Hot Pot House

Mini hot pot was very substantial and large enough for two people to share! There were plenty of add-​on sides if it’s not enough. The basic ingredients are already cooking in the hot pot when it’s served, but the sides are served raw and you can cook at your convenience. The ingredients could probably be fresher, but it’s the trade-​off you make for more affordable prices. The meat was also very tender and thinly sliced, just the way I like it. The hot pot came with an interesting homemade sauce. I still like sticking to the tried and true sacha (satay) sauce, but theirs was unique. They have hot pot broths that range from savory and comforting to spicy and sweat-​inducing. Fried chicken wings were the bomb dot com and can’t be missed!
It’s in a somewhat sketch looking part of town, but I still felt relatively safe. Street parking wasn’t too hard to find around 8pm.

Our waitress (owner?) was sooo nice. But still, the food just too disappointing. It was a rainy day — perfect for hotpot. Meat/​seafood was frozen, veggies were basic. Tea was blah. Limited sauces. Broth was decent, prices too. But very underwhelming.

We ordered the seafood hotpot. It was decent. All the seafood was frozen. Two kinds of soup, one spicy one regular. The spicy soup had a lot of dry chili peppers, you know, the kind that makes you cough a lot. The other side was really mild and a bit bland but if you mix the two together it was a pretty good balance of flavor and spice.
I ordered tomato beef chow mein to-​go and specifically asked the lady if it was the crispy noodles. She lied cuz it wasn’t. It was also soggy by the time I got home. Hubby said flavor just tasted like ketchup. Do not recommend.

I came here with a close friend of mine and order the half & half (spicy/​regular) we had a bunch of food items ranging from fried tofu, lamb, vermicelli knots, exploding fish balls. The food was delicious and appetizing. However, the spicy broth was too spicy at one point. The waitress was very accommodating and gave us free Coca Cola to go with our meal. The meal came out to be 29 including tips which isn’t bad. I’d highly recommend this place with four stars.

Was so excited to find this place; I’ve been craving good hotpot for a while (and every time I’ve had a cold). If you’re looking for good hotpot in the Oakland area, head here. What’s especially nice? They have a «mini» option that’s about half the size and serves two. Great for date night!
They have a bunch of pre-​selected ingredient hotpot options, of which I’ve tried the tofu and the mushroom ones. Note, the «mixed vegetables» they all come with are cabbage, carrots, and lettuce (though that isn’t specified on the menu). One of my party ordered extra cabbage on accident, not knowing it already came with it.
The broth was nice. They have a vegetarian option! And it has the same spices as I’ve had at other places in the «medicinal» broths. However, if they ask you spicy or mild know you are choosing between mild and fire. The spicy is crazy hot! For those of you who can never find enough spice, you’ll find it here; everyone else be warned.
Random extra I tried: the salt and pepper tofu. This was amazing! They lightly bread and fry silken tofu, the top it with salt and diced green peppers and red pepper flakes. A must try.
The service was fine. There was one server here both times I’ve come, but she’s pretty good at catching it if you try to flag her down. You will need to flag her down though, she won’t check back on her own.
Overall, a great place to get some hot pot! They’re open late too!

The employees there are so rude. The lady there threw the mini hot pot on the table and almost spilled on me. And when I asked her napkins and she had a rude look on her face. Also when I asked her to light up my fire for the hot pot again she said «You’re almost done with the hot pot you don’t need more fire». Why do you care if I almost finished my hot pot and doesn’t need fire.

We came to this hot pot place two times. First time we came it was OK but the second time we came the employees was hella rude. When we ask them to refill the crystal for the fire, they made tons of excuses. WTF. We just want you to put more crystal inside because we aren’t even half way done yet. It is a really waste of time coming to this place.

A pretty solid 3.5 star hot pot restaurant in Oakland. This place is one of the only hot pot options currently in the neighborhood if you don’t want to drive all the way down to Newark/​Union City or head into the city to satisfy your hot pot cravings! North east bay desperately needs more hot pot loving since Tasty Pot and Boiling Point places are all popping up in South Bay! A little far for us north east bay peeps.
Anyways, the food here is good but not the freshest you can get. The spicy mala soup is pretty spicy! but so good on a cold winter night. The meat is alright, so you might want to boil that a little longer than usual. The best deal here would be the individual sized hot pots. They are around $ 12 and you get a lot of food in your pot! The fish filet here boiled in their spicy mala soup is so good.
They are open till 11pm, but be sure to get here before and finish your food by 11pm because they will kick you out! We definitely got kicked out…

This place is really fun! We had a great waitress, and a delicious meal. The «white» broth isn’t as good as Little Sheep, I’d recommend sticking with the spicy. It’s open late and you can’t beat the price! Four of us ate well for about $ 60! I’d recommend going a la carte rather than getting the combos.

