Pearl Hot Pot

Pearl Hot Pot is okay imo. I was here with my buddy P to introduce hotpot. Plus I didn’t want to go to Little Sheep for AYCE and this was perfect resto for one serving. Service was fast. Food was alright. The portion was big enough for me. I enjoyed the beef slices and veggies. Sauce was good. P enjoyed the food here as well. I like their free desserts. Too bad they didn’t have green tea soft ice cream that time. Damn. I got cold red bean soup though.
Their iced green tea tasted gross. Just some tea with very sugary taste. I’m giving 3 stars.

I wanted to enjoy some hot pot and ended up here based on the good reviews. Plus, I was in the area.
The place was packed and we had no reservations so we waited about half a hour for our seats. We noticed how two servers were running non stop and always behind. The place is very understaffed.
I got my fruit tea and hot pot order in after waiting for a server to respond to my attempts to get her attention.
Food was alright. There was plenty of veggies, some meat, a prawn and an egg. The dipping sauce was pretty good.
I noticed the eggs sitting at room temperature the whole time I was eating my food. The eggs were stored in the same area that the customers were eating, but behind the counter where the servers are working. I am pretty sure the freshness of the eggs is questionable. I was somewhat bothered by the obvious food safety violation. I hope the egg turnover was high.
When I asked for dessert, I was told they ran out of ice cream and only had red bean dessert. I was very disappointed as I am not a fan of the Chinese dessert. Plus, it was cold and very watery red bean dessert.
Conclusion: Long waits, poor service, bad dessert and the same price as AYCE. I think I will skip this place and go to Top Gun.

We come here at least once every one to two months. I find hotpot places are usually all you can eat and also there is a common pot for everyone to share. Pearl is neither of these. You get your own individual pot and the menu combos are more than enough food. I didn’t give this place 5 stars because the service could be lacking at times. But to be fair, it seems like the place is always short staffed. The waitresses are doing the best they can, you just have to wave them down.

The menu confused me at first, so you order your meat, its all a combo thing so you choose your meat then either udon, vermicelli, or rice. They give you a lot of vegetables, the portion was good we were all really full after eating here. I just love places that have my own pot!
so the only thing that i didn’t really like about this place was you had to buy your broth if you wanted a different flavor other than the given one, which is just plain chicken broth –_​_​– i personally thought it was already expensive, i chose the one with the choice of meat and fish. which i think was around 20 $, if you wanted to add flavor to your broth the charge was 2 – 3 $ which i thought was NOT okay. The good thing i guess is, they dont charge you for dipping sauce, and their dipping sauce was really good!
Just make sure you add flavor to your broth and it will be worth it1

The hot pot was decent here, pretty standard for places that have individual hot pots. I had one of the beef main pots and it came with a good variety of tofu, mushrooms, and vegetables. I also liked that it came with cool fruit tea and ice cream. The portions were enough to fill me up and not have extra. The soup started out plain but by the end it was very tasty. I liked that the table had the control for the hot plate right under the table so you can control how hot it was.
The only thing that was below average was the service. The waitress only came around twice to remove dishes, not fill up the soup or ask how we were doing, and after we finished we had to wait a long time for someone to come with the bill. Then when the bill came we found out the waitress wrote down the order wrong for a more expensive plate. However they fixed it so I was fine with that.

I’ve been here twice for lunch and realize I didn’t give them a review yet. The most recent time would be during the long weekend I came here with my bf cause I was craving hotpot again and we were near by. They gave us a pack of red envelops too. I give this place a 4.5 stars. Very close to 5 stars for an asain place like this but there are minor things that needs to be changed. So, feel free to read on.
I love their concept of individual pots and a set amount of food for a reasonable price which includes a drink and dessert (mango or green tea ice cream made from a machine. Green tea was better that day). Personally I don’t really like All You Can Eat anymore because it’s not worth it for a small eater like me. I have weird allergies like sesame, certain types or nuts and curry. So, it’s best I get my own pot so others who go with me don’t need to worry about my allergies.
The first time I was here was like about 4 to 5 years ago. It gave me the vibe that it’s very Taiwanese and home like. I don’t exactly know why asides from their décor. There wasn’t much but it made me feel like I walked into someone’s home. Anyhow, asides from that they have this bar shaped set up in the middle of the restaurant and a few tables on the side for bigger parties. In the middle of the bar shaped set up is where the server brings out the food, brings you drinks and so forth. I thought that was pretty cool. But the second time I went, none of that has changed. Not saying it’s a bad thing but a nice upgrade would be good.
I don’t have much to say about the food. I mean it’s all raw and u just cook it in a pot. It comes with a chicken broth and if u want to change that you’ll just have to pay the difference which wasn’t much (less than 5.00 I believe). I love how they include an egg in the cost of your hotpot. That’s a bonus to me because other places that I’ve been to, they charge like .50 to 1.00.
In terms for service, well there wasn’t much. There was one server for the whole place. Poor girl that’s running around all by herself. She has decent English because I asked her to explain to me what’s in the sauce they gave us which was soy sauce, green onions, satay sauce and some minced garlic. Unfortunately I cant have satay sauce due to my sesame allergy. She kindly switched it up for me. But she should smile more. Asides from greeting us while we walked, we didn’t ever see a smile on her. I mean being in the service industry and not like it would just make life miserable.
Overall, not a bad place and I would totally come back if i’m in the area (a bit of a drive for me to get there). I would totally recommend this place to others especially to those people who love individual hotpots. This place does take credit card and that’s rare for an Asian place to do so.

