Liuyishou Fondue / Liuyishou Hotpot Montreal — Restaurant in Montreal

Do not normally do these but could not resist after this meal. My family was visiting Quebec for the weekend and were excited to try this “all you can eat” buffet. First of all, this was the overall worst experience I have had dining. To start we waited an hour for our table, arrived at 8:40. Were told they closed at 10:30 but that still in theory gave us lots of time to eat. They brought my wife and mother broth at 9:00and did not bring mine and my nephew until almost 9:10. I was able to eat a some lamb and then asked for a second order around 9:20. At this point my wife and mother were still waiting for items ordered at 8:40. 9:30 the waitress came over very rude, and informed my wife that it was last call? Ok but we still have not got most of the food we ordered over 40 minutes ago, waitress response was one I can sum up as , too bad so sad, my wife then proceeded to put in additional food orders so we could have a meal and I asked for some more lamb, the waitress then began to argue with my wife that we could not eat/finish the food we were ordering an if this was the case we would face an additional surcharge. My wife being. More patient then I am, dealt with the rude untrained waitress very well and put our order in. I asked for a refill of my pop, and she ok but it is last call for kitchen, I am like they don’t make the Pepsi it comes in a can, she said does matter as we can not have anymore after lass call ( we paid for all you can drink pop) at this point our baby was fussing so as the waitress walked away my wife and I decided the meal was not worth the bad service and super long wait so I called over the floor manager and informed him to cancel the order we just put in as we were leaving. The waitress interrupted an insisted we pay a penalty for the order they had not taken out to us, at least the manager did not let her ignorance continue and he did not try to fraud us an additional charge. He Andes me the bill over $200 ( this was with a $14 discount he said he gave us because of slow poor service) I paid the bill and left. My wife asked me when we were walking away to see the bill, upon her review they had snuck on an extra adult fee and strange drink that we had not had, so we went back and she showed the manager he had no idea what the waitress was trying to do. He then gave us credit for the fake charge as he had no idea what it was. To summarize don’t eat here, I am sure you work hard for you money and their are so many more great restaurants to spend it in. I have read previous negative reviews it appears the owner/ online rep. Copies and paste a generic response so I...

My husband and I are hotpot lovers, so we were both excited to try Liuyishou! When we arrived, there was a 20 minute wait before a table would be ready for us - we took a walk down the street to grab a coffee and wait on the terrasse, then we received an automated text message and phone call letting us know our table was ready.

Seating was very comfortable, I appreciated the back cushions! Our waitress was super friendly and attentive, checking with us frequently to see if we wanted to order anything, and was able to explain the difference between some spicy broths. We chose the house special broth with beef tallow - really tasty, good spice and heat levels without being overpoweringly mala.

The sauce bar had a lot of options, but I was surprised to see there was no plain soy sauce (only seasoned seafood soy sauce) or chili garlic Huy Fong-esque sauce, which is typical at other hotpot restaurants we've been to. They had spicy sauce, chili powder, grated garlic, and vinegar, which are basically the same thing but deconstructed, so it wasn't a big deal. Fruit and cold salads were available at the sauce bar, even a mango sago dessert, edamame and crab sticks for snacking, etc. The QR code on each dining table links to the restaurant's menu, but more importantly, it shows you some suggested combinations for a tasty sauce which aren't included in the physical menu on each table.

We ordered a pitcher of fresh watermelon juice - so refreshing and cooling with all of the steam and spice of the meal! I was very pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the meat, especially the pork and coriander meatballs, they were very tasty and even my husband who doesn't usually like pork asked for a second order. Same thing for the popcorn pork from the 'snacks' section of the menu - crispy and light with chili seasoning on the batter, so good. The wide sweet potato noodles were the perfect thing to soak up all of that yummy broth at the end of the meal - chewy and a little springy, very slippery to catch in your broth!

My one 'complaint', which isn't really a complaint, is that we didn't get a slotted ladle to fish out our goodies from the pot, we had to make do with a Chinese spoon from the sauce/salad bar and our chopsticks. For some reason I thought they just didn't have any...until the table next to us was seated and received one. Not a big deal, just burned my fingers once or twice chasing a slippery udon noodle.

I can't wait for my next trip to Liuyishou, I'd like to try some of the other...

a quick explanation about this place if you're a first timer

We went there and had a hard time understanding how the process works. It's an open hot pot - you eat as much food as you want and the rate on weekdays is lower than the weekend (I guess $30 weekdays vs $35 weekends)

You can't only pay this rate, this rate alone doesn't get you the actual borth/soup that you dip your meats/vegetables in, you have to pay $10 for a single pot or $15 for a large sharing pot After that the items that have a price on the menu are the ones that you need to pay for to order and everything else that doesn't have a price is included for unlimited orders (time limit of 2 hours to finish eating) you also have entrees that are included not only fresh meats and vegetables such as spring rolls, etc. ...

Other than that there is a small bar that has sauces and snacks that you can bring to your table such as soy sauce and sesame oil. I only tried 3 sauces (one of them was very salty which was the leek which I don't recommend) and while getting the sauce I saw people mixing 2 to 3 sauces together so if you see someone doing that chances are they know what they are doing, watch and copy

For the desserts you can either order or also take fresh fruits and mochi from the snack bar. It was nice seeing a robot serve us and the waiters there were very friendly We ended up paying $120 (including tax and tips) which was the minimum that you can pay for 2 persons if you want to have separate broths or you can share one large bowl that has two broths (separated) for about $10 less

Conclusion: We paid more for the experience, the food was nice and fresh and there's a pleasure in cooking your food at a restaurant and having the option to order from a big variety of items but for amateurs like us who were politely laughed at by 2 customers that asked us how we heard about this place because we looked lost and spent minutes explaining to us how the system works this might not be the best place to go to specially that i've seen asians over there do mixes and wonders in front of me (mixing herbs in the broth and sauces together that would've elevated the entire experience) but nevertheless it is...