Tried out this place in Irvine. Called ahead and they don’t take reservations and was told it can get busy. Their English was not good on the phone. Anyways showed up anyways at 6:30pm on a Sunday evening as a party of 6 and no wait. We had an amazing hot pot meal. I like a la crate ordering for hot pot since you get what you order. Great sauce selection and a decent amount of Chinese snacks.
This is such an authentic Chinese hot pot place. The food is great and cheaper than hdl for how much they give you per plate. There’s more variety of sauces and snacks at the bar. The interior decor is so pretty, and it’s so easy to order if you speak Chinese. If you don’t, there are still some servers who speak English. We came here on a whim because there was an hour+ wait time at a place next door. After trying many hot pot places in Irvine, I still prefer this for a more authentic experience. I can’t believe how under hyped this restaurant is, but it did just recently open. The only down side is the one Asian auntie server who seems a bit scary if you’re not used to the way they talk.
food is good. the ventilation system is not strong enough, the spicy smell makes me sneeze a lot.
Great spot to enjoy hotpot with friends and families. Service is great. Meat, veggies, and food are all fresh. Must try the dessert there.
The new hotpot place in Irvine. We went on a weekday around 6pm. There was no line. We got a table when we walked in but we saw there were already many people inside the restaurant.The server was very friendly and explain to us how the system work. We ordered our soup and dishes. The soup came out very quick. While waiting for the dishes, we went to the snack bar and sauce bar. We find there was not as many selections as at HDL and no labels on many of the sauces and items at the bar. We were guessing by looking at the color and texture.The soup took a while to boil. The dishes came out before the soup boiled. We tasted the tomato soup and found it to a bit bland compared to HDL.The vegetables are fresh and very delicious. I love the sauce that I mixed for myself. There are only 2 types of tofu that come with he tofu combo. I was hoping they include some deep fried tofu skin in the combo but none. The mushroom combo has more combination of different t Mushrooms. The hotpot noodle is OK only. I still prefer the noodles at HDL. According to my son, the beef belly and tilapia were fresh and delicious.At the end of our meal, the sesame balls were out and I had to wait for a one time for them to bring out a new batch. The receipt only has Chinese text on it. Non-Chinese reader may not able to check if the items on the receipt were what they have ordered.Overall, I would prefer HDL to this place. Soup is better there and more selection at the snack/sauce bar.
Great spot to enjoy hotpot with friends and families. Service is great. Meat, veggies, and food are all fresh. Must try the dessert there.
You're not going to get a better place in town. It's seriously the best hot pot in all of Irvine and maybe all of Southern California
The spicy and mushroom broth are tastier than bone or tomato base so, get the Ying Yang (half and half) pot. Meat was fresh and tender same goes for their veggies which were fresh and crisp. Great dipping sauce selection, small but decent asian dessert station. Plum drink carafe is recommended too. Friendly and courteous staffs.
This place is really good. It feels very authentic. The service and food were ???.If you've never been before, you'll get seated and you'll fill out this scantron of what you want to order.The soup comes with a white broth and spicy brown broth. For the spice level, I'd go with medium unless you have had it before. See, my cousins and I eat very spicy, but the medium is overly spicy and you can't taste anything else except your mouth being on fire. There is chili oil and peppercorns so BEWARE if you think I'm crazy. It seems that their broths and setup can comfortably feed 4 hungry people. You should order beef belly, glass noodles and hand-pulled noodles, and the veggie basket. But then the quail eggs and fish balls were so good too. Again 4 or 5 people can be fed well. For 3 people, we struggled.They have quite the "bar" for sauces and SNACKS! Our favorite snacks were these Asian Bugles, crunchy peas, and crispy seafood chips. There is also dessert! The jelly and purple rice porridge were so good and perfectly sweet. I'd have eaten the entire bowl of porridge, but I was so full already.The furniture and setup is very cute and cultural. It's quite nice.
Hands down the best spot in all of Irvine. I've been to China and I've been around the world and there's no better location than this spot. Thank me later for coming here You're not going to have a better place to go lol