Szechuan Hotpot & BBQ

I wish I could give a ZERO star, their pot is hot but their food is not. Their customer service is pretty dam awful.
Example: we ordered a lot of beef and they barely give us any. Frequently ignored by their servers
At the end of dinner after paying, the lady chased us down and asked for more tip which is outrageous. I used to work in the service industry as well and this is unacceptable.

This place isn’t good at all. They have such limited selections in meats. And when you do choose the meats, it’s rarely lean meat. I feel like I’m killing myself eating here.
Yes, it’s all you can eat, but honestly, they’re like the cheapest of the cheap that you can get. Not worth it at all.

For $ 8, I really do not believe there is a better place to dine at.
Okay, the place needs some more lively paint on the wall and the location is awkward.
Other than that, I had a wonderful eating experience.
I usually go there for lunch with family, and everything is self served.
The quality of the food is on par, and sometimes if you get lucky, the selection of fish is equal to that of other $ 12 hotpot places (without AYCE mind you).
What I love about this place is if you see past the bland décor, it is actually awesome!
The wontons are hand-​made by the owner (there was several occasions where he would sit down in the front and make wontons while chatting with the regulars), and they recently added jello deserts which is a plus!

Do not try szechuan hot pot. We strayed one evening (we were going to hot pot hot pot across the street so much & thinking we be adventurous we went across & it was horrible.)
It’s so terribly bad. Meat tasted stale, the soups were substandard, the tables were sticky & the whole set up was bad. We ordered one round of meat, veges, carbs & all that & it was really not good food. Only the sea bass tasted ok. The rice, water, desserts/​fruit & sauces are in a corner which you must help yourself to. That was ok, only the sticky floor was making me nervous. We were then strongly encouraged to eat more cos it was a buffet. Never in my life has my heart agreed with my mind not to eat more, that day… it did!
Hot pot hot pot maybe pricier but its a million times better. Save that money & don’t go here.
I give it one star cos the wait staff were very nice!

Food quality and selection good.
I don’t speak Chinese so the costumer service was ok. Been here so many times… I just serve myself.
I get the utensils, rice and dessert. I select on the order form the broth flavor, veggies, seafood, noodles and meat I want. The server brings it out. The servers are nice but I don’t think any of them know that much English.
The tables are a bit sticky, but for the quality of food, selection, taste and price (8 dollars a person), no other hot pot place will beat this… not gonna happen.
I always forget to save room for the broth at the end of the meal… it’s super flavorful after so much juices from meats and veggies.
Best hot pot place in SGV

Decent place for all you can eat hot pot with cheap pricing and multiple broths to choose from.

Oh man. this place is still open. Not because the food is terribly bad, but because their hot pot deals are too cheap! I thought they would be out of business by now.
I went here with my family to try there lunch special. The cheap hotpot was what drew us in. We were promptly seated and noticed that the place was kinda dirty. I guess we knew what were expecting because of the price but. we didn’t care. We got our hot pot and ordered using there menu. The items were good. I mean its hot pot. most of the things are just raw ingredients and you add it to your broth. How can you mess it up? Some of the things were obviously lower quality like. the clams which came to us frozen. Just be careful what you order and don’t be surprised when your trying to order a high quality ingredient and receive something bad at the price you are paying.
When it came to our bill, we noticed that they added an extra charge for the soup broth. Did they expect us to cook in just boiling water? We brushed it off because the meal was cheap.
Overall. decent hotpot. It’s cheap. but you get what you pay for. Don’t expect anything amazing here.

I don’t understaaaand. The hot pot here was really good. AYCE for a good price.
3 soup bases to choose from.
Many meat and veggies. They tasted great. Cut thinly sliced.
The cleanliness was fine like any other restaurant. Service was friendly and attentive for ice, water boil refills, and more food.
I would come again. It’s a super good price.

If you’re a hard working person and make a decent living, spend your hard earned money where is worth the cost. The price was $ 12.99 until May 1^st and even if you pay this price, you get scraps of meat and fish and frozen products. The broth has no flavor and you’ll have to season it yourself (that is, if you know how). The spicy broth is chili oil flakes that is burnt and tossed into the pot for flavor.
There wasn’t any red bean soup dessert as advertised on the order sheet.
You can spend this money on buffet down on Commonwealth and their quality will be fresher.
Also, don’t omit the TIP. They will ask for it. This is bad Chinese behavior that we saw in New York can’t believe it has come to this area too. I used to work years in a restaurant and never once demanded or asked for tips. Our current jobs are voluntary and it doesn’t even pay a cent, why do people think America is a gold mine?
The owners may be under paying their staff, but they should consider telling their employees not to do this bad behavior before they lose more business. It’s a major turn off for valued customers in such a nice neighborhood. No wonder the restaurant is located in a dead Plaza mall…
Go to Dong Du Hot Pot in the AMC Plaza down the street. Same price, get your own pot and so much more flavors to choose from. That’s what genuine passion for hot pot is!

