old and not as good as other hotpot buffet places. However for the price and the variety (beef tongue is real good) it warrants another visit. read more

Decent service, wide range of fresh hot pot add-ins. Would definitely come again.

All you can eat hot pot for a $21, I'm all for a AYCE at a great price with quality food. My bf goes here every single time he's in Boston and I have to hear about it. I finally tried it out and it's pretty delicious. Make sure you take advantage of the clams! This place is huge, so the wait wasn't too bad. read more

There was a roach on the table when we were being seated. Oops. Eek. Thankfully, we bailed.

I love and hate this place. This place is known for its AYCE option. They give you a tiny IKEA pencil and paper with meat/side selection. And the feast begins. The meat selection is fair, as you order more they bring less and less. Which is pretty reasonable in their business end. Out of the meats I tried, I would recommend the rib eye. I absolutely fell in love with water cress, a vegetable somewhere between spinach and bokchoy. But after I ate here I was in and out of the bathroom and had the worst stomachache. So questionable hygiene.. Was it the cheap meat? Not sure. But for the agony I had in the bathroom, I take away one star. read more

Came here with my friend who is vegetarian the other day and was a little disappointed. Both vegetarian broths tasted the same (tasted like ginger and tree bark) and none of the dumplings were vegetarian friendly. They only gave one sauce option whereas the other hot pot buffets had plenty of sauce options. A lot of what we wanted from the menu were not in stock. Overall it was okay, but would not recommend for vegetarians. read more

Big fan of this place. They are extremely careful with my bf's shellfish allergy, which is hard to find in any Asian restaurant. It's a bit on the expensive side for dinner, and it irks me to no end that they charge for the various broths. However, because they create an environment where both my bf and I can enjoy our hotpot side-by-side (mine spicy and filled with seafood, his mild and filled with meat), they get 4 stars. read more

Great deal if you come here for lunch on Saturday or weekdays since it's only $15.99 (Sunday and holidays have dinner rate all day). Lunch menu does not have salmon or enoki and some other items but still good overall. My family loves the choice rib eye beef. We think that is the best item on the menu. I don't think we can buy this in the supermarket... My parents tried finding it but no luck. I'm not sure where the restaurant got this meat from but it's super delicious with the right amount of fat and meat. My other favorite item is the fish tofu. I don't think the fish and other seafood items are that fresh but still not too bad for the price. We generally got the house special and the mala spicy soup bases. read more

Clean, affordable for what you get, and foods good!! What else to say other than goodbye Shabu Zen!

I haven't been here since high school and the atmosphere has definitely changed. It seems cleaner when you walk in. This time around, I didn't have any bugs crawling next to me and the place wasn't dirty. The reason why I came back because the variety in the selection is large, price is reasonable and the bbq sauce is the BEST sauce you could find in any hotpot restaurant establishment. The spicy broth is flavorful and packs some heat. Service is good too, they're always checking up on you even with their limited English. If you grew up in Boston you know this place is a classic hotpot restaurant and everyone should at least try their bbq sauce. read more

The 1st time I tried hotpot buffet today. Really good. The service was ok. Hope to come again soo.

Eat at your own risk. I heard they reuse the broth from previous customers. Something about this place is just not fresh and straight up dirty. read more

It's buffet ($25) you can have as much as you want. Broth is pretty tasty and veggies are fresh. But some stuffs are frozen. Bathroom is dirty read more

For a hotpot buffet this place is okay. I usually prefer to come here with bigger groups because if you go to a regular hotpot restaurant with a lot of people the bill will be super high. They actually don't wash their vegetables here, and the place is pretty dirty. When you order enoki, the dirt parts on the stems are still visible. I've had friends who have had stomach aches from the vegetables from here. The staff will never offer to give you another check list, I think they secretly hope you won't order anymore. The taro is also old and dry as well as the corn. Can't expect quality when you're coming here for quantity. read more

The quality of the food was just ok. The sanitation was very bad. Found two bugs during the eating time, one on the side of the pot, the other on the wall. I will never go to this place again and not recommend to anyone else. read more

I had a good experience eating hot pot at the restaurant. However, it was ruined after the cashier at the front desk second floor slammed down the tray with the receipt and check and smacked a waiter in the arm with full force. I found it shocking and absolutely unprofessional. read more