Chinese AYCE hot pot and (Korean style) BBQ place where Sumo used to be (and Honolulu before that). Parking is available in the strip mall lot. There are also spots in the side streets. The interior is nice and modern. Looks good. Staff are friendly but a bit too spread out. Buddy and I had to keep flagging people down. So how does this place compare to the competition? Let me count the ways. The best deals are lunch and late nite. Late nite starts quite a bit later than the competition (2200 as of the time of writing), but is available 7 days a week. As lunch pricing is similar, I would recommend that instead. The seating system is a bit hokey. Show up in person, and plug your name and phone number into the computer. The waiting area is way too small, so buddy and I took a walk around the nearby shops until the system pinged us. Where this place really shines is that they have both hot pot and/or grill options. As of the time of writing, the option to have both options together is $3 more than the singular options. Hot pots are individual. Pick a broth, and the staff will set up individual burners. The grill is shared in the middle of the table. The raw food is split between hot pot and grill sections. Plates are a bit small, so be sure to pile the meat nice and high. Selection is pretty decent on both sides. The best way to go is to alternate between hot pot and grill meats, so one can eat one side while cooking the other. There is also a sizeable hot food section. Dim sum, noodles, rice, meat, and vegetables. Buddy and I gorged like no tomorrow. I was ready to explode towards the end. Had to go for a short walk so I wouldn't throw up. Oh yeah, there are some higher tiers (including skewers) for regular dinner hours. Didn't look much into it though. Other than the later start time, this place gives the likes of Happy Lamb, Liuyishou, and Marble House (and I guess Meat Up) a run for their money. Just writing this review makes me want to go again. Guess I'll be dreaming of this place tonight. Highly recommended. read more

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I recommend that you make a reservation online prior to arriving. We did not know this and had to wait almost 2 hours to get a spot. This place is nice because you can grab your own food items for both hot pot and Korean barbecue. It is a few dollars extra to do both, but I highly recommend it. They also have a hot prepared foods section that you can help yourself to. They have three different free drinks while we were there which included an artificial orange juice, plum juice, and lemon water. Thought this was a nice touch since many places don't give you anything other than water. The barbeque meats are different from the hot pot meats as they have marinated meats for you to grill. They give you ice cream at the end! We left this place, super full and satisfied. It was about $45 a person for the meal. read more

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I've been back to Hot Spot Buffet 3 times now and every time it's gotten better. The first time they didn't offer us any dessert and we didn't know we can get ice cream. The second time we did hotpot and bbq. I will say the bbq is better than hotpot, but you're fine to try both. It's just a lot of work going back and forth between the two. I ended up overcooking some items so maybe have more people help out with the grill and switch. The most recent time I visited our group opted for the bbq grill only. It was enjoyable as the meats cooked fairly quick and we had time to have the already cooked foods while waiting. The beef is probably the best quality for the bbq here. All the marinated and non marinated beef slices were delicious. The beef short ribs comes in a close second and the prawns were fresh came in third. Everything for the grill section that we tried were not old and not sitting out for hours. It may have helped we came in at 5:45pm so it was a fresh batch. The cooked food options such as the cucumber salad with pig ears were a tasty appetizer. The crawfish surprised me since I thought they would have overcooked it or tasted rubbery, but it wasn't. The sauce bar and drink stations were clean and self serve. All in all for ayce BBQ only at $39.99 a person for dinner is a great deal for what you get. Note, if you pay with credit card there is a 1.5% transaction fee charged on top. Cash or debit doesn't have the extra fee. read more

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--Sept 2025-- I wanted to come here again to make sure the last time wasn't just a one off. This time I asked about the hot bar. Most of the things that have labels but are empty are for dinner time. They really should take the labels off. This time they had sweet and vinegary riblets which were surpringsly good. Their "dimsum" is just mantou breads...both of them. The hot and sour soup was neither spicy nor sour. The prawn chips were partially stale. The meat this time tasted better. I would still never eat the lettuce above the raw meat. I'm still on the fence about this place. read more

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Hot Spot Buffet has hot pot or Korean bbq ($39.99 during dinner) and both for $2.99 extra. There is a 90 minute time limit. They also have a section of premade foods that seems to change as the labels didn't match the hot plates. There is also a fried section with wings, spring rolls and fries. Also dim sum buns if you don't have enough carbs. The hot pot and grill section is quite extensive with your regular offerings. When paying, was advised there is a surcharge for credit card (1.75%). Didn't see any signed indicating that. Over a good experience, might was a bit hard to handle getting both options. Perhaps just grill next time. read more

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They normally don't allow grilling for one and will try to make you sit at the bar with a butane stove. I argued that it wasn't busy when I went and they didn't explain the reason well enough. Eventually I managed to get a grilling table. The ingredient quality is good and if you tinker with the dial you can turn up the heat to get a nice Maillard reaction texture. read more

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This AYCE place took over where Sumo grill used to be. The interior and seatings are quite comfortable. There is option for regular and premium options AYCE. I was confused by the menu at first. If you decide to go for the premium option, then you use the QR code to order the premium item. If not, you just go out to grab the food from the fridges. We did the regular option but added $3 to get both the grilled and hotpot option. This option also provides you access to their hot food station. It is a lot of food and options. It was little chaotic for us to be handling both the grill and hotpot and our toddler. When we come back next time, we will only do either grill or hotpot as we don't really eat that much. I filled myself up from the hot food station. read more