The thing about this place is that I would never bring someone that is high maintenance or serious about their hot pot… and definitely not anyone who is big on KBBQ. Basically, you have to be the type of person who is able to enjoy simple food on the budget. It definitely isn’t spectacular, but it satisfies me.
It’s nothing like boiling point or jazz cat. Instead, it’s more like a homestyle hot pot where your table shares a pot, puts in desired sides, and feasts on it with rice. Besides the main food, everything is self-​serve. You get your own rice, sauce, water, red bean dessert. So don’t expect the waitress to refill your pitcher.
As for the barbecue, it’s rather unique. Who barbecues sweet potatoes and taro directly on the grill??? I mean, I strangely enjoyed it, but what? Honestly, I would probably get hot pot instead. Most people do. I guess for KBBQ, I’m a little higher maintenance.
I’ve been here several times, but I know I have to select the right crowd to come with. Overall, it’s a decent place. Hey, it’s cheap!

The meat quality has gone really down and the prices went up. Not a god combo. For 13.99 on a sat night I rather pay a few extra bucks and go elsewhere where the meat looks more presentable and respected. The spicy broth I usually get used to have natural herbal ingredients but now it just looks like water with chili paste. The beef is too tough and the lamb was mix with the pork. Can’t tell difference.
2 stars for the veggies.

This place is 4 stars in my book because it’s Asian friendly. Let me explain what Asian friendly means:
1. Cheap. Dinner is around 12 a person. Add an extra dollar for ayce kbbq. WHATTT!!! yes. I said it.
2. Ayce!!!
3. It has not made me sick yet. And I have gone there maybe 5 times so far
4. Friendly staff and quick service
This place is always filled with Asian people getting their grub on. It’s located in the Daikokuya plaza. My family and I love coming here because it’s cheap and we always leave with our bellies busted. Love the lamb!
Cons:
The quality of the food is of course not as great. You would find scraps of veggies on your plate (those parts of the vegetable that other restaurants would normally throw out). I don’t have a problem with it because I don’t waste food, but it’s the presentation. The workers sometimes look unprofessional. I think it’s the manager who helps out wearing his dirty clothing (no offense, but he either looks like he hasn’t slept in days or he’s drunk)… so that’s why I gave this place 4 stars. But other than that, this place is a great place to go on a cold day, and if your want to eat your brains out.

Dirty, but convenient.
I frequent this restaurant because of its awesome hours and because it’s cheap. This place is really dirty, and still is, but there has been improvements. For one, I don’t run to the bathroom pleading for death. Two, the dishes are clean and I don’t have to worry about finding old food in my bowls, utensils. Three, lighting is better!
The restaurant definitely needs better management, and more employees (busboys), but other than that, i have no complaints. Food is cheap and hours fits my crazy schedule so it’s a win win.

Ughhhh why did I even come here?! It was AYCE dinner for hot pot and bbq. I should’ve just kept with hot pot. They gave us a thing to cook in where you cook the bbq meat on top and the hot pot items on the bottom. Well guess what?! The nasty oil and fatty drippings from the korean bbq dripped down to our hot pot soup –_​_​_​– We had to get it changed. So nasty. This place is basically a self serve, you get your own sauce (which didn’t have much choices) and your own utensils. Avoid this place at all costs!

