Hippot Shabu Shabu

This place is not closed FYI! It was a rainy Saturaday night and there was no wait to be seated at 8pm. I wanted to go to Kungfu Hotpot but the wait was one hour! So I settled for Hippot Shabu Shabu or whatever the new name is. The last time I came here was probably 3 years ago and it has changed.

They have two tiers for AYCE. We just got the basic one, which was 25.99. it also included crab. My boyfriend got the spicy and I got the pork bone broth. The fish,vegetables,other hotpot items beside meet/seafood is buffet style. They have a decent selection of everything. The drinks are included and are stored in a fridge. They have a sauce bar, which could use a little bit more sauces. The beef was always super fatty. One thing I really disliked was that they gave us PLASTIC SPOONS to use for our boiling soup. Overall not bad for the price, but not great. Defintely bringing my own spoon next time lol.

We came here after not being able to get a table for a different place. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't amazing. It definitely does the job if you're craving or in the mood for hotpot with a decent variety to select from. They also give unlimited refreshments in the fridge in the back. It's not as bad as some of the reviews said so if you ever need a last minute hotpot restaurant, this isn't a terrible spot.

This is probably the worst hot pot I have ever had, and I thought it was impossible to mess up hot pot. The broth was so stinky and unpalatable. It smelled like a combo of very porky broth and old rag at the same time.

We couldn't even cook on it. That stench would be so infused into whatever you were cooking that no amount of Shacha sauce, chili oil, and Sunkist could save it. Sadly, that was a lot of food thrown away on our end because of it.

Service was blah (not terrible like some reviews mentiomed), but you don't come to Chinatown for the service.

I was really excited to return to this place after a 5+ year hiatus but ultimately I couldn't get past the poor service from our waitress. It wasn't the waiting that bothered me, it was moreso the response I received when I finally did get her attention. I would ask for some more water or additional servings of something and she was doing nothing to hide her exasperation. I know it's not easy working somewhere where people are requesting things throughout their entire meal in some cases but I think having a visible attitude doesn't make the customer feel at ease, especially in an eating establishment.

Aside from that, I was really underwhelmed by the food. I think I loved it so much the first time because it was my first AYCE HotPot experience.

I have trouble deciding what was holding us back from having a good dining experience here. I know restaurants are struggling when it comes to staff, and this place so so unbelievably and clearly short staffed. I never want my review to reflect that fact and I strongly acknowledge that this is part of the world right now. I felt terrible for the people working there, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. However, business should not turn into being rude to customers. Our initial order was mostly forgotten, and we only received a couple of the many things we ordered. A lot of the meat and even some of the vegetables were frozen. The sauce bar had a lot of empty containers and was an absolute mess (most likely a staffing related thing so I can't blame them for this. However, seeing as this is a highlight in many reviews, I have to point it out).

I wanted to like this place. It was where I took some friends for their first hotpot experience. With difficulty on deciding if poor quality was due to lack of staff of just the restaurant itself, I will give this place a try again some day.

Food? Delicious.

Service? REPULSIVE.

I used to come here routinely with my family and friends because their food is top notch.

But it's not even worth going into the food quality because of how bad the service is.

The servers are beyond curt and just plain rude.

They also just decide to close whenever they want. On TWO occasions we have shown up during evening business hours, walked in and been told they were closed. The first time it happened we just showed up, so the second time we called ahead at 7PM and asked if they would be open until 10.

They said yes so we rolled in at 8:30 and were turned away because again, they decided to close early.

Tonight I came in around 8:30 and was seated, so I had dinner. I was the last person there and at a certain point my server and the custodian both sat (separately) at two tables behind me and pouted as I ate my dinner. Their sighs of exapseration at the fact that I had the audacity to eat the meal I was paying for were downright insulting.

Shabu Shabu has run out of chances with me. I won't be coming back.

This place became one of go-to my All-you-can-eat restaurants when I want to hangout with a group of friends!

First of all, I was pretty surprised by their drinks/smoothies. Their drinks were not included in the all-you-can-eat hotpot price ($25 +tax). I highly recommend their "Mango smoothie", which was made with real mango and they put good amount of fruit to make the smoothie rich and flavorful & it has my favorite chewy lychee Jelly!

Another highly recommended food item is "Blue live crab"! I can definitely tasted the crab meat was sweet & fresh. All their other ingredients were fresh (not frozen) as well, like shrimps, pig blood, lamb, pork, beef, fish tofu, veggies, etc.

Last but not least, I also loved about how they maintained their "sauce bar" clean compared to other hotpot places in Chinatown. The overall cleanliness of this place was rated in my top range since they used dividers/curtain to separate the individual dining tables/group, as well as, they had single hotpot options to dine-in, which means that you can come by yourself to eat hotpot!

1. For $25 per person all you can eat, Hippot Shabu Shabu is pretty worth it. Lots of options to choose from and everything was brought over quickly.
2. Covid friendly, tables were seated pretty spread out with dividers!
3. Although there's a wide selection, quality is just average. Beef were thinly sliced and would break apart easily. Some of the items weren't fresh and tasted like it was in the freezer for a long time.

Overall, decent option for large parties and a budget friendly option for hotpot!

Adding to my last review- service was still super quick, sauce bar still really messy, broth still a bit flavorless HOWEVER, this time the pork broth actually came with pork bones! Small enhancements.

Also, this time the seafood and meat options were both good for an AYCE. I would say better than it's hotpot competitor across the street that recently became an AYCE too.

Drinks are cheap you can get a bottle of beer for $3-3.50!!!

Somehow I have been walking by this place for years and didn't come in for hotpot till now! I was pleasantly surprised when I first came at how clean the place was and well-ventilated. The prices are also reasonable, I liked the service, and I was happy with the quality of the food! I came with a group of four and we didn't want to do unlimited/buffet so we ended up saving some money by ordering individual ingredients. We opted to share a pot as a group that was half pork bone broth & half spicy broth rather than each have our individual pots.

Some of my fave ingredients from here: spam, frozen tofu, pumpkin, beef balls, fried shrimp balls, taro, sweet potato...all stuff that soaks up the flavor of the broth well. :)

I love the huge selection of dipping sauces! Here's what I put in mine and was really pleased with: garlic oil (this was a first for me!), sesame oil, peanut butter sauce (hadn't put this in my usual sauces either), hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame paste, cilantro, chili sauce. Really I'm writing this here so I don't forget myself haha.