I am SO thrilled that we finally have a real* hot pot restaurant on the UWS!! After years of watching good, authentic Chinese restaurants of other kinds pop up (and stay up) in areas adjacent to Columbia University with interest, and numerous hot pot restaurants open up in Manhattan south of Bryant Square Park with envy, it is finally our time!
* by real hot pot, I mean cook-your-own, soup-based hot pot; none of that dry pot nonsense
Spice Lamb (on Amsterdam and 106th) offers an all-you-can-eat hot pot only, I think. It's $33.95 a head for adults, half that for little ones. To my understanding, this is a pretty great deal for AYCE. The quality of the food is fair to high, not at all shoddy. You can easily customize the meal for your own dietary preferences, whether you're a vegetarian, pescatarian, omnivore, pollotarian, chili-head, keto dieter, etc... You can choose from something like 10 different soup bases and start from there. We had the spicy Sichuan soup base on one side of our yin yang pot; herbal chicken ginseng on the other. The Sichuan side was legit and spicy, full of good mala spice, not for the faint of hear. The herbal chicken half was great for cooling down -- and for the spice averse members of our family.
I sometimes find the number of options at hot pot restaurants overwhelming. Here, the selection is not as wide ranging as it might be at a Haidilao for instance, but there's enough variety to keep things interesting and delicious, not so much variety that newcomers to hot pot stare at the menu like deer in headlights.
I was so excited to eat that I (uncharacteristically) forgot to snap photos. But IIRC, the menu includes:
- several different cuts of beef, including beef tongue
- at least one, but I think more than one, cut of lamb and chicken
- several cuts of pork
- several different tofu preparations including yuba (tofu "skin"), fried tofu rolls
- several types of fish and shellfish
- something like three or four leafy green vegetables, including chrysanthemum greens
- three+ types of mushrooms (enoki, wood ear, shiitake, possibly others)
- numerous options for noodles, including handmade noodles, which my group said were good
The seafood we tried was quite fresh, though one freshwater fish we tried tasted a bit "muddy." The lamb and Angus beef were both well cut, tender and delicious; other beef cuts of variable quality. (The first order of tongue was excellent; the second very tough and gristly.) We love and appreciate the yuba and tofu rolls, both family favorites.
There is, per usual, a nice condiment bar where you go to mix your own dipping sauces. There are plenty of cracker-type snacks at the bar as well. I'm not sure if those are meant to be used as garnishes or condiments, but we enjoyed them straight as part of our post meal "dessert." For sweet dessert, they have ice cream cups in the freezer case. I didn't look inside, but my kiddos ended up with some low brow ice cream cups. I read some prior reviews that mentioned fruit as an option. That would've been nice!
Our waitress was super sweet and helpful. I wonder if some printable materials or verbal instruction from wait staff might be helpful for newcomers to hot pot dining. (Some members of our family, who had never had hot pot before, were at a loss about how to order and what to do at the condiment / sauce bar.)
Not sure if they have a real reservation system up, yet. They don't take online reservations. A nice man responded to a voicemail I left and I made a reservation through him. For now, you probably don't need a reservation on a weekday. That may change once the term officially begins at Columbia.
Is it the best hot pot in NYC? Nope. But is it the best on the UWS? Heck yeah. It's the only hot pot on the UWS. Let's keep this gem open. read more