House of Delight — Restaurant in Melbourne

We went here today for Father's Day. What made us want to try this place was their food gallery on their website. They showed an array of cooked food, fruit, deserts and a wide option for the hotpot. Their pictures also made the interior look welcoming and open with lots of room to move about. This was not true at all. Our session was from 1:30-3:30pm. When we arrived we had to wait 15 minutes to go in to get seated as people were still coming out of the 11:30-1:30 session. When we entered there were tables still filled with dirty dishes and hotspot stovetop turned on. This was a safety issue as my children are the same height as the hotpot stoves on the table. We were then seated at a round table as we were a party of 8 right next to the kitchen and the hotpot station. This was not a great place to sit and dine as that walkway got extremely busy with people collecting food and people kept bumping into the back of my parents' seat. We were then greeted by whom I assume is the host (an elderly gentleman) and he was amazing. He got us a high chair for my youngest and explained to us how the hotpot worked. He was even kind enough to recommend a soup base for me considering I have I can't have shellfish and am 37 weeks pregnant. The staff were not as personable as the host. During one situation, my 8 year old, and 3 year old were with me and I was showing them around the very small and cramped buffet area, a male staff walked towards my children with an empty tray and told them to move rather than wait for them to turn the corner to the bathroom which they were about to. I was taken aback as they are just children. This same waiter then came to our table later to drop off our hotpot base. He did started talking out loud what each pot of broth was but you could barely hear him due to us being seated right next to the hotpot station. When my mother in-law asked him to help her turn on the stove, he did it with a lack luster attitude. Now let's get into the food- we were definitely catfished. It looked like we had the remernece of the earlier session time. Every baymarrie was half empty. The variety shown in their website gallery was definitely not present. There was limited options for the hotpot filling and there were only a few cooked food options. The dessert station consisted of only a handful of deserts- not even ice cream was available for the children. Cut fruit was placed next to raw uncooked food for the hotpot and we saw on numerous occasions customers using the fruit tongs to pick up the uncooked hotpot food items. We definitely steered cleared of the fruit much to my children's dismay. The food was also not topped up often, most of the time we were waiting for food to be refilled and some weren't even at all. Then at 2:50pm we were told that if we wanted more food that we should go collect it now as they will be closing the buffet, due to staff not cooking anymore. I was shocked as we were told that our session was for 2 hours, but actually we only got an hour to eat food (also keep in mind, that they seated everyone late). We were not impressed with that. When we went to pay the bill my mother asked if they could do half half split and they said they could which we really appreciated. However, I was told my half to pay without seeing the bill. The server at the till told me he would give me the bill to look at afterwards. That was ludicrous- how was I suppose to know if we were paying the right bill. So I told him that I want my bill now, before I paid. He gave it to use and I doubled checked and paid. Overall, we were very disappointed with the experience. The food was not good. The variety was next to none in terms of food- we felt hood winked. The ambiance was subpar- we didn't even get a chance to talk to one another. The customer service was like a wet sponge. Hopefully this gets to higher management and they can look to implement change because I will not be...

House of delight.

Now I was recommended this place by a co-worker and I am so glad they did. I absolutely love hot pot already but when given the option for all you can eat? It’s the best of both.

Located on the first floor of the building, this restaurant encompasses the entire floor which gives it plenty of room and while I still recommend booking we have plenty of times just been able to walk in and get a table immediately.

The staff are so friendly and always happy to advise you with what to eat and how to cook, because oh boy, you get to cook your own food.

When you arrive and sit down, they will ask for you to choose two soup bases (My recommendation for first time is tasty and Tom yum but feel free to experiment) then they will bring out a soup containing your choices, which begins to cook right in front of you.

While you are waiting you are welcome to collect your food from the centre, their is pre cooked food to eat immediately and uncooked food that you get the fun and enjoyment of cooking yourself until you are happy with it.

You have plenty of choices from chicken nuggets to dumplings, for pre cooked and if you are feeling meat, fish, vegetables or noodles you have all of these choices when it comes to food you can cook yourself.

Now their is a lunch and dinner lunch is a lot more affordable and you still get plenty enough options so you aren’t missing out on too much, but dinner while more pricey, is soo worth it, from the addition of the chocolate fountain to just more choices that cycle through you won’t be displeased with lack of options.

Lastly their is a sauce section which I have used for both dipping sauces and to add to my soup bases just to change the flavour, with this in mind it does mean you can have something drastically different every time you come here and you have control down to the last detail of what you eat.

I 100% recommend...

We came here for our Christmas celebration hot pot buffet lunch and it is pretty good for its price. Who’s to complain when it’s only $23.95 per person but that’s only if you buy the pre-book package of $95.80 for 4 people. If you can’t round up 4 people, it’s $29.80 per person. The food at lunch was kind of basic but it’s acceptable. As usual they have different soup bases which you can choose two types. They even have a congee soup base, BUT … hot pot hack here: if you order the normal base, eg. tomato base / mushroom base, at the end just go to the congee section and get a bowl of congee and pour it into one of your soup bases, you get a super flavoured congee (great cure for hangover!). Just a warning, the sliced beef was kind of weird, like it was tenderised, take the Rolled Sliced beef instead. Towards the end, it was merely average for me until I had dessert. They had the famous Cantonese “Hamh Sui Gok” or Deep Fried Glutinuous Rice ball which is one of the best I’ve ever had, comparable to fancy restaurants. Make sure you get the “hot from the kitchen” ones. They have a Sweet White Fungus dessert which is healthy, until you make it not healthy by putting in some Jelly and Grass Jelly and if you like it super sweet, you can add sugar syrup. Very nice. My friend told me that the dinner is much better with a full array of seafood. For me, this is a “Can Come Back” rating. I will come to try their dinner next time and give you another review. UPDATE: we came back for dinner, and true enough, the selection of food is a lot more! More seafood, with crabs and different types of clams. Their custard egg tart was amazing with such fluffy pastry. Remember to buy their online discount package with 4 friends...