The real deal. Genuine hot pot with fresh veggies and meat. Selections range from comforting standards to deliciously adventurous (pig intestines, tripe, lamb, offal). The spicy broth is rich, thick, and very spicy. The oils from the pepper coat each ingredient and give body to the veggies. The owners and staff eat their own food, so you know it’s prepared with care and love. Try the fried eggplant appetizer… or just try all of them!

I love this place. The spice is the same as Spices 3 across the street. In fact, they let you order Spices 3 dishes and eat them here. the only thing is that you’ll have to pay a separate tab for Spices 3 food in cash only. I think they are related owners. Their hot pot is a good deal, gets my friends and I stuffed and satisfied. The soup base is absolutely delicious. My favorite is the tripe, frozen tofu and udon noodles as my extras to go with a spicy soup base. Yummmm. I think I’ve become a regular without notice.

Came here on a Friday night and order the half medium spicy/​half non-​spicy hot pot.
Food:
The spicy soup was very flavorful and had just the right amount of tingling numbness (for those who have had Szechuan food, you know what I’m talking about).
We ordered the beef and pork (boyfriend is the meat eater) while I got the assorted mushroom, veggies, frozen tofu, tofu puff, vermicelli, and top ramen for us to share.
Service:
The service was great! The woman who took our order came back frequently to check on us. She even gave us containers to pack our soup up!
Ambience:
It’s your standard Chinese place; the walls are of a yellow tone, the tables and chairs are a little dated, there is TV on in the background, and «happa» couples everywhere. Nothing extraordinary so wouldn’t put too much emphasis around it.
Overall, I’d come back again!

My boyfriend & I stopped by at Hot Pot house for dinner at around 8PM yesterday (Tuesday) and there were only about two customers inside. Upon walking in, there was a man sitting and eating at a table & he then asked us «How many people» It definitely caught my attention. I understand this is an Asian restaurant & that you are hungry but this is not how bosses should be. Please do so in the back of restaurant where customers aren’t able to see.
Anyways. We sat down & ordered the large beef hot pot. The food came out pretty quickly, and this was probably because we were now the only customers inside the restaurant. He brought out the broth first to let it boil and warm up before bringing out the rest of the food. We ordered the half & half broth, (white & red) I tasted the white broth and it tasted pretty blandddd… The red one was flavorful, however it was extremely extremely spicy! On the other hand, The beef came out extremely pretty, & it looked extremely fresh. If you’ve ever had Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot… Stick with that place, although it’s more expensive, I’d say it’s more clean and the broth is 10 times more flavorful.
Customer service was eh. The server never came to check up on us, only came because we called for him.

The best hotpot place I’ve ever been to, hands down. Typical hotpot places (usually Taiwanese) have a spice that I really hate because it leaves a weird after-​taste in my mouth. Nothing like that here.
The broth is incredibly flavorful (never watery) and spicy, which is how I like my food. I can’t speak to how good the hotpot is when it’s not super spicy because I always get maximum level spicy but I’m sure it’s delicious. I always add thin vermicelli noodles and wontons to balance out the rest of the meat and veggies.
Portion sizes are huge. You could easily split the mini-​size between 3 people if you’re kind of hungry, or 2 people if you’re both ravenous.
One star knocked for service. Sometimes they forget about you. Sometimes they mess up your order but want you to eat it anyways. But the food is amazing — I always make a stop here whenever I’m in Oakland.

Wow, I am a hot hot novice and my family suggested that we go for Hot pot as a family dinner. We found this place on Unilocal,and decided to give it a try. Good thing we did this place was awesome!
We each ordered individual many pots and we were able to order whatever flavors we wanted. I think two people can split one mini pot and there’s more than enough food, broth and you can add extra items ala carte.
I recommend the combo hot pot was Szechuan and udon on noodles.
Service was outstanding. The only warning is it’s in a questionable neighborhood of Oakland. Don’t let that be a deterrent!
Try this place, you won’t be disappointed!

WARNING: Went again several times. Brought a bunch of friends each time.
I noticed that sometimes if I ordered extra side items and they added broth they were diluting the soup base because the broth lacked most of the original seasoning.
I finally decided to ask them about it because I found myself eating the rest of the food with little taste.
They played dumb for about 10 minutes when I know I was clear and they understood me.
She came back with salt. Really?
It took 10 minutes of pressing them before they admitted they refill did not have most of the original seasoning.
So frustrating, arggghh!
Don’t order extra ingredients!

