Sorry, I went offline the past few days. I had been spending the last few days revamping the home computer setups after one of the off-line hard disks crashed on Christmas Day. Hehehe … it was perfect timing because it gave me an excuse to finally do the right thing — create a NAS (Network-attached Storage). With four computers at home, the NAS will simplify a lot of the stuff we do on the computer. So we went to line up on Boxing Day at Memory Express and got myself 6TB RAID-5 unit. This is awesome because RAID-5 is “supposed” to be redundant … it can continue to work even if one hard disk crashed.

So yeah, I had been fiddling around the re-organizing everything and it’s almost done. That had been what I had largely been up to … and also eating out! Like in this restaurant …

I heard about it from Raymond on Facebook. He is one of my resources for finding new places because he sure knows his food. So when I saw the update from him about the new hot pot place and when I later learn that it was on Richmond’s glutton street (Alexandra Road), I already knew where he was talking about.

The Claypot Hot Pot Restaurant had been in this location for many years but for the past year or so it closed. They have now reopened. It is under a new management and backed by a strong name in the Chinese food industry. The new management had chosen to retain the English name (Claypot Hot Pot) but the Chinese name is new.

In addition they tagged on “And BBQ” to the name too if you noticed. Unfortunately they do not offer BBQ at this time. The manager told us that they wanted to focus on hot pot for now and will offer BBQ later on. Anyway, we were there just days after they had re-opened.

I like what they had done to this place. It is modern and shiny. It is certainly one of the more upscale looking hot pot restaurants around.

The dining hall is large. It even has a two table glass-walled party room at the end of the dining hall.

We were there early at 5PM, just as they had opened for dinner. The restaurant was empty at that time and we were surprised when the manager, who introduced himself as the owner, asked us if we had reservation. I think he was in auto-mode and simply blurted out the question. He later said that a reservation is not necessary as it is early and he expects us to be out by 7PM. That is not a problem for us. To us, two hours is more than enough time for hot pot.

The crowd trickled in at 6PM and by the time we were about to leave at 7PM, the entire restaurant was packed. I was thinking that this restaurant will do well considering that they had just re-opened for a few days and yet word is out so fast.

Service is very good. It was attentive and they come to clear the empty dishes very fast (I hate cluttered tables). They also come by very fast to refill the soup and drinks too, without us asking for them.

I like the manager. He is friendly and goes around the whole evening socializing with the customers. He connects with people well.

He told me that he had taken over this place to try to see if he can make a difference. Their specialty is the free range chicken and meatballs (click on image above if you can’t read it clearly). Now, chicken is not something that is common in hot pots but this restaurant is backed by a big supplier of premium free range chicken which is famous in Vancouver (Wingtat).

Likewise, click on the two menu pages above to show in larger size.

The AYCE hot pot is $19 per adult. In the future, they will offer BBQ in addition to the hot pot for $4 more.

I like the menu in many respect. For one, they do not ding you for the extras as much as some places where the condiments, sauces and drinks does drive up the cost of the meal.

I also like the variety of soup bases they have. They are $10 or $7 per pot. If you see the left page of the menu above, the first three soup bases are single soup while item #4 is the two-soup combo where you can only choose items #5 and below. Too bad. I so wanted to have a combo with one of their specialty soups.

There are a lot of varieties in the soup bases, some of which we had not seen before in other places.

Be careful about the quantity you order here. A “one” order is what you see above. So, don’t go about penciling one for each person or else you will end up with way too much of the same type.

So, if you scan just the section on meat alone (which has 11 items), you can imagine how much food that it is if you just pencil “1” on each of the item. So think about it, they also have:

• 8 items under seafood
• 12 items under meatballs
• 14 items under side dishes
• 12 items under vegetable
• 8 items under inards
• 6 items under dumplings and wonton
• 7 items under cooked food and dessert

So, there is no way that … (more…)

The coldest day of the past week or two was that day when the thermometer dropped to minus 10C. It is darn cold but after it dropped below freezing, minus 10 or minus 5, it all feels the same.

So it was time for a hot pot right in the middle of the day. Many hot pot restaurants are opened only for dinner but this is one of those which is open at day time. I think this is because hot pot meals are time consuming and so not suited for lunch for many people who does not have the time for it.

The Mongolian Hot Pot is located in the Lansdowne Mall. It is at the eastern side of this massive mall in Richmond. So you want to make sure you park at the correct side of the mall or else it is a long walk through the mall.

This restaurant is called the Mongolian Hot Pot in English. However in Chinese, the name is translated to “Little Sheep”.

