Master Hot Pot Canley Vale 麻辣大圣 — Restaurant in Sydney

This newly opened restaurant brings a unique hotpot experience, it’s not an all-you-can-eat buffet, but you choose the ingredients you want and the chefs cook the hotpot dish for you.

The process was a bit confusing when we first walked in because you see the self serve ingredients buffet and immediately think it’s a buffet cause most hot pot places that have those are all you can eat. You’ll immediately notice that the tables don’t have the typical gas/electric stoves found in hotpot restaurants.

The dry and soup hotpots are both $12 per 500grams. So that means you can grab 500grams worth of hotpot ingredients and it’ll only cost $12, including the soup (if you chose the soup version).

They also can cook up a stir fried version of the hotpot ($5 extra).

How to Order:

Grab an ingredients bowl and a pair of tongs.

Choose what ingredients you want to add to your hotpot.

Go to the cashier who will weigh up the ingredients on a scale.

Choose what hotpot style you want (soup, dry, stir fried) and how spicy you want it, there are four levels of spiciness.

You’ll be given a buzzer which will ring when your hotpot order is ready and you pick it up from the counter and bring it to your table to eat. Don’t worry too much if you over order, they offer very large take away containers if you want to take your food home (50c each but well worth it).

The spicy mala soup (which the owner recommended) was really good, the default spice level, 1 chilli/level 1 was mild but flavourful, I would however choose at least a level 2 next time for a little bit more spiciness.

Pro tip: when choosing your ingredients, occasionally pop your bowl onto the weight scale on the counter so you have a rough idea of how many grams you have/rough cost.

There’s a full fledge self serve sauce bar and free table water. There are plastic sauce containers there if you’re ordering take away or taking home left overs. Cutlery are also located near the sauce bar.

All in all it’s pretty good value, I ordered 1.5kg of ingredients and ate around half, the rest I took home in containers. It was around $20 or so including a “grand opening” discount of 20 percent off. Even without the discount the price is still pretty good, buffet hotpots are usually around $30/35 with 90min time limits and you can’t take home leftovers. I don’t usually eat much at buffets so this works great for people who are similar.

I pretty much have dinner sorted from my hotpot leftovers.

This may sound ironic but it’s a little weird not having to do the cooking yourself, because that’s the norm at most hotpot places but this ‘new’ style of the chefs doing it for you also has a place; it’s convenient, reduces food waste and is less work you have to do, yet still allows you to choose your own ingredients to customise your hotpot.

Staff were nice and friendly and the owner was really helpful especially since it was our first time there.

Food was good, we even ordered a dry hotpot for takeaway (on top of our leftovers we also took home). A+ for flavour.

Only suggestion for the restaurant would be to remove the $5 extra charge for ordering a stir fried hotpot. Everything else was pretty good, especially for a restaurant which only opened yesterday.

Happy to revisit this restaurant again for hotpot. It’s winter time so perfect hotpot weather.

P.S. this restaurant does have eftpos but they don’t accept American Express cards, only Visa/MasterCard. Not a deal breaker but a little annoying I can’t earn AMEX points eating here.

Also I don’t think they charge you an extra full $12 if you’re slightly over 500grams, I think its charged pro rata. My mum forgot to add noodles to her hotpot and they only charged her 85c extra to add it. It’d be insane to charge an extra $12 just for that, so kudos to staff keeping it...

Was excited to try Hot Pot at Canley so I called to enquire about the menu. The gentleman on the phone was pleasant and his explanation of the menu was thorough. I asked if the restaurant was busy at the time and he advised it was dinner rush and they currently had a group of 10 waiting to be seated. I asked how long the expected wait was and he said to save us time he would put my name down on the list for a table of 6 and if we arrived within 30minutes we should be seated within a few minutes. Thrilled with this response we rushed in the second of the news and made our way - was a 20 minute drive away and it's been years since I've been to Canley.

Upon arriving (well within the 30), the man at the door was obscenely rude, dismissive and told us to wait in line. When we explained the discussion we had with the man on the phone he said, "he would never say that". He showed us my name on the list and said, "well, I wouldn't have crossed it off if I didn't call it". After our debating he said, "I'll speak to the man on the phone but he wouldn't have said that". Instead he stood there and began conversing with the next customers in line.

My partner then came to talk with him and the man had the audacity to say, "it would be unfair for the people waiting in line". WHERE IS THE FAIRNESS OF PROMISING A TABLE YOU CANNOT DELIVER OR FOR ANY CUSTOMER TO BE TOLD AT THE DOOR THAT THEY'RE LYING BY AN UNCIVILISED DOORMAN WHO'S TRYING TO PARADE HIS "POWER". We walked away disgusted, my friend exclaiming, "we're never coming back". Then he said, "I don't care, don't come back then" and had a laugh with the customers in line he was speaking with.

I don't have time to lie nor to I care to waste another 20mins travelling out to this place. Will discourage everyone I know from visiting this place. Would give negative stars if google wasn't...

Unfortunately, as much as I have enjoyed the meals here, I will no longer eat here again. My husband and I have visited several times and our bill is often substantial, which would not be an issue but the food items we select, weighed and purchased beforehand, are missing when our meals are served. Being honest people ourselves, we first overlooked it, assuming an oversight on the chef’s part but as our visits continued, it became obvious that we were paying for food items we were not served. My greens were clearly missing, my fish portion was halved. My husband was surprised to see missing items of his meal also. What surprises me is the blatant deceitfulness and dishonesty in operating a business in this manner. It’s a shame because the concept of choosing what you want, the variety and control over what you eat and pay for in one bowl is simple and clever… until you realise you’re being duped, leaves a very bad taste in your mouth. I certainly agree with Thanh Nguyen’s review. I too, will no...