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| - 3.5 stars rounded down.
While Celebrity Hotpot hit the spot on a rainy and cold day in Toronto, it's certainly not the best hot pot I've had. The selection is also not as great. They also forgot some of our items and it was sometimes hard to track any of the employees down. Price is okay. Restaurant is fairly newish and clean.
Celebrity Hotpot seems to charge extra for anything from mushrooms (enoki mushrooms are $2.... are you serious?) to squid to extra seafood. Everywhere else I've been, they don't charge for this (in NY, in Ottawa, Atlanta, etc). While the base price for eating here (per person) is reasonable, the extra charges for random things is a little meh.
Free drinks - plum, soy milk, and green tea. Plum was delicious!
They have a variety of "free" items to choose from on their all you can eat menu. There's the usual lamb, beef, vegetables, etc, and they give you a decent amount (but not way too much) each time. I like that they don't overdo it with the servings because I feel bad when I can't finish. Their ordering system is strange though... you put 1, 2, ... depending on how many what... servings? you want? Or is it how many handfuls? Or if you put 1, do you get like 1 fish ball? It's a little confusing for sure and I can't imagine how a hot pot noob feels about eating here and the ordering process. Quality of the ingredients was pretty good, I'd say.
The spicy broth - I've had better ma la tang at a lot of other places. It's not got enough of the spicy oil in the broth. However, still tasted good.
They have your usual ingredients to make your sauce, but I found it weird that their scallions were soaking in water. They even have eggs for those who like to make the traditional hot pot sauce with a raw egg.
I was mostly turned off by the ordering process, the fact that we didn't receive a lot of our items, the unreachable attendants, and the so-so broth. That being said though, still a decent place for hot pot.
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