This place is awesome. If you come here thinking you’re going to like the Bacchanal Buffet then you’re obviously setting the expectation way too high. It’s literally $ 8 for lunch, that is so insanely cheap. Do you risk getting some food-​borne pathogen infesting your stomach? Sure, man, sure, but I’ve paid much more than this to get sick in the past.
I’ve been here twice for AYCE hotpot and I was very pleased both times. You serve yourself the cold water, rice, and like sauces and stuff. You select 2 flavors for the broth, I recommend regular hot water and miso (seaweed?). Like an idiot I picked spicy broth once and I spent the entire time sweating and breathing rapidly and violently through my mouth. You then pick from a list of ingredients of what you want. You can selects meats, vegetables, dumplings, noodles, seafood, and I think some other stuff. BE WARNED: one list we received only had 2 choices of meats (beef and chicken) while another additionally had pork and lamb and stuff. It was weird.
The food itself taste great! You should know what to expect when you do hotpot. You put all the ingredients into the broth, let it cook, and enjoy with rice or however you want to eat it. I usually do a soy sauce, vinegar, green peppers combination to dip everything in and I have the time of my life. The ingredients themselves are fine. We cook the meat all the way through and it’s good, the vegetables are always piping hot when they come out to ensure that they are sanitized. Seafood is decent too, they have fish, shrimp, squid, clams, and other things. I really enjoy their dumplings! The first time I went and ordered noodles and they were very good as well when they are cooked. The second time I came with my 2 friends, we ordered noodles like 3 times and NEVER GOT THEM! All the tables around us were getting noodles. WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT?
My friend spoke Cantonese, but she was a little timid so our service was average. I SORT of felt ignored nearing the third time we ordered more food, but whatever. The bill before tax and tip was $ 24. TWENTY-​FOUR DOLLARS. That’s SO CHEAP. Decent Korean barbecue in Korea Town cost $ 24 A PERSON. I was equally satisfied.
I would return, no questions asked. Set the expectation that you are paying $ 8 for all you can eat hotpot and everything falls into place. Cook everything through though! Otherwise you might be spending the rest of your day gripping onto the toilet.

I had really low expectations coming to this restaurant, especially from all the reviews that I had read on Unilocal.But I was actually pleasantly surprised by the food and the service from this restaurant, and for the price, I really think that my experience was worth more than 1,2, or even 3 stars.
I came during lunch with my family, so we were able to get two stoves for the hot pot, one small pot and one large pot, where we could pick two different soup bases per pot. For the lunch special, it was only $ 8 for AYCE, but I do know they have Korean bbq as well. I also saw that they charge you for extra sauces, so just be careful what you want to order to make sure you don’t acquire more charges than you actually want.
We ordered a lot of food on the first round, so much that they missed a few items, but whatever. The beef and pork, although really red when it was raw, tasted good, but the broth of the soup didn’t make the meat any sweeter than it usually does when I have home hot pot. The corn was really sweet and tasty. That was my favorite item. The taro, mushrooms, veggies, beef balls, clams, and sweet potatoes were also items I liked. The medicinal soup base wasn’t too strong, so it didn’t add or subtract flavor from the food items.
I didn’t like the fish, octopus, or squid. I feel like seafood isn’t a strong point for this hot pot restaurant. The radishes were also too hard to cook, and the vermicelli had a weird odor.
Sauces are self-​serve, but they only had a few — soy sauce, garlic, jalapeño, and preserved tofu sauce. Rice and red bean soup were also unlimited, although the rice seemed really hard. Utensils are self serve, and the waiters can help you add water to your broth if necessary. There are steam vents on top of the tables to capture the steam from the pots, but I don’t know if they were on.
Service was nice, and nobody really cared whether we turned the power of the stove on high or on low, like at some KBBQ restaurants. We also saw the owner, I believe, come out and make trays and trays of won tons — dedication!
I did find it weird that the waiter included tip and tax into our final bill, but maybe that’s their policy for parties of 5? Overall, I thought the price of $ 8 per person was justified for the amount of food we ate and the quality of what we got.

Wow, I am pretty shocked at the horrendous reviews on here. My parents were introduced to this place by a friend prior to inviting me. I am a very, very big lamb lover and if there’s all you can eat lamb, I am there.
Mom forewarned me saying the place is a bit dinky and not fancy like Gen/​cerritos or Kariya in atresia. So, I was preparing for the worst. Taiwan day market, pull up a stool and eat on the streets lol nah, it wasn’t that bad. Actually, it superseded my expectations. The restaurant is in fact located in an «abandoned» looking plaza but the place is not nearly as bad as I had thought.
Parking: super nice because the whole building is practically abandoned on thee weekends. Lots of space underground and out of the sun.
As we entered, we were quickly greeted and sent to a booth. I do not think they have AC or chose not to run it. It was hot but tolerable. They had floor fans going. Even though we went during happy hour, we got the dinner menu because I am a lamb eater and it’s not included for happy hour (10.99 a person. Great price)
Soup base: nothing fancy. I think they just put a few spoons of their spicy chili paste in the spicy soup. Mild soup base did not really taste like anything. We only used it for veggies. *do not expect hard core Chinese herbs floating around. It’s just basic.
Speed of getting the food out: less than five minutes per order request.
Portion size: full platter and nicely piled meat (unlike Kariya in artesia). Good quality lamb that is not super fatty. Nice red beef slices with minimal fat as well.
*There was an intestine or gut lining item my parents ordered which was not fresh and they kindly apologized and took it back.
Food that you cannot finish or did not turn out the way you expected: they take it back without giving you a stink face (as long as you did not touch it)
Water: they give you a pitcher water and iced cubes.
Price: fantastic
*they have red bean dessert soup :)
If you just wanna grub on meat, come here. It is a great price with large portions. If you are looking for a fancy place to enjoy the ambience while eating, this is not the place for you.
I will definitely be back if this place is still in business.
My hypothesis:
1) the place closes down because of the large portions of meat they give and cheap prices.
2) the place stays open but the portions/​quality go down and the price raises.

