Happy Lamb Hot Pot — Restaurant in Toronto

Happy Lamb Hot Pot is an AYCE hot pot restaurant with a lunch, dinner, and a promotional menu. They also have a "Deluxe" and a "Premium" set/menu from what I could tell off the menu. Went on Saturday.

Oh and it is important to come in as early as you can, since the tables fill up rather quickly as time passes on (less than half an hour in on opening time, quite a number of people have already come in). By the time we left (2 hour limit), half the restaurant was full, including the private room.

For payment, it's 1 transaction per table. So there's no splitting the bill. My friend paid my credit card.

The restaurant is not that big. I call it a "normal but on the small side restaurant". The tables all have hot pot sized electric induction type stove tops, either a big one or a small one. The restaurant looks pretty, with flowers on the ceiling and the tables and chairs that match the decor.

The menu that they gave us and the promotional poster that we saw on the way in... Are kind of hard to decipher. Sure, there's English on it, but the formatting and how everything is placed is a bit confusing. At least the waitress that we talked to spoke decent English. I heard that they spoke very good Mandarin.

When we came in, they asked us if we wanted to share a pot or have individual pots. We went for individual pots. We were able to ask questions about the menu options and the promotional we saw outside. We found out that the lunch and dinner AYCE doesn't include the pot of soup - it's an additional cost on top of what's listed. In the promotional option, which is $29.99, includes a pot of any soup, you get both the lunch and dinner AYCE menus, unlimited soda/pop, and free soft served ice cream at the end. We went with the promotional option.

Most of the hot pot ingredients are self-serve. They're in the back in what looks like a grocery store cold/cool area/rack. You'll recognize it when you see it. They also have a soda/pop fountain beside it with a few options of different soda/ pop options, including water. Also in the back, on the right hand side, is the cooked/fried foods area or appetizers, dessert, as well as the sauce bar. The only ingredients that aren't self-serve are the beef and lamb. You'll have to order those (I assume you order from the waiter/waitress, but I wasn't there when my friends did the order).

One thing to note is that we found out that the sauces we made were hella friggin salty. No matter how little "salty sauces" we put in our sauce bowls... Our sauces ended up so damn salty it could send us to heaven.

There are a lot of hot pot ingredients. From vegetables to noodles, to dumplings to various meat options, to various fish balls and meat balls options, to tofu and bean curd, to various seafood options, to more unique items such as: pork blood, frog legs, cow tongue, etc. Lots of tendon/tripe/stomach tripe stuff.

There are 9 different soups. My friends and I got the Clear Soup, Mushroom Soup and Curry Soup. Most of the cold appetizers were spicy to a certain extent. There was what seems to be kimchi, a seaweed salad, and something else. There was a slight error on one of the food items in the fried foods section where the name tag says it's "Fried Chicken", but all we could see was Fried Squid legs/tentacles.

In terms for cooking our hot pot ingredients, we just went "shopping" for our food ingredients and just either plopped them into our hot pot soup or shove it all in. Underneath the table, on the edge/the side facing you, there's a controller for how hot you want your stove top to be.

The experience was good, fun even. I enjoyed the food and cooking it, including fishing out my food from my soup pot. I lost some mushrooms, half my udon, and some beef tendons within my soup pot cause I couldn't find it. I found it by the end of my meal.

If you don't finish what you brought to your table or finish what you cooked, you'll be charged a fee. So make sure you can eat what you get. Got...

When dining out, you hope for a pleasant experience of discovery, savory pleasures, and satisfaction. Patches Rips (see previous review) and myself got something at the Happy Lamb but it was none of the above. As he states, we got to the Happy Lamb around 9:00pm on a Saturday, not having eaten anything for most of the day and hoping for a fulsome dinner. We were seated, our choice of broth was delivered, and we ordered trays of beef, lamb, and pork. And, at that point apparently, lapsed into invisibility. While tables around us were eagerly dining on trays of meat, we had ceased to exist. Time passed and we waited in vain for something – anything – to arrive but we couldn’t catch the eye of any waiter. And, as for the cute feline-faced robot delivering trays of meat, it studiously ignored us while covering every other inch of the restaurant.

Finally, at the forty minute mark, a waiter asked in passing how was the food. Considering we didn’t have any, we’re not sure what he was hoping for. We reiterated our missing orders for beef, lamb, and pork. He departed and returned with, not with a tray like every other table were enjoying but a plate with about 80 grams of shaved beef on it. Considering our visit cost over $80, this was the most expensive plate of cold cuts imaginable, with the cow never having felt it coming off her butt. We were promised the lamb would be arriving shortly but the restaurant is true to its name for we’re still waiting for it. As for the pork, the pig is apparently also happy and alive somewhere else.

Finally, at the seventy minute point, our original waitress showed up at our lonely table. Was she concerned about our isolation and increasingly desperate hope for food? No, she was there to tell us the place was closing in twenty minutes and give us the bill for services not rendered. When we asked if any food might coming for the royal sum requested, her response was to ask if we wanted to order dessert. Considering their singular lack of success in feeding us (this was a restaurant, wasn’t it?), we decided to forgo the disappointment of hoping for anything further.

We held up our end of the bargain and paid the bill for the novel thrill of 40 grams of meat each. Despite the Happy Lamb’s contribution to vegan living on our part, we were not compelled to offer a tip. Considering the plethora of five star reviews, I can only assume we were not the clientele they were hoping for and simply waited us out, until we removed ourselves. I can only hope that whoever comes after us doesn’t also fall into this category and is similarly ignored until you suddenly re-appear in time...

Happy Lamb meat and vegetable quality has gone up since the last time I was here. The selection is great - there are things here that I don't even see at restaurants charging $40+ for their AYCE. In comparison, Happy Lamb is $28.99 for dinner on weekends. I did note that in some reviews, diners in the past week have said they received the happy hour price. When I went yesterday, the waiter said they have not had that price since last month - which seems false, but either way the important thing is that they don't offer the 30% off anymore. I did feel a bit tricked about that but $28.99 is still reasonable compared to other places.

I like their self-serve section, where they have everything except their lamb and beef cuts which they bring to you when you order it with the server. I didn't have a great time with that process, as it took almost 20 minutes to flag a server down to order our first selection of meat. For an AYCE place, a lot of the value is derived from how much meat you can eat so it was disappointing that it took so long to bring us our first plate. I honestly think they should bring you a small selection of meat when you first sit down since it's hard to imagine anyone NOT ordering meat.

I docked another star because I did not like their soup base. I think having a good soup base is so important for hot pot, since everything you put inside really takes on that flavor. The Hot flavored base had a weird taste to me, it really tasted like a base that I bought from the grocery store. However, it really is my opinion that a soup base at a hot pot restaurant should not taste like it came out of a powder packet, and should taste like it was made fresh or simmered for a few hours. The taste was so odd that I couldn't eat much. I asked the waitress if she could switch it out for plain water but she said she had to bring a whole new pot, which would cost us. To some extent I think if a customer dislikes the soup base that much a complimentary replacement should be offered. And in this case, I asked for plain water - which should be free.

Overall I think Happy Lamb is good value but I don't think I can come again if their soup base simply does not appeal to...