Dragon Hot Pot — Restaurant in Melbourne

This franchise has just opened up in Burwood recently. The food is pretty much exactly the same as the sister store in Melbourne city, although the Burwood store thankfully has much more space for diners compared to the city store where it isn't uncommon to have to line up on the street for up to 30-40 minutes whilst waiting for a table. Once inside, you get an aluminium bowl and tongs and you choose all the ingredients that you want in your hot pot, you can choose everything from various forms of tofu, and noodles of many kinds, dumplings, fresh and frozen seafood, processed seafood, thinly sliced frozen beef, lamb or pork meat, all types of vegetables and funghi, quail eggs, lotus root and many Chinese specialty items that I had no idea about, like bitter melon, coagulated blood and many other strange and wonderful little morsels of flavour and the list goes on and on. Once you have filled your bowl with the ingredients you want you then take the bowl to the counter where you chose which of the 4 or 5 varieties of soup that you want it all cooked in, and also the level of spicy heat that you prefer, then it is weighed and you pay by the weight of what you chose. Be careful, it is really easy to order way too much and end up paying $80 for a bowl of hot pot, which would feed 4 people, but the inexperienced can easily overload there bowl the first time trying it. The parking at Burwood One can be very busy at peek times. Overall, the food is really nice, the experience is fun and service fast. The only issue I had was the insanely huge quantity of MSG in the signature soup, which is what I chose. Your tongue tingles then goes numb, you can sleep that night and you're drinking litres of water over the next 2 days. I guess Chinese people are more used to heavy doses of MSG, I like the flavour it gives but the aftermath of it really isn't pleasant at all. I'll try a different soup base next time that hopefully isn't so laden with MSG. I will definitely be going back at some point. Make sure you're hungry because it is...

I would like to report an incident that my friends and I experienced at your Dragon Hot Pot Burwood One Shopping Centre branch on July 19, 2025, between approximately 10:00 PM and 10:40 PM.

During this time, I encountered a staff member who was arranging items at the food shelf in a manner that was inappropriate and discourteous to customers. The staff member repeatedly walked in front of customers, obstructed access to food, and in some cases, even bumped into customers without any apology. Many customers—including myself—felt inconvenient. Some had to wait 2–5 minutes or more just to reach certain items, especially the meat section. A few customers eventually gave up and chose not to take those items at all.

The staff member in question was wearing patterned pants, glasses, and had her hair clipped back with a cream-colored hair clip.

I would like to raise a few concerns: Do customers not have the right to conveniently access food during service hours? Is it appropriate for staff to clean or block off food counters for 30 minutes or longer while customers are trying to serve themselves? Is it acceptable for staff to show disregard for customer service by repeatedly walking in front of guests or working slowly, even when there are more than ten customers waiting? Does the store consider it appropriate for staff to take their time cleaning or restocking, regardless of the number of waiting customers or the impact on customer experience?

This experience was deeply disappointing for both myself and my friends, and we truly hope this is not reflective of the service standards at your restaurant.

We respectfully request that you review the CCTV footage from the time mentioned and take appropriate corrective action or provide additional training to the staff member involved. This will help ensure a better experience for future customers and give us the confidence to return to this branch again.

Thank you for your time and attention to this...

TLDR: The food is poorly prepared and too expensive. Everyone who works at Dragon Hot Pot Burwood have awful customer service skills (scowling, being passive-aggressive, gestures feel more fake than genuine, communication skills are terrible). Do not recommend at all.

The food tasted overall tasted very bland and the ingredients felt undercooked and watery. Not to mention the price was about $50 per person and it felt very unnecessary because most of us didn't get more than a handful of food per bowl. Normally, I would give the restaurant a second chance, however, the reason I'm never going back to Dragon Hot Pot ever again is mainly due to the poor customer service skills of the staff.

As a first time customer having dinner there with my friends and family, I expected a little courtesy when I asked what we needed to do and how to order. Instead, the lady preparing our table gestured us to our table with no explanation. I remember asking, "so how exactly do we order?" and I was left with a small mumbled response saying, "follow the directions labelled clearly", and then no other explanation. I didn't let this ruin my experience, and even though it didn't make a lot of sense, me and my friends managed to order by observing the other customers.

What really did it for me was how the staff were incredibly rude, and it was clear that they showed favoritism to Asians (as in the Chinese). Me and my family/friends are a mix of different cultures varying throughout South Asia and Europe, and we saw a clear difference in how most of the Asians there were treated as opposed to how the staff dealt with our orders. As in, the way the lady at the front desk spoke to people of her race was so much better than how passive-aggressively she spoke to me and my group when taking our orders.

Overall, the food was way overpriced for the lazy quality of the food and the communication skills of the staff is next to nothing. I didn't really get the hype shown in all...