We really liked our lunch today. I got the hot pot chicken combo. It comes with big bowl of veggies and an assortment of different awesome things. Broth, egg, a drink and a pretty big plate of chicken. I choose hot sauce and rice vermicelli. My guest had the lamb combo and it looked good too! It was fun and we had a great time. Service was great. Can’t wait to go again.

Worse hot pot place ever! I counted exactly 8 pieces of thinly sliced meat for $ 20! I wasn’t full after eating, so it was such a rip off. Throughout the meal, they kept trying to turn down the heat of my pot whenever it boiled so my hot pot was like Luke warm. I think they were trying to save on their energy bill. After the meal, the waitress handed us our bill even though I didn’t ask for it and I didn’t have our dessert yet. Granted, the Dessert was just some artificially flavoured ice cream, so it tasted like crap. My advice: don’t bother with this place and go somewhere else.

Very disappointed!!! Tiny portions of fish, 1 fishball, 3 pcs of tofu, 1 shrimp, a bowl full of veggies for $ 20? Plus, the service was poor. Servers were grumpy and dumped the bill on us before we asked and didn’t even give me dessert until I asked… I’ve had way better hotpot than this and this place is not up to standard for it’s prices.

Reasonably priced, you have your own pot, make it as spicy or as mild as you want.
Giant bowl of cabbage, meat balls, tofu, prawn and a few other things for you to throw in. Also, the price includes a drink AND dessert!
Not too shabby!
Try it at least once, dipping sauce is yummy. Make reservations, helps, we went once when it was pretty packed, luckily we were there 10 minutes before another 10 different customers arrived. Some didn’t want to wait since they were informed it was going to at least an hour before they would be able to eat.

We go here quite often and the food is pretty good, fresh and just enough HOWEVER service is terrible. We reserved a table for 6 knowing that they only have the one table that can accomodate 6 and they seated another group there approximately 30 minutes before we arrived. Also, the group that was sitting there was a family of 5 with 2 younger kids who would NOT be using a hot pot so why didn’t they seat them at a regular table of 4 and have one of the kids sit on the end, quite comfortably too I might add. I have seen this seating before so it’s not like they haven’t done that before. So we had 3 of us each sitting at 2 tables.
When you make a reservation you expect it to be honoured and if the restaurant can’t, then please call and let the party know. TIme managment people, get it together.

food for fun.
price is on the high side for a standard hot pot.
dipping souce is very nice, but you have to request it if you want more or if you want to mix it a certain ways.
quality is very nice and good service.

The food there is always pretty tasty. Also they do have a lot of seats for you in the center so you can have your own hotpot to use, so it can be beneficial sanitary-​wise. Also the prices are usually fair and the place is usually pretty clean.
The only thing I don’t like about this place is that the washroom is close to the kitchen, so the washroom can be quite noisy which is actually a problem. I had an incident where one of the staffs needed to come in but she did knock first because I had locked it. Unfortunately she didn’t hear me respond to her, so she just unlocked the door and saw me in there. I always thought that was a bit of a problem.
Otherwise, I think this place is good to visit.

To me, hot pot is just more fun when you’re sharing, even though these individual hot pots cut down on the questions like «who wanted the fish balls? Who wanted the tofu?»
You get a decent amount of meat with the main hot pot items, but I would prefer getting to choose what other additional items I get rather than having a set menu of sides.
The ice cream choices when I went were strawberry and peanut.
Pretty standard hot pot, but nothing too special. I would go back again.

