Chinese Hot Pot Buffet

Located in South Edmonton just off of Calgary Trail, Chinese Hot Pot Buffet is one of the newest additions to the area and is definitely one of the larger hot pot places. Compared to other places, it feels more clean and more open and there is a larger variety of food to choose from. In short, their spaciousness and abundance of options won me over and it might just be my new favourite hot pot place. I highly recommend checking this place out!

Be weary though,  all you can eat AND buffet style… Come prepared with an empty stomach so that you have lot’s of room to fill up. The price per person is a little bit higher so to make your money’s worth, you’re gonna have to E A T. At least, I thought so anyway.

The exterior of the restaurant doesn’t say much, it’s pretty boring to be honest so you wouldn’t expect too much going in. However, when you first come into the space, it’s very grand and open. The decor is modern yet ‘funky’ with colored lights and chandeliers. There’s plenty of seating and you can choose to have smaller tables with individual pots or share one large pot at a family table.

As I came here for dinner with my family, we all opted to have the individual pots so that we could have our own preferences in terms of soup bases and food.

Adult pricing starts at $32.95 and children (aged 5-10) starts at $16.95. Here’s where it can get a little tricky. If you’re having individual pots, you can only choose one soup base. If you opt for the original base soup, then it is free. If you would like to have a specialty soup base though, it is $2.  On the other hand, if you’re sharing one large pot, “family style”, you can have up to 3 different soup bases ($12). There’s a large variety of soup bases to choose from – they have just about everything.. Tom Yum, Curry, Fungus, even Tomato soup! We were able to try the Satay, the Tom Yum Kung and the regular soup base. All were delicious.

Since you’re paying for your soup base, the price per person is pretty much for all the food you eat with it. Certain meats and a few dishes (e.g. dumplings) must be ordered on the sheet provided and then the rest can be picked at the buffet. The portions of sliced meat were huge… on the sheet, it says that there are 5 slices in one order but I swear they gave us 5 orders (when we only ordered 2 basically..).

The buffet has a lot of variety. There is so, so much to choose from that I wasn’t even able to try it all. There’s both cooked and uncooked options. More specifically, they have an array of fresh seafood, meat/seafood balls, veggies and so forth. There is also a station for sauce, of course, and they also offer some other fried dishes such as onion cake and spring rolls.

 

 

Desserts and sweets are also available with ice cream, cakes, fruits and my favourite of all… fried steam buns with condensed milk!

In terms of taste, everything was pretty spot on. There wasn’t really anything that I disliked! The hot pot’s functionality was great too, it was easy to use and had good temperature settings so I was able to actually enjoy my meal. (I tend to burn my tongue within the first 5 minutes of hot pot lol..). Something that was different about their stoves was that it it was more of an induction stove, so everything was on top of the table. This made the tables appear very neat and clean. Most of all, you didn’t bump yourself on the stove buttons like other hot pot restaurants (unless that was only me?).

Service was very attentive. We had many servers check up on our table to refill our pots with hot water. Although, as we got into our meal, the restaurant got more and more busy so if you had to flag down a server for something specific, it may have been a little tricky.

The only thing that I could complain about was that they did not have hoison sauce like most other hot pot places do. Really missed having this with my meal!

Overall, I think Chinese Hot Pot Buffet is worth checking out. The prices are a little bit higher (especially knowing that I could just get late night hot pot for $13 not too far down the road).. but, the price you’re paying for includes an abundance of fresh and cooked options that are actually really good.

In particular, I enjoyed how it was a spacious restaurant because that means a) I don’t leave smelling like hot pot and b) I wasn’t cramped up and sitting right beside another table – 2 issues that I can’t seem to avoid with other hot pot places!

If you have a chance to check it out, let me know how you like it 🙂

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Chinese Hot Pot Buffet
5420 Calgary Trail, Edmonton