The food here is great--you choose your own stuff for $6.99 a pound (minimum of a pound from what I can gather). There's all sorts of stuff ranging from noodles to veggies (greens, mushrooms, taro, potato, etc.) to meats (beef, lamb, fish, pork belly, intestines) to several choices of fish/meat/shrimp ball type items, and then plenty of other stuff I don't even remember now because I don't get them. When you get to the counter, you have the choice of malatang or drypot, then a few different options of spicy flavor ("mala" or "xiangla") and spicy level ("small," "medium," or "big"). There is a non-spicy version of both the malatang and drypot, but they don't recommend it and neither do I--if you're going to a malatang/drypot place, why are you getting something non spicy?!

It's all very simple, very delicious, pretty quick, and very cheap for the amount of food you get. Probably the only minor issue is that you have to supply your own drinks as I don't think they even offer water. But you're in a 99 Ranch, so just go buy a drink while you wait for them to cook your food.

A note regarding customer service and the people who own or work at the place:

The people there are really nice and with an interesting sense of humor--but many of them don't seem to speak much other than Mandarin. In particular, the nice older lady who's often there definitely only speaks Mandarin. They're not trying to be dense, they're not refusing to understand anybody, they just don't speak English or any other language you might speak. They have a printed menu you can point at to make your order and it's super easy and intuitive. They do their best to work with you, but if you have special requests or if you're asking about something not on their menu, it's up to you to try and present it in a way they can understand. (We've tried asking a few questions before and it hasn't always gone super smoothly, though we always eventually ended up with the answers to our questions. It just might take a few attempts sometimes.) I'd say it's really on you if you can't speak Mandarin and don't have someone with you that can, and you can't present your question in a way that allows them to help you.

If you're going to have a build your own burger option, you really need to be getting those burger orders right.

We've been to a couple of different locations of the Counter. The reason we go to this place is because we can make our own burgers, and the burgers themselves (when made correctly) are good quality and tasty.

The problem we have with the Pasadena location is that our orders just keep getting messed up. We've been there maybe 5 times and our order has gotten messed up twice now. Once, we ordered two well-done burgers ("no pink," as the online order menu describes it) and got two burgers that were full on pink in the middle--rare, or medium-rare at best. That's not good. We don't like rare burgers and couldn't eat most of it.

But we recently tried again, hoping that last time was just a one-time screwup that won't be repeated. One of our orders was a burger with American cheese *and* paying $2 to ADD Mozzarella cheese. We ended up with a burger that ONLY had Mozzarella cheese. No American cheese.

These things add up. And since our orders have gotten screwed up 2 out of 5 times, that's 40% of the time! The rare burger screwup is actually pretty huge. Can't imagine if someone had an allergy to something and asked to exclude something and the order got messed up...

Viva is back and has regular hours again (I believe they're also at the Alhambra farmer's market).

This is another great local business to support. Poprice is a great unique concept that I've not seen anywhere else but here, and Viva is super nice and passionate about sharing it with everyone. We stopped by on Sunday and he took the time to explain the Poprice concept, how it's made, why they closed temporarily, the different flavors, and all of that good stuff. (Also, I had e-mailed him when they were closed, and he remembered to e-mail me with his new hours over the weekend--and then remembered who I was when I walked in and mentioned I had gotten his e-mail about being open again. That's just awesome for a business owner.)

And of course like all the other reviews will tell you, he offered samples of all the flavors. :) We ended up buying several bags but I'm sure they'll disappear quickly and we'll be back again very soon.

If you crunch on popcorn, chips, rice crackers, or any other similar snacks on a regular basis, you really owe it to yourself to at least try Poprice. It has a lot of the same crunch, it's surprisingly delicious (especially since I normally don't like rice), and it's healthier than most other crunchy junk food.

I'm a fan of supporting local businesses run by local people, and while this has only been open a short time, it's rocketed to the top of my list of places to support as much as I can.

We've now been there three times and tried literally all the food and most of the drinks on the menu. Everything we've had has been awesome. The food is all their unique twists on otherwise normal food that you won't find much anywhere else, and you have to try to see how exactly they work. The MOFO club is the best example of the delicious strangeness.

The drinks are fresh and made of high quality ingredients, and aren't super sweet. We order 25% sweetness level at most other milk tea places and it'd sometimes still be too sweet for us. 25-50% here is perfect.

(By the way: Obviously everything depends on taste. If you're super into the usual dark meat popcorn chicken you get most anywhere else, then you might not find the white meat version as much to your liking. Likewise, if you're into the usual super sweet milk teas you get at most other places, then perhaps the ones here might not be sweet enough. Also, since we don't get boba with our drinks, I can't review that.)

Everyone at this place has been nice, but a big plus to Phil for not only working hard there and being super excited, but also taking the time to explain the concept to everyone who comes by, stopping by tables to ask how the food is, taking selfies with Wong Fu fans, and so on. I'm not as familiar with Eric, but he's been working there and interacting with customers as well. It's just always better when you know the owners are super excited about everything they're doing, and even better when both recognize repeat customers.

Last thing: Don't be intimidated by the line out the door. There isn't much space between the entrance and the counter, and they move the line along pretty quickly. (The food and drinks also come out pretty quickly, so no one's waiting there forever, either.)