So damn disgusting. I don’t think Ive ever been this mad or disappointed at in a restaurant before. Where do I even begin…
Allow me to take a sip and retrace my disastrous experience at this location.
My dad was originally lured to the location because of the cheap prices. I mean wow…$ 10 per person for AYCE? and AYCE for korean bbq and hot pot? 2 of my favorite things to eat in the whole world? And the restaurant was rated an «A» grade for their restaurant inspection? WE ALL SAID… SURE…why not, whats the worst that could happen?
Stepping into the restaurant, as I approached the main dining area, I could already tell that there was something «funky.» The grounds were sticky at certain locations, and slippery at other locations. It was almost as if I was ice skating or slipping and sliding throughout the restaurant «A» grade my tush! They probably hired someone to photoshop it or paid a person to counterfeit it. The utensils, the bowls, the spoons, most were dirty and had small piece of dirt of food particles. It just wasn’t a pleasant experience. I had to use my energy and effort to search for clean utensils!
OK…time to talk about the food. Yup, its just OK. Maybe OK might be a little too generous. IT WAS HORRIBLE! I should have known that we we would be getting what we were paying for. Talk about the lowest of all low qualities. The meat selection for the korean bbq and hot pot must have came from the clearance section of the 99 RANCH MARKET nearby. It tasted fake and horrible. Even some of the vegetables tasted as if it came from a can! Nothing… and I meant nothing… tasted appreciable.
The combo contraption of the hot pot and korean bbq didn’t work. Oil was splattering all over the place, literally had to fend off and cook with a certain technique that would prevent oil splatters from getting on me.
My highlight of the event:
–the water
–the soup from the hot pot
–walking out of the doors
AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COST. TRUST THE Unilocal REVIEWS. ITS RATED THAT LOW FOR A REASON.
If your looking to get some AYCE for lunch, go to Shin Sen Gumi, there AYCE shabu shabu is 10X (maybe an inifiniteX) better than this place.
NOT RECOMMENDED. WILL NOT BE COMING BACK
UNTIL THEN! ^-^

I was holding off on reviewing this until I was certain I wasn’t going to get a sudden spouting of food poisoning… shoot out from either end.
My parents didn’t get sick, but I had some stomach uneasiness. Probably because I didn’t grill the clams as long as they should be in a place like this.
The korean bbq is not really korean bbq, but more of someone’s attempt of using some leftover meats (mainly from the hot pot) and putting some sugar and soy sauce to make it taste similar to korean bbq.
Beef is «Bulgolgi», Pork is «Spicy Pork», and you start with a small piece of new york strip marinaded in korean bbq sauce. I thought the salmon tasted good on the grill and I liked the clams — just make sure you cook them for a good amount of time.
++ Hawthorne Berry Juice. YUM!
++ Self Serve Sauce area and Rice /​Dessert Bean Soup.
At $ 6.99 for lunch for «KBBQ» you can’t beat it. (add a dollar for holidays and weekends… Funny thing is Valentine’s lunch was a holiday. Hah.)

Either can do ayce hot pot (includes seafood) or bbq. For the very azn taste buds, the dessert red bean soup is herbal. Located 3^rd floor. Open Xmas.
Better know your Chinese coming here, speaking and reading cause you wont know between what’s salt or sugar if can’t read. Usual horrible to oust service, be quick and frank.
Mannn think I would come here to just eat ayce hot pot sea bass! Miso soup base.
But because of how dirty this place is, its a hit or miss stomach type of place. Not sure if its the good kind. Would not recommend any weird foods like intestines and such items that are temperature sensitive.