HIPOT HOT POT – CLOSED

This was my third visit to this restaurant and each visit has been fairly consistent.
Food – Excellent wide selection, fresh and quick to table Service – Spotty at best

This is an all you can eat “Chinese Hot Pot” style restaurant where you boil a variety of raw meats and vegetables in boiling soup stock at your table. There are two options for the all you can eat menu, with or without seafood. The seafood option is at an additional charge (of ~$3) and includes half a lobster, one oyster, mussels and shrimp for each person at the table. The food selection is excellent at the restaurant, ranging from pork liver, ox tongue, sliced lamb to various noodles, tofu, spinach and watercress. Pretty much anything you could think of hot-potting, it’s on the menu.

The issue is the service. The menus at the table setting by default are in Chinese. There are English menus available; however there are no descriptions and it’s hard to decipher exactly what you’re ordering for some of the more Asian items (ie. What’s a flat noodle vs. egg noodle vs. potato noodle vs. thick noodle….??). I ordered three different noodles and not one was the actual type of noodle I was hoping for. That night, there was also only one waiter on the floor who spoke English, which made ordering a bit slow as we waited to flag him down. Once we ordered though, the food arrived quickly and the service was quick to re-fill the hot pot as the soup boiled down. They also didn’t impose a time limit on us as we sat for 2+ hours at our table and there was no feeling of being rushed even as the restaurant filled up. The restaurant was clean, both the floors and furnishings were well maintained. Ventilation can be an issue at hot pot restaurants as there are open pots of boiling soup on each table and Hipot did a good job at keeping the restaurant space from steaming up.

Our bill came to ~$45 after tax, before tip. For the price, selection and cleanliness of the restaurant, it is one I would visit again. I would recommend if possible, visiting with someone who’s Chinese literate and to ask questions about the menu if you’re unsure.