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Hot spot got me boiling... I came here a dozen times when it was used to be Sumo Grill. Now it renamed, rebranded, and took on the AYCE Grill and hot pot route. I could be wrong, but same owner? I decided to give this place a try after driving by and finally see its opening sign (free parking at its London Drugs plaza). Upon entering the restaurant, registered at the computer pad to join the wait list. (There were 3 people ahead of me, not bad) After waiting in space for about 20 mins, finally the manager/ owner came and told us that there will be a 45min wait and those who came way after us will be a 2 hrs wait. I suggested we go to Haidilao or Dolar instead of waiting because 45 mins I could be at Haidilao eating and getting bags of freebies to give to my nieces and nephews (just kidding.. I ain't no freeloader). To make a long story short, the 20mins turned into 45 mins and the 45mins extended to 2 hours 15mins. The waiting list was a total mess; the online reservation and walk in wait list wasn't integrated together properly, some didn't have to wait much and some of us waited forever. Literally the manager/ owner was on the hot seat with everyone waiting, a riot almost broke out lol another 15mins I probably start clubbing someone with a bak choy. After finally being seated, here were the menu and food options; 1. There is the classic grill AYCE $39.99/ person or the premium set $53.99/person. 2. For an additional $2.99, you can add the AYCE hot pot together with the grill. 3. The self serve snack and salad bar was pretty decent with quite a bit of variety . 4. The sauce bar needed a bit of work and perhaps small bowls for mixing sauces for hot pot? 5. The meat, veggies and all kinds of food for grilling and hot pot are self served. Located on one side of the restaurant. 6. All you can drink pop but no ice??!? F........udge! (It's like saying no ketchup to my Filipino bros or no soy sauce for rice to my brown buddies, not trying to be racist). 7. Needed some adjustment on the little hot pots cause kept on flaming out but the grills for bbq was good with built in exhaust to prevent us from smelling like cooked meat afterwards. Overall, the restaurant was pretty clean and spacious for everyone to navigate between all the different food sections. The food quality and options were quite fresh and reasonable. However, the presentation needed to be more visually pleasing for the food being ordered from the premium set. As for the service, the servers and staffs were very friendly and accommodating except for one floater (it seems like he's clueless to what he's doing and I am clueless to him being clueless, I asked for a grill change and he came back 15mins later telling me to change the grill for him?!? lol wtf lol) Anyways, when the bill came, there was a 40% off and waved down the owner for the reason. He told us it's open for private testing still and not officially opened till another 2-3 days. I saw others got the same deal too after but regardless I tipped 40%. In conclusion, the food and service were exceptional. The restaurant just needs to fix its waiting list and reservation system ASAP because it certainly got me BOILING hot on the spot.... P.S. will be back to try again once it is officially opened. A mutual rating for now 3.5 stars. read more

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Went on their first few days of opening and it was so chaotic. It's understandable that things will always go sideways as they try to work things out but certain things made it seem like they rushed opening. They have a waitlist sign up screen at the entrance. After 40 minutes of waiting, we still hadn't received a notification so we went back to the restaurant to see what was going on. There was already a group waiting and multiple parties came to also check on their spot in line. After about 30 minutes, a staff member finally came to the front waiting area and everyone asked about their respective places in line. After much corroboration, it was determined that their waitlist system was not working as everybody who had waitlisted were not called. To make things more chaotic, they also accept reservations so everybody that reserved will get in first. After waiting an hour and 40 minutes and many discussions with the staff, we were finally seated. They offer two menus - one classic and one premium. For the classic, they have their ingredients/toppings in a self-serve styled system all stacked in fridges. Everyone has access to this fridge which means you have people constantly going up and down to grab things. The plates they offer for you to put your toppings on are small so you'll need to make multiple trips. No tray is offered so that you can carry more than one plate. You will also have to go back to grab your sauces at the self-serve sauce station. They also offer self-serve drinks that consist of slightly cold pop and juice. They were so busy that they couldn't even offer water unless you asked. Cups were not provided for the water so we had to grab it ourselves at the drink station but they were so busy, they ran out of cups. They offer both grill and hotpot. Both ingredients can be grabbed at the self-serve fridge. The hotpot "stoves" we got were so small that we had to get the gas/butane refilled three times. No utensils or bowls (soup spoon, ladle) were offered for hotpot. They also offer hot/cooked foods and desserts but they had run out of everything and nothing was being replaced. On a brighter note, the meats for the grill were actually good. Because we didn't have any hot/cooked food, we were able to eat more meats and fill up on that. read more

Food was of good quality, unfortunately, they have the heat on the grill turned low on purpose so that it takes a long time to cook the meat. We asked several time to have the temperature on the grill to be raised without success. Couldn't cook all the food we ordered in time, then they kicked us out. Will not be returning any time soon. read more

I decided to try this new, or rebranded business when I wanted a quick lunch. I was able to be seated quickly. As I was by myself, I was told I had to sit at the bar area. As such, I could not grill meat on the burners at the tables. I could only have hot pot. The server did fill up my hot pot a few times. A good variety of food, however some meat trays were not labelled. Good variety of sauces. There was some dumplings in a steamer tray, however despite being heated, it was cold. Dessert was limited to three different items, 2 baked/fried items and cantalope. Hot prepared items, 4 or 5 included fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and a couple items I can't remember. Price was good for lunchtime special. Since I could not grill meat, I would not go back again if I am dining on my own. I will eat at another restaurant on Kingsway and Joyce area. read more