3.5 Stars (I wish Yelp allowed half stars!)…read more
Overall, this place was good. It offers a fun and different dining experience since everything is centered around hot pot and skewers.
The biggest pro is the value. Dinner is $34.99 AYCE and lunch is $24.99 AYCE, which I think is very reasonable. Another huge plus is that there is no time limit. We ended up staying for over 4 hours just eating, chatting, and catching up. Not once did the staff try to rush us. They were actually only about 30 minutes from closing, and they still let us relax without making us feel uncomfortable. That level of hospitality was definitely appreciated.
For the hot pot, you can choose multiple soup bases. Some premium broths cost extra, and if you want four different broths, there's an additional $12.99 charge. Personally, I think two broths are more than enough. With four sections, there's barely any room left to cook your meats, vegetables, and noodles.
We tried the Tom Yum and Tomato broths. They tasted surprisingly similar since they're both tomato-based, but in my opinion, the Tom Yum had more flavor. Their tomatoes tasted like straight up tomato sauce. We also sampled the mushroom broth, which was pretty good, although it does have a noticeable herbal flavor from the Chinese herbs they add.
One thing I really liked was the self-serve setup. There's a large sauce bar where you can customize your dipping sauce, along with a cold bar offering appetizers, fruit, and desserts. They also have a freezer stocked with several ice cream flavors and a refrigerator full of complimentary drinks like honey pomelo tea, citrus tea, sweet tea, honey green tea, and pear juice; all included with the AYCE price.
The refrigerated food section is well stocked with vegetables, noodles, meats, seafood, dumplings, fish paste, pork paste, shrimp paste, and plenty of skewers. The skewers were tiny because each one usually only had a single small piece of food on it. I guess that's the point....it keeps everything from getting lost in the hot pot!
They also provide a rolling cart beside your table for extra space, which is actually really useful because your table fills up quickly.
Overall, while nothing completely wowed me, the price, variety, and relaxed atmosphere make it worth visiting. I'd definitely come back when I'm really hungry and just want to chow down with friends for a few hours.