whenever I am craving for hotpot, I come here with my boyfriend. LOVE THIS PLACE! I mean surely we have had better hotpots, but for the location, price, portion and the taste, what can beat this?
things we usually order:
large hotpot with beef
their soup base was good and yummy. lots of ingredients. I like how they can let you do half spicy and another half non spicy for the large hotpot, so it’s good for groups to go. The spicy soup base was full of flavors: you can easily tell that they put a lot of seasonings in the spicy soup base. The meat was decent and vegetables were fresh. Personally, I really like to put the koya tofu (freeze-​dried tofu) to the spicy hot pot. The tofu would absorb all the flavors from the soup base.
salt and pepper chicken wings
it was beyond extraordinary. it’s crunchy, juicy, tender and well-​seasoned and the spiciness enhance the taste of the dish! Their portion is big: 7 – 8 pieces for less than $ 6.
dan dan mien
spicy but delicious, I kept drinking ice water while eating. The dan dan mien came green onions and minced meat (probably pork) on top of the noodle. The sauce is flavorable but I feel like there are some rooms for improvement in the noodle texture (chewiness)
the service was really slow — they definitely don’t have enough waiters. but this is expected from an asian family owned restaurant. It does not really matter to me.

This hot pot place far exceeded my expectations. I tried the combo mini hot pot and managed to eat it all by myself. The fish cakes were especially delicious, and I thought the quality of the meat was good. The mini hot pots are big enough for two, but i came with two hungry friends and we each got (and finished) our own! The sauce they provide is also really great and complements the hot pot so well.
I also got an order of the salt and pepper wings, extra spicy as recommended through Unilocal.It was DELICIOUS.
Something small but noteworthy — after the meal, my mouth was still super hot and I was craving something sweet. The bill came with cold mango pudding that was so good, and so perfect after a spicy dinner! I loved it.
I will definitely come here again! I would rate this 4.5 stars if I could, only because I asked for medium spiciness, but my stomach is still recovering the following day… Perhaps this is just me. Next time I might ask them to lower the spiciness just a bit! But really, the pot was so good that I’m not complaining. :)

So many bad reviews for this place but my experience was great when I went! Called in for dinnertime to reserve a table for a group of 6 just in case it was crowded but the place was pretty empty on a Monday night. There were still a couple of big groups though. They do take reservations so I recommend calling ahead!
$ 10 HOTPOT, what else is better than this! You can either get a big one to share among your group or you can get a mini one for $ 9-​$ 11 (prices varies depending on which combo you get). The seafood one was $ 11. I was surprisingly VERY FULL from this. There was a large amount of vegetables and seafood. The broth was fantastic and wasn’t watered down like many places. They do charge you extra for vermicelli or rice but I recommend getting it if you like to eat a big meal.
The service was pretty good, but that’s probably because the place wasn’t that crowded. It took pretty quick for them to bring out our hot pots and we waited fora bout 5 minutes for it to heat up. Parking may be hard to find on the weekends because it’s in the middle of Chinatown so you’ll have to do with street parking. I recommend this place to everyone who wants hotpot or some comfort food on a cold night without worrying about sharing your food with anyone else! :)

I understand being overwhelmed when there’s large parties. However, completely ignoring them isn’t going to make the problem any better. Throughout dinner, we asked for basic things that most restaurants provide (spoons, bowls, food!) and were just given a nod of acknowledgment. Well actually, acknowledgement would mean they would listen to you. Wrong.
I came here for a birthday dinner with a group of about 14. However, we made reservations and informed the restaurant that we would be coming at 7:30. Table was set up and everything. Super.
Took about 15 min to get more than 1 menu. Another 15 min to order. Another 25 min to get water for the whole table.
Then after about 30 min, the hot pots slowly started staggering out (most people ordered minis). Then it took about 30 min total for everyone to get a hot pot. One person ordered a fried rice dish that didn’t come out for an hour and a half, after being told multiple times it was coming.
At the beginning we requested for more bowls and spoons. Up until 30 min after we all got our hot pot, still waiting for bowls and spoons. Went up to the counter repeatedly and asked and they acknowledged that they would give them to us. Nothing. THEN WAS TOLD THEY RAN OUT OF SPOONS AND BOWLS. At a hot pot place!!! It’s ok. I just used a tea cup as a bowl. It was comedic relief at that point. But come on…
Each time we would ask for something the staff just ignored us.
AFTER 2.5 HOURS WE FINALLY GOT EVERYTHING. After repeated tries and pleas, of course.
This was hands down the most frustrating dinner I’ve ever experienced. Oh, to top it all off the waitress informs us that they will only accept cash for our bill. Yay.
The food was average. But I’d rather have paid to eat McDonalds at this point.
I’m sure the two top tables got much better service than the larger tables. I’d hope so. I mean, if they were ignoring half the restaurant, they better have had giving everyone else top notch service. Maybe they even got bowls and spoons before their meal came.
Epitome of horrible service. Never again.