We came back to Pearl Hot Pot over the weekend, and it seemed like they remodeled the place a little (new lights, no more menus posted on the walls, etc.). I could be wrong, but the prices might have gone up as well. The food and sauces themselves are good, but the service can definitely be improved. When you sit at the bar area, you cannot adjust the hot pot temperature yourself, so you need to ask a waitress. On the Saturday night that we were there, there were four servers working, but it seemed like we still needed to flag them down for help. etc. (probably since the servers were always huddled next to each other and talking by the kitchen, instead of being spread out throughout the restaurant).
I normally don’t care much about the service, but for the price, I think I will try another hot pot place (i.e. a place that let’s you have more choice of what you want in your hot pot, instead of just a set combo).

I want to give a 3.5 but I cant.
Came back here again to eat a few days ago, after having not been here for almost 3.5 years. Surprisingly, everything still tastes the same — ordered the same stuff I usually do, and everything was so similar.
The reason for giving them less stars now: the portions have definitely gotten a lot smaller. The prices stayed the same, but they give less food. I still think its really good here, but I guess it just annoys me the portions are smaller.
Also, it was less busy so the ventilation system was a lot better!

Definitely worth the trip to Vancouver! Visiting from Los Angeles, I expected nothing less from Pearl Hot Pot! I love how the meal comes with your choice of a drink (plum juice, wintermelon, fruit tea, red tea) and ice cream (green tea or vanilla). The vegetables were abundant and the sa-​cha that they mix for you is the right amount of spicy & savory.
The only thing that they might need to improve on is making sure that their ice cream machine is stocked… they ran out of green tea and their vanilla was def. not vanilla… it was more like disgusting milk.

Geez. I can feel the WINTER around me already! and you know wut’s perfect to eat during the weather like this? HOT POT!!!
However, with all the viruses, flu and H1N1 threat floating in the air (perhaps within the person next to u as well), you’d want to avoid sharing food with people… but having hot pot is alllllllllllll about sharing!!! OH NO!
**************** Not to worry, people, Pearl Hot Pot solves your problem! ****************
I love the idea of having a mini hot pot for urself since everyone has his/​her own favorite taste. This way is easier for someone like me who doesn’t like spicy food and doesn’t use any extra sauce for the food that is already got enough of flavor to it. I’m not a hot pot person cuz i don’t like to spend a long time waiting for my food to get cooler. It is almost a torture cuz I’d be staring at the food thinking, «I can see the juicy food, I can smell the tasty food, but I CANNOT TOUCH THE FRIGGIN FOOD!!!» You know how hard that is when you’re hungry? That’s why I usually burned my tongue a couple times whenever I have hot pot.
If you checked out the pix I’ve uploaded, u’d find it pretty straight forward wut it’s like to eat there. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the text on the menu @_@ I’ve spent almost 15 minutes figuring out where I should be looking and how to order… Too many selections/​options was part of the reason, too.
I gave it 3 stars because I believe they’re overpriced. The price range for the menu picture I’ve uploaded should be $ 8 – 13 instead of $ 13 – 26. I don’t think it’s worth my $ 15 and I don’t feel comfortable inviting my friends there because I’d feel bad for making them pay that much just so we could have a hot pot or meal together. Other than that, I had a good time there.

Wow! I was very surprised. The flavour, variety and the ice cream. A bit of a shanty, but fresh, tasty ingredients and hot pot soup flavours to your liking. Goes great with beer. I liked the spicy soup, but it’s all good. We all got a fresh egg which I cracked and put the yolk in the dipping sauce and then put the whites in the hot pot. I ordered the tripe for something adventurous, they ordered the pork or the beef. Comes with veggies and assortment of goodies. You get a choice of plum juice (required taste) or orange juice and ice cream cone. I’ll definitely be coming back.

Pearl Hot Pot does individual tabletop hotpots for diners. Their «main pot» (haha) options are varied and plentiful. There’s salmon head pot, multiple mushroom pot, bacon pot, special vegetarian pot, etc.
The «main pots» are really reasonably priced for the quantity and quality of food. My bacon pot was $ 12.95 and came with a plate of veggies, tofu and meatballs, a plate of bacon (not really bacon, just thin-​sliced shabu-​shabu style fatty pork), a choice of rice, bean threat vermicelli or udon, AND a grape slushee. There’s enough there to feed two, though there is a one pot per person policy.
Check it out on a cold and dreary winter’s night. It’s nothing fancy, but it will warm you up.