Bone Soup Malatang — Restaurant in Toronto

What a massive disappointment this place was. TLDR: go somewhere else.

Don't Tip. The whole experience is all self service aside from you handing your bowl in to pay (you pick your own ingredients, get your own cup of "cold" water). There is no service once you get your meal, you're on your own.

Expensive. They say they deduct the weight of the bowl from the scale but part of me is skeptical about this. People say the quality of the produce selection is what justifies the price. At a hot pot restaurant, it is typically you pay one fixed price and eat until you drop, here you pay per 100 grams of food that you slap into your heavy duty plastic bowl making it very easy to raise the price of your meal.

Quality. Let's be real, majority of the stuff they are serving are basically frozen store bought items. Yes you can see the people in the back basically cutting open up prepackaged bags in the kitchen. Whatever hefty premium they slapped on the price reflects on all ingredients (you pay the same amount for spam and seafood. Not in a good way). Admittedly there is also a decent selection of sea food to select from that your normally wouldn't find in restaurants of this style.

Variety. Ok I actually can't say anything bad here. The variety of things they have for selection is quite impressive (especially the different types of noodles they offer).

Taste. Mediocre at best, but that isn't surprising since the only required action is for them to dump your food into a pot of broth and scoop it out. That is literally all there is to it. You'll be wondering why you paid so much in the first place.

I'd imagine the popularity of this place is because the concept is not as mainstream for what Toronto normally has to offer but here the delivery falls flat and at a hefty price for the customer.

PS. I am not some jealous competitor trying to rob the business of opportunities. Only a disappointed customer who left with a mildly upset stomach and lighter wallet....

I had malatang all the time when I was in China, but I didn't have the chance to eat when I came back to Toronto. Anyway, after discovering this place, I visited this store 4 times during this past week. I'd have to say the broth tasted pretty good. I brought various friends and family to come try it with me. There is one thing that perturbs me. Hygiene. The problem lies in 1) The plastic bowls and 2) the ingredients. The plastic bowls where you select your ingredients smells of dirty rags. The ingredients had pieces of short hair in it. The tofu I had also had an 'off' smell like it had gone bad. I scrunched up my face when I noticed the random hairs and the man who seemed like a manager was trying to clean it up right away. Good for him for that. Anyway, I tasted the 4 kinds of different spiciness level and like I've mentioned the broth was pretty good. I'd have to be super cautious if I were to come back when choosing the ingredients. 마라탕 맛이 제가 중국에서 먹던 것과 흡사했습나다. 특히 국물 맛은 꽤나 맛있기도 했지요. 하지만 역시나 중국인 식당에서 청결을 바랄순 없지만, 간혹가다 나오는 머리카락이나 재료(특히 두부류)에서 상한? 냄새는 어쩔수없나봅니다.

Try at your own risk with caution. The broth taste...

I ordered Uber Eats from this place and got x3 Lamb Skewers (Buy 1 Get 1 Free) from this place. I honestly never had lamb skewers tasted this bad before. It didn't even taste like lamb. I can't taste any flavors from the meat and the seasoning is mediocre at best. Lamb skewer tasted sweet with the texture of lamb. Felt like the person that made the lamb skewers hates lamb and wanted to hide all the flavors from the meat. Honestly felt like it's made for a little kid that hates eating lamb and the parents wanted to make a skewer to hide the flavor of the lamb and made it sweet so their daughter/son can eat them. I never knew I can get a bad tasting lamb skewer until I tried this place. I basically ate 3 skewers questioning myself while eating and threw out the 3 skewers that came for free. Never again.

Edited: 2 days ago I accidently order this place again because Uber usually says "order before" but it didn't for some reason. Got bad diarrhea after. Now I rmb the name of the store. Won't make the...