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| - I'm torn between giving this a 3 and giving this a 4. I have a number of reasons why. First, I must say that I came for the Asian Food Festival, and used a deal that got me their beef/lamb hotpot, 1 soup base per person, and 1 yakult drink for $19.99. I'm not sure whether the servers completely understood the deal, or whether I misunderstood the deal, or whether there was an extra charge I did not know about, because when the bill came to us at the end of the meal, there was an extra $8 fee for what the server called a pot fee. We had 2 soup bases between 3 people (which should have been included in our deal). A 2 soup base pot costs $8. I'm guessing they charged us for the soup bases, even though when I told them our soup bases were part of our deal, they said the $8 wasn't for the soup, but for the pot. Once again, not sure whether I didn't understand something, or they didn't.
Downsides to this restaurant first. Their seats are slightly low, so it's somewhat awkward trying to dip into the pot, especially because the grill gets in the way. For those of you who don't know, Han Shi Fang has cool pots where you can cook hot pot style at the bottom, and you have a small grill on top of that so you can grill meat if you so choose. Since the grill is hot, you want to avoid touching it when you get stuff from your boiling hot pot. The seat levels make this slightly awkward because your arms might not be at the right levels to dip into your hot pot easily. Food-wise, the food was pretty fresh, and mostly of good quality (save for the gluten), but the white mushrooms had dirt on them. I'm also not fond of the way they cleaned up their grill. They have a piece of parchment paper (or something similar) on their grill to keep your meat from sticking to the grill. When they change this, they come around with a tray, grab your paper (food and all), put it on their tray (sometimes with other people's food junk already on the tray), put down a new piece of paper, then put your food onto this new piece of paper). I'm not fond of having other people's bones and stuff within that close proximity to my food. They also do this without warning, so every time they did this, I felt like my food was being stolen from me. Oh. A few of their waiters don't speak English. I asked for green onions three times. The first time, they forgot. The second time, we were given cilantro (how? o.O). The third time, they finally came.
Highlights included their very flavorful soup bases (we had pork bone and satay), among other things. When they add water to your pot, they don't just add water. They add broth. It means the soup bases don't get diluted. They have a number of dipping sauce options, which you order, and they bring to you in separate bowls. While I like the separation, the quantities of each are very random and they do take up space on the table. Their pork belly is sliced in rounds (which I find very pretty, and I know is more expensive, at least in grocery stores). Their veggies are fresh. Their yakult is pretty good too (although $3.5 a la carte).
This next part is both a downer and a highlight. Our menu said they serve Angus beef hotpot. We ordered this Angus beef, and we got beef. It didn't look like Angus, but it was quite tasty. Partway through our meal, we decided to get another round of beef, and the waiter asked if we wanted lean beef or fatty beef. This was the first time in our numerous rounds that we had been given a beef option. We opted for one of each, and we got one plate of the beef we'd been eating all night, and another beef of incredibly gorgeous, well-marbled beef. While I was fairly in awe of the well-marbled beef, I was also slightly miffed that we had been given the other stuff prior to this, especially because we found out so late into our meal that we only managed to get 2 plates of this beautiful beef before we tapped out. This beef was so magical that grilled and unsalted, it was still the best part of the entire meal by far.
I'd definitely come again for more of that beef, but only on a weekday (where they have the $19.99 beef/lamb hotpot without the yakult and soup bases) or during this promotion that's going on right now.
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