The Red Pot
20120704:
This is an all-you-can-eat hot pot location. The sheet you fill out shows three rounds, but really it's unlimited. Note, however, that two rounds was enough to fill my uncle, aunt, cousin, sister, and myself. Also feel free to ask for a side-dish here and there if you don't need a full sheet of extra items.
I did some research prior before going and I wrote: "Get the spicy herbal broth. Don't get the sweet tea. You'll be full after about three rounds." 3:48 PM PDT
For dipping sauce, they give you little trays and you walk yourself over to the mixing station where you can mix a variety of sauces and ingredients. On a board nearby, there were two recipes listed, followed by four or so blank spaces. I wonder how the restaurant determines which recipes are good enough to put on the list. In any case, I sort of followed one of the recipes.
I wrote: "Sweet sauce. Red chili. Garlic. Oil. At first, perhaps overcooked lamb. Good meats. We only got to a second full round. Loads of food. Got the extra quail eggs during the first round. Yes. Broth is good." 8:15 PM PDT
I think my sister and I ended up liking the beef more than the lamb. In general I like lamb, but it's too hard to get cooked just right in the hot pot.
I love quail eggs. Though sometimes I forget they've been sitting in hot broth and upon biting into them, I slightly burn my tongue. Near the end, I was smart about it and broke them open with my chopsticks, in order to let the yolk inside cool.
Overall, I like the seafood items more than the meat items. Oddly, I didn't check off the shrimp, sliced fish, or fish ball items. I did, however, make sure to check off the shrimp ball, imitation crab meat, squid ball, mussel, and calamari.
I prefer the egg (yellow) noodles to the vermicelli.
One item I didn't personally check off, but liked, was the tofu skin (dau hu ky).
When the broth got low, we asked for some more broth. They simply add the chicken broth, I guess since the spices are already accumulating in the soup. But my guess is the amount of broth they add actually thins the remaining density of spices, below the original density. Speaking of broth, I checked off the spicy herbal soup broth as suggested (on Yelp) and my aunt chose the herbal soup broth for my little cousin.
Overall, it was good eating. However, I'm not sure if I was able to eat the approximate $20 price tag. One can argue the benefit of an all-you-can-eat is the variety. Considering that's what goes into the cost, then this place is worth trying. For me, I'd consider going here again, but I'd much rather eat at a crawfish place or Sagami-Tei (a sushi place with an all-you-can-eat option).
[20120711]
The Red Pot
Relevant Links:
The Red Pot - Garden Grove, CA (Yelp.com)
Tofu skin (Wikipedia.org)
This is an all-you-can-eat hot pot location. The sheet you fill out shows three rounds, but really it's unlimited. Note, however, that two rounds was enough to fill my uncle, aunt, cousin, sister, and myself. Also feel free to ask for a side-dish here and there if you don't need a full sheet of extra items.
I did some research prior before going and I wrote: "Get the spicy herbal broth. Don't get the sweet tea. You'll be full after about three rounds." 3:48 PM PDT
For dipping sauce, they give you little trays and you walk yourself over to the mixing station where you can mix a variety of sauces and ingredients. On a board nearby, there were two recipes listed, followed by four or so blank spaces. I wonder how the restaurant determines which recipes are good enough to put on the list. In any case, I sort of followed one of the recipes.
I wrote: "Sweet sauce. Red chili. Garlic. Oil. At first, perhaps overcooked lamb. Good meats. We only got to a second full round. Loads of food. Got the extra quail eggs during the first round. Yes. Broth is good." 8:15 PM PDT
I think my sister and I ended up liking the beef more than the lamb. In general I like lamb, but it's too hard to get cooked just right in the hot pot.
I love quail eggs. Though sometimes I forget they've been sitting in hot broth and upon biting into them, I slightly burn my tongue. Near the end, I was smart about it and broke them open with my chopsticks, in order to let the yolk inside cool.
Overall, I like the seafood items more than the meat items. Oddly, I didn't check off the shrimp, sliced fish, or fish ball items. I did, however, make sure to check off the shrimp ball, imitation crab meat, squid ball, mussel, and calamari.
I prefer the egg (yellow) noodles to the vermicelli.
One item I didn't personally check off, but liked, was the tofu skin (dau hu ky).
When the broth got low, we asked for some more broth. They simply add the chicken broth, I guess since the spices are already accumulating in the soup. But my guess is the amount of broth they add actually thins the remaining density of spices, below the original density. Speaking of broth, I checked off the spicy herbal soup broth as suggested (on Yelp) and my aunt chose the herbal soup broth for my little cousin.
Overall, it was good eating. However, I'm not sure if I was able to eat the approximate $20 price tag. One can argue the benefit of an all-you-can-eat is the variety. Considering that's what goes into the cost, then this place is worth trying. For me, I'd consider going here again, but I'd much rather eat at a crawfish place or Sagami-Tei (a sushi place with an all-you-can-eat option).
[20120711]
The Red Pot
Relevant Links:
The Red Pot - Garden Grove, CA (Yelp.com)
Tofu skin (Wikipedia.org)
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