Haidilao Hot Pot Toronto Downtown — Restaurant in Toronto

Came here on a Sunday to enjoy hot pot without the hassle of chopping and cleaning at home. Typically, my reviews focus on the food, disregarding whether service is good or bad. Today, I realized that excellent service immensely enhanced the dining experience. Hence, for the first time, I'll comment on the service before discussing the food quality.

Upon arriving, a host greeted us at the door and lead us to the elevator (yes, this is a multi floor establishment). After exiting the elevator, we were brought to our table with an iPad to order food. Since hot pot could be a messy meal, we were given aprons and a box of tissue at the beginning. During the meal, servers will get your attention before pouring water (no more surprise water refill when having a conversation), servers will come offer help when needed (struggling getting shrimp paste into the hot broth), servers will collect empty dishes to avoid overcrowding the table.

During the meal, a table nearby got a full crew singing and waving signs to celebrate someone's birthday. Later, another table has a crew singing songs and waving signs for good wishes after ending a relationship (hot pot after break up is a good coping mechanism btw). Being a fun person that I am, I ordered a dessert (shown in picture) to have a waiter bring to that table, wishing them well. Between the joyful environment and comforting, well-rounded service, I now understand why good service is sought after when eating out.

As for food, there are many broth you can choose from. I recommend the mushroom soup and mala spicy soup base. While the soup is boiling, I ordered thin sliced beef, pork meat balls, fish, soy products, among many other typical hot pot food. The details of what is good to eat in a hot pot would be another few paragraphs long, so I will just focus on the selected excellent (must-try according to me) items.

Sliced beef: not like anything you can find from groceries store. If you know what to ask for at a butcher shop, then you might be able to get close to what I had here. The beef cooks in 15 seconds and is juicy and tender. The fat between the meat is not greasy, but oozes with flavour.

Mushroom broth+bamboo fungus; I have no idea how many shiitake mushrooms were added to make such a flavorful broth. This broth is best enjoyed with some porous and crunchy bamboo fungus.

Table side noodle: a trained chef pulls noodle and dances at table side. Then the noodle gets added into the broth, absorbing all the flavour from boiling other food. Finally, you can eat it with the sauce that you make from a self serve station full of condiments. How can you say no?

For 5 people, we spent $250 for 2 hours of exceptional service and delicacy that can't be easily replicated at home. I cannot recommend this enough. Can't...

My daughter and I were in Toronto last weekend and were looking for something different to eat for dinner. Well we found the right spot. We had been wanting to try Hot Pots for some time now and we finally had the chance. Unbeknownst to us, you have to make reservations in advance. Once we arrived our names were added to a waiting list and we only waited about 10 mins. My daughter loved that you can try their free snacks in the waiting area. Once we were called, the hostess directed us to an elevator where she advised us that we’d meet another hostess in the 3rd floor. When we arrived on the 3rd floor, another friendly hostess showed us to our table. Our waitress greeted us at the table where she asked us if we’ve been to a hot pot establishment before. We informed her that this was our first time and she took the time to thoroughly explain how it all works. I must admit, this dining experience was a little confusing at first but once we settled in and ordered, we got the hang of it all. You order everything from the broth to your proteins & veggies using their table. Word of advice if you don’t have a large party, I would suggest to order 2 liquids for your steamer. Get one broth and the other one water (to cut down on cost). We ordered pork broth for steamer and water in the other at no cost. For our protein, we ordered slices pork neck and chicken. We also ordered noodles and a mushroom assortment of vegetables. Because this was our first time, our server took the liberty of putting together ingredients from the sauce bar. She instructed us on how long to cook each food item for. The sauce complimented our entire meal very well. This is a very place to go to as a date night, or celebrating a friend’s /family’s birthday, girls night out or to hang out with friends/colleagues. I highly recommend visiting this restaurant if you’re in Toronto. My daughter is a k-pop stan so she really enjoyed the experience and the music that was playing during dinner. Can’t wait to try this chain near me if they decide to open another location. If you are into this type of experience where you have to cook your own food, then you’ll love this place. I...

9:40pm Sep 20, 2024 Update: A staff from the store made a call to us and apologized for the unpleasant experience. —————————————————————————— We received very poor service on September 20, 2024, between around 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m (Toronto local time).

Initially, we were served by a female staff member named Vivian, who provided excellent service. However, she ended her shift shortly after, and a male server, whose name might be "王世航" (as noted on the receipt, but I am not sure), took over. From the moment he started serving us, the experience deteriorated significantly. I would like to outline the following issues with his service:

He did not inform us that Vivian had ended her shift, so we were unaware of who was now responsible for our table. Throughout his service, he was extremely rude. He used our table’s water jug to refill water for other tables and placed it back on our table with enough force to cause it to shake each time. He acted unprofessionally by silently removing empty plates from our table, sometimes while we were still picking up food, without any acknowledgement or consideration for our actions. During one instance, my hand accidentally brushed against his as I was reaching for a napkin, but he neither acknowledged the contact nor apologized, as if he was only concerned with his task of clearing the plates. When it was time to settle the bill, we clearly stated that we wanted to pack our leftover food. Despite this, he appeared reluctant, possibly due to the quantity of items to be packed, and looked around the room while preparing the food for takeaway. He even left the hotpot soup base unpacked, and we had to remind him multiple times to include it. Finally, when he brought a new ladle to assist with packing the soup, he tossed it onto the table in a way that seemed to express frustration or anger.

This level of unprofessionalism and lack of basic courtesy from a server was shocking, especially at a restaurant known for its high standards of customer service like Haidilao. Our dining experience was extremely disappointing, and we will be hesitant to return...