Cuisine: Hot pot/Chinese/All you can eat
Last visited: November 6, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
Unit 105 - 8291 Alexandra Road
Price Range: $20-30
1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!
Food: 2
Service: 2
Ambiance: 1.5
Overall: 2
Additional comments:
Last visited: November 6, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
Unit 105 - 8291 Alexandra Road
Price Range: $20-30
1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!
Food: 2
Service: 2
Ambiance: 1.5
Overall: 2
Additional comments:
- Has a lot of variety
- Cooked food available (5 items)
- Serves lettuce in strainers type of hot pot place
- Not as clean
- Spacious
- Casual
- Busy/line-ups
- 1.5 hour eating time during peak times
- All you can eat $18.95 + $7 soup base
- Addition $.50 for sauces
- Gourmet soup bases available
- $0.50 soft drinks
- 4 for $10 domestic beer
**Recommendation: Deep fried wontons
I'm going to write this review differently than my others because it's hard to get detailed/specific with all-you-can-eat hot pot.
I went to Claypot Restaurant as a THIRD option because Chubby Lamb Hot Pot and Cattle Hot Pot, both down the street, were completely booked up.
Claypot is very popular to locals and it's almost always packed on Fridays and the weekends. They're not even that cheap, the soup base is slightly more expensive than other places and they charge you extra for sauces. I think they're always packed because it's casual, pretty quick service, seats the most out of all the other hot pot places on Alexandra, and the menu selection is perhaps the most extensive. It serves all the standards and more, however the quality and cleanliness is not as good as it's competitors. The shrimps specifically weren't fresh and tasted like the sea, that was the worst for me. I think it's usually a default choice if everything else is booked up...it would and was my default choice.
When I go for hot pot I look for:
1) Variety
2) Cleanliness
3) Freshness
Not necessarily in that order either.
Claypot's items that are not on every hot pot menu : Enoki mushrooms, lotus root, Garland Chrysthemum, salmon fish head, geoduck ($13/dish), preserved squid, taro thread noodle, fish noodle, deep fried wontons, 2-3 hot pot rice items, sticky rice
I wish they had: Konnyaku (clear noodles in knots), Rice noodle (flat thick ones)
On the table:
I'm going to write this review differently than my others because it's hard to get detailed/specific with all-you-can-eat hot pot.
I went to Claypot Restaurant as a THIRD option because Chubby Lamb Hot Pot and Cattle Hot Pot, both down the street, were completely booked up.
Claypot is very popular to locals and it's almost always packed on Fridays and the weekends. They're not even that cheap, the soup base is slightly more expensive than other places and they charge you extra for sauces. I think they're always packed because it's casual, pretty quick service, seats the most out of all the other hot pot places on Alexandra, and the menu selection is perhaps the most extensive. It serves all the standards and more, however the quality and cleanliness is not as good as it's competitors. The shrimps specifically weren't fresh and tasted like the sea, that was the worst for me. I think it's usually a default choice if everything else is booked up...it would and was my default choice.
When I go for hot pot I look for:
1) Variety
2) Cleanliness
3) Freshness
Not necessarily in that order either.
Claypot's items that are not on every hot pot menu : Enoki mushrooms, lotus root, Garland Chrysthemum, salmon fish head, geoduck ($13/dish), preserved squid, taro thread noodle, fish noodle, deep fried wontons, 2-3 hot pot rice items, sticky rice
I wish they had: Konnyaku (clear noodles in knots), Rice noodle (flat thick ones)
On the table:
- Pork Bone Soup (left) & Satay Soup (right)
- Pork Bone Soup 2/6 ($10)
- This soup base was one of their specialty soup bases, so it took a bit longer to prepare and costs a bit extra.
- I think it was a rip off though. It wasn't that flavourful, as pork bone soup should be. There was a bone but I didn't tastes the slow-cooked all day flavours. they're were some mushrooms and corn in it too, but in the end it was nothing special.
- Satay Soup 4/6 ($7)
- This soup base was quite good, and not as spicy as other places. I always chose this soup base, it's the best one for hot pot.
- AAA Beef slices
- Lamb slices
- Some pork and beef organs (maybe sweetbreads? livers? or kidneys?)
- Deep Fried Wontons 3.5/6
- These are really popular here, it's one of their specialty hot food items and younger people go crazy for them. They're perfect bite-sized munchies.
- It's exactly what it is. I think they're so popular because they're super crispy, deep fried until golden, and the pork meat is still juicy. They're pink inside and you might think they're undercooked, but they're not...they just look like that.
- They serve it with sweet and sour sauce so they're great as snacks while you're waiting for your food to cook.
- I would prefer more pork filling, but I guess that's being picky.
How funny that there's a place called Chubby Lamb near you because there's a placed called Little Fat Sheep not far from me =). The AAA beef looks decent; and those deep-fried wontons must be addictive!
ReplyDeleteLOL, you gotta love the creativity....from and English point of view it's so bizarre....why would you want to eat at a place with "Chubby" in the name...but again there's a "Fat Burger" so maybe the name doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteYes those won-tons...late night munchies..uh huh!