Itsupon Syokudou — Restaurant in Kowloon

Back to Hong Kong to visit family, our friends invited us to a Japanese all-you-can-eat hotpot restaurant located between Kwun Tong and Ngau Tau Kok.

It had been a long time since I last visited Ngau Tau Kok, and I was surprised to see how much it had changed, with many new restaurants around.

The four of us ordered a fish maw and chicken soup base. We also got a seafood platter, fatty beef, and large prawns, along with some fried items. Customers could also help themselves to various hotpot ingredients, vegetables, and drinks from the self-service area.

The quality of the beef was excellent—definitely worth praising. The seafood platter had large portions, making it great for photos, but I personally found the freshness to be just average.

The fried items were nothing special and could be skipped. The self-service freezer had a limited selection of ingredients, and the variety of vegetables was also quite small.

The restaurant had a Japanese-style interior. I heard that there’s usually no time limit for dining, but since we went on the 29th day of the lunar calendar, the staff started urging us to settle the bill around 9:30 PM.

The price was on the higher side, but if you’re looking for an all-you-can-eat hotpot place with friends and don’t want to be restricted to just two hours, this could be a...

We booked a table on a Friday evening and as expected, it was about 60% full. Waitresses were friendly and helpful, and did a good job to sell--we ended up ordering more than we had planned. Food in general were fine in taste and portion. Their Thai style prawn sashimi was fine, at least the sauce was very close to the one we had in Thailand. There were some disappointments as well. The super long eel sushi, while very tempting in appearance, didn't quite match the standard taste we were expecting. The local urchin was a bit small in size ($88 per plate). Its flavor was less than its Japanese counterpart. The spot prawn and oyster was ok, but not great. The unique "crab cream grill" was interesting to watch (done by the server) but a bit disappointing to taste. The grilled mixed cream is supposed to spread on some tiny toast to taste. First of all, being a crab fan, I didn't feel a lot of crab cream's umami in it. It just tasted slightly salty and fishy. No wonder why it wasn't even on the menu. Free ice cream was offered at the end, don't forget...

I was incredibly disappointed with the meal to the point where I felt the need to write this review. I wouldn't even eat here for free.

Though I expected the food quality might not be top-notch for $298@, I didn't anticipate it being this dreadful. The fish maw soup was like plain water, and we had to add salt ourselves. The staff even provided salt for us to season the hotpot soup base. The pieces of fish maw were tiny, about the size of a fingertip, and there were only five or six of them. Everything from chicken to oysters lacked flavor. The chicken, shrimp, abalone, fish slices, clams, beef — nothing had any taste, and the oysters even smelled bad. Lastly, the all-you-can-eat options were limited and poorly kept.

Even a beginner cook could make a better fish maw chicken hotpot soup. I sincerely hope for improvement and those positive reviews...