Hot Pot House

I really like hot pot, especially on cold nights. With my friend Aleen vising Australia again, we all organised to have hot pot. It's become almost a tradition now, that we have to eat hot pot when Aleen visits.

We booked at the newly opened Hot Pot House near Glen Waverley station. We noticed that the lady owner was the same lady who owns Hot Pot King in Box Hill. Hot Pot King used to be our regular hot pot restaurant for quite some time until other hot pot restaurants started popping up all over the place. These new places offered buffets, which was much more value for money than Hot Pot King so we stopped going there.

Hot Pot House is no different to any other hot pot restaurant. It's new so is very clean. Hopefully it stays that way. The tables are much larger so there's room to put the plates of food. Also, they use an induction stove, like Little Lamb in Box Hill. This means the food cooks a lot faster.

We stuffed ourselve silly as usual. I always like the beef the most. They also had all the usual "balls", which aren't too bad. The fish balls were good, and actually tasted more like fish rather than flour.


Ambience is not bad. The crwoded restaurant didn't have overly high noise levels such that you can't hear your friends. I thought the service was fairly good, as far as these hot pot places go. Kevin may disagree but I think we were able to grab the waitresses whenever we needed anything. The waitresses also spoke English, which was useful. Usually we try to use our broken mandarin to tell them what we want.

Here we are freezing outside the restaurant for a group photo.


As an aside, we went to Pancake Parlour in the Glen for desserts. As usual, service was absolutely shocking. This time it takes the cake. Although all tables were free, they wouldn't let us sit where we wanted. Then, we were told that since we were a large group, we all had to order something. What the? When did this become a rule. Finally, we were told that if we wanted to split the bill, we had to do it before we ordered and not after. So strange, all these new "rules". If only their service adhered to normal restaurant rules of serving customers. Water had to be repeatedly asked for, drinks and food took forever and even trying to catch a wait staff for extra cutlery was a real task.

Overall Rating: 13/20, Food is ok and service is acceptable.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.