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| - I absolutely love hot pot, and I'm always on the hunt for the best hot pot restaurant in the GTA. I will drive 40 minutes from downtown to fulfill my search, but needless to say, this one doesn't make it to the top of my list.
Let's start with the positives. The service was good, the servers were proficient in English and were able to answer any questions we had about the menu. The quality of the food was alright, the meat wasn't the best I've had but it wasn't bad by any means. The restaurant is clean, and the place can accommodate fairly large groups - but all the tables are rectangular so you may have to shout across the table to converse with a person on the other side.
So now the issues. The place was pretty empty on a Saturday night, which is not really a good sign for any restaurant - probably because there are too many competitors nearby that are slightly better. They do not offer individual pots, you have to share with your group (one pot per 3-4 people). I personally prefer individual pots so that I can choose the soup base I want and my soup wouldn't be contaminated with any flavours that I don't like from other ingredients, but I know not all hot pot places can offer it. BUT communal hot pot places usually offset this setback by lowering their price - which this place does not do. It was about $30 for the hot pot, which is exactly the price I would be paying for at another hot pot restaurant with individual pots.
The price includes a seafood platter, which comes with oysters or lobster (+$3), which is a nice addition, BUT and this is a huge but, it is a FORCED addition. I find that bizarre, as a lot of people I know don't like seafood and yet are forced to pay for it. During certain times, you can order just a regular hot pot without seafood but I don't know why that option had to be time-restricted.
Another bizarre aspect of the restaurant is their ordering system. It is a paper and pencil ordering system, and they were good about giving us everything we ordered, but why are we not able to write out the portions beside each ingredient? You're asked to fill out the portion beside each category (vegetable, meat, noodles etc.), which doesn't make any sense. Why can't I order more lamb than beef? Why do I have to get equal amounts of both? It just made no sense to me and they really should fix their ordering forms.
The selection of items was adequate - not the largest selection I've seen, but large enough that you'll likely find everything you want on there (no quail egg though :(, which happens to be my favourite). It's also kinda nice that they offer appetizers (e.g., curry fish balls, curry beef balls) and rice dishes (e.g., chicken mushroom rice) as part of their all-you-can-eat menu along with non-alcoholic drinks and dessert (e.g., ice cream, tapioca and fruit).
Overall, I think that they have the basic necessities of what makes a good hot pot restaurant, but they will need to make some adjustments to compete with the slew of nearby hotpot restaurants.
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