Review: Hou Yi Hot Pot

It's been a while since I ate out. Today I will be reviewing Hou Yi Hot Pot. I was discussing with a friend the night before where to go. She suggested we try hot pot and asked around the best hot pot places in the city. They recommended Hou Yi Hot Pot and I took a look at the address. It was kind of on the edge of Chinatown where not much people walk by. How do they conduct business in such a place? They are competing with Favor Taste 88 and I'm wondering what is it that makes the two different.

When I walked into the restaurant, I saw that it was very empty. I was glad to be honest because Favor is always packed now. At least at Hou Yi, I am guaranteed a seat. Pricing wise, I think it's up to you to decide. I find it pricier than usual, but I think it's still worth it. We went on a weekend so it was $28.95 per person. Even if you go to Favor, you pay almost the same. It's AYCE at Hou Yi and we ordered up to three times with meat included each order. Drinks and ice cream are unlimited here. They have a large assortment of drinks ranging from honey lemon made on the house, boxed drinks, Yakult, and your usual assortment of fountain drinks. They have a variety of ice cream flavors as well. I didn't enjoy the ice cream too much to be honest and I think maybe some flavors are better than the other.

I like the meat is served to us. as opposed to placing them on plates all across the table, they are put in stack able bento boxes to save space which makes a lot more sense when your table is small. The portions for leafy vegetables are very small. We ordered long leaf lettuce and Shanghai bokchoy and they are only a few leaves. To make it festive, we ordered beef, pork, lamb (which I had all to myself), shrimp, and fish. They had very fresh ingredients which I enjoy very much. The red meat is not overly fatty to make you feel greasy, but just lean enough to have flavor. The lamb was a little tough for me. What was really enjoying for my friend and I was the shrimp. This ain't no headless frozen shrimp. They gave us shrimp with the head on and it was very fresh. Immediately we decided to go for a second round of shrimp. If they keep this up, I'm ordering shrimp again. The fish was a disappointment to me. It's a black pepper marinated tilapia filet. I didn't like it too much.

Even when we were nearing the end of our time, the restaurant was not full at all. At best there were four or five parties going on. From what I heard, business happens more at night. Service was pretty good in my opinion though we did have to flag our waitress down. The general manager was always on the look out making sure that the waitress tended to the tables frequently asking us whether we wanted to order more (which was always the case). It's a good place to go with one friend to talk things over. If you are a party of 6, it's probably a good idea to keep that as the maximum group per pot unless you don't mind sitting at separate tables. I think in the future I will come back to visit since Favor is no longer on my to-go list.