According to their website, it seems like they are one of the largest hot pot restaurant chain with over 350 outlets, mostly in Asia. The amazing thing is that their first restaurant is established in Canada, specifically Ontario, not in Asia.

What I can’t understand is why is this restaurant in Richmond called Mongolian Hot Pot when the “Little Sheep” name is much more well known to the Chinese community.

The irony is that that they claim that  Hot Pot is the invention of Genghiz Khan. As far as I know hot pot had never been part of the Mongolian cuisine, let alone having invented it. There were stories that the Mongolians started having hot pots in the cold Mongolian steppes by boiling their food with their helmets.

I don’t think Genghiz Khan invented the hot pot. I think … (more…)

Updated 30th Oct 2014: This restaurant is closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

Update 25-Sep-2010: This restaurant had renamed themselves as Sohot Sopot recently.

So-Hot-So-Pot. What a name!

I got two hot pot restaurants that is on our to-try list but when we came across this new place with this unique name, I thought we better go try even though it is summer now. Hot Pot are great as a winter food. Not so great for summer. We went anyway.

Just because of the name.

So-Hot-So-Pot. LOL!

That big $18.95 All You Can Eat sign caught our attention. It can’t be that cheap. It’s always that they charge a lot for the soup and make their money from extras. That is their business model.

If you see $18.95, count on spending at least $25 … or more likely $30, once you get the bill.

As usual we get there early. It was about 6 PM. There was only one table taken and yet they ask us “Do you have a reservation?”.

Puzzled, I said “No”.

“Oh, I am sorry we are full today”, the lady who looked like the owner said.

I was quite stunned and as we were about to turn around, she said “Hmmm … let me see if I can squeeze you in” … thinking hard, looking at the reservation page which has four lines on it and tapping the pen on the counter.

“Tell you what. You have to leave by 7:30PM … are you OK with that?” she said.

Hah! I heard of that before. These AYCE places make money not only by turning the tables but pressure you to eat fast, order the wrong stuff and such.

“Oh yeah, sure”, I said cheerfully. Let me tell you, ignore the time limit they tell you. Don’t get annoyed, just agree and then deal with it later. They will find it hard to eject you come the time. LOL!

The restaurant is modern and quite big. I like it. It is one of the better looking, if not the best looking, hot pot restaurants around. It is very clean too.

Of course it is clean. Apparently they had been opened just nine days.

Service was good, I must say. They have lots of staff. The weird thing is the staff is always walking round and round the restaurant even though there are only two tables. I am not sure if they are bored and just walk round and round the same route or their boss made them do that. Weird!

So we get our plates cleared out very fast. The soup was topped all the time.

The table setting is very nice too. They are brand new and shiny and all.

OK, it is kind of hard to read the above. Click on it to get a larger image.

That was out first order. We are not yet experts in hot pot but we are getting there.

This time we stayed our course … we are going for the high price items … meat, meatballs and seafood. Ignore the vegetable. Ignore the noodles.

The soup base is from $7 to to as high as $15. That is charged per pot, not per person. So, the more people sharing the pot, the cheaper it is. You know that already, right?

What I did not like is that they charge extra for sauces. Not cheap too … 50 cents for ginger, 50 cents for green onions … cut throat prices. These stuff is very important to me and we had to plonk down another $2.50 for it.

You know what is missing from the menu? Suanne said they should have desserts. Come to think of it, it is a pretty good idea.

The drinks are $1.50. I ordered a Wong Lo Kat which is a popular Cantonese herbal first invented by Wong Lo Kat (who else?) almost 200 years ago.

I thought they would brew this in house like the other hot pot restaurants. But it is in a can. Suanne had the coconut juice.

Here is the combo which we had to pay extra $2.50. Such a small bowl and has five items in it … ginger, green onions, parsley, garlic and sweet pepper sauce.

If I recall correctly, Garden City Hot Pot provides this free of charge.

Don’t go yet. I got lots more to tell. I’ll cut to the chase and tell you about the items we love the best here.

The beef items is what you should order … a lot. Stuff yourself full first with this. The beef (and pork and lamb) slices above looked all the same and we could not tell the difference really.

If you had followed our hot pot posts, you will know that I love to individually cook my beef. They get cooked very fast and so don’t throw it all in and let it boil too long in the soup.

I just put a slice or two on the scoop and let it boil for a few seconds until the pinkness just goes away.

This is the best way to eat it. 🙂

Look at the marbling on the beef slices. Aren’t they a beaut? It is so good you don’t need dipping sauce with this.

That is why you should just order the beef … like … (more…)