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| - As much as I would like to give Spicy Mafia a higher rating, I can't.
But let's start with the good stuff. Spicy Mafia is located in the Chatime/Sweet Esc plaza at Gibson and Warden. The restaurant is right beside Chatime in the far corner of the plaza. They definitely put effort into the design and interior of Spicy Mafia - it's modern and kinda quirky. Quite cramped though - we ended up having to share a table by the window and every time I got up I had to make the poor lady on the outside edge of the table get up too.
We came to try the customizable noodle bowls and there's quite an impressive range of things to choose from. Different types of fish/beef balls, meats (red sausage, mini regular sausages), tofu, bean sprouts, bean curd sheets, yam noodles, mushrooms (shiitake, enoki, black fungi), different kinds of noodles, etc. - about 40 to choose from in all so you can customize to your heart's content. You put what you want in a large bowl using the same tongs - if you're allergic be wary of cross-contamination. Then they weigh it - it's 8.99 a pound. Deceptively expensive - I'm a small eater and with about two pounds that was enough. The bowl also weighs 0.2 pounds which they inform you of beforehand.
Then they go ahead and make your noodles, and the bowls came pretty quickly. We got the pork bone soup base, which I liked. Even though this is more expensive, I was liking the freshness of the ingredients and the huge variety. Unfortunately today we got more protein than we bargained for.
As we kept eating I noticed a fly floating in my soup. No big deal. It happens. We informed the server and he was apologetic and came back and told us they'd replaced the soup and reboiled it. After this hiccup we kept on with our meal until Michael discovered a beetle on his udon. It would have been cute even if it hadn't been in his food. Again we called the server over and we were told that this was a sesame seed.
1) There is zero sesame anywhere in the dish or in any of their regular hot pot bowls for that matter. 2) Sesame seeds are round, but taper at the ends and are flat. This is clearly a beetle. With legs clearly visible I might add.
So again they came back with a new soup base and reboiled. Then I found fly number 2 in my soup and at this point I just fish it out and give up.
Throughout all this service was quite courteous and I appreciated that. They told us at the end of our meal that it was likely the watercress that was the source of all these bugs and I certainly think that's true. That doesn't mean it's acceptable for there to be multiple insects in my food (and I took a minimal amount of watercress). If they're going to have vegetables available they should either wash it well enough or pick a vegetable that is easier to clean and won't have as many insects in them. I have watercress all the time in my own house for hot pot and there has never been an insect even once.
They did give us a discount. +20% for sharing on social media. It came out to about 15 dollars for both bowls which is a perfectly reasonable price.. for an insect-less meal. Even without the insects, I think Spicy Mafia is too expensive for what it's worth.
So yeah. If you're going to come here don't get any leafy vegetables.
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