Liu's Chong Qing Hot Pot (Festival Walk) — Restaurant in Kowloon

Browsing through social media website, I got to know of a very popular Chongqing hotpot restaurant that just opened at Festival Walk recently. Liu's Chong Qing Hot Pot originated from Chongqing and over a short span of around 20 years, it has expanded to over 1000 outlets all over China and overseas. For their first outlet in Hong Kong, they partnered with Gaia, a F&B group.

For our soup base, we chose half pot of fragrant coconut chicken soup and half pot of century egg and fresh coriander soup. Century egg and fresh coriander soup was clear and sweet, with coriander fresh and century egg flavourful and smooth. Coconut chicken soup was tasty and sweet, absorbing the essence of the coconut and chicken broth.

As the weather was too hot and eating hotpot, we ordered honey pomelo soda with ice jelly and lychee jasmine tea with ice jelly. There were pomelo bits in it, and the drink was sweet and cooling, with the ice jelly very soft and smooth. As for the lychee drink, lychee meat was juicy and sweet, with strong jasmine tea taste.

Brown sugar glutinous rice cake - It was fried till the skin was very crispy and yet when we took a bite, the rice cake was very chewy and soft, with the brown sugar making it sweet and appetizing.

Liu's marinated pork slices - As it was marinated, thus it was sweet and flavourful, need not dip onto any sauce. Sliced pork was chewy and thin in texture.

Fresh grass carp fillet - It was cut into huge portion, thus it was very meaty. Fish was cooked till very soft, able to taste the freshness.

Mala beef - The waiter told us that this dish will be very spicy, warning us in advance. True to her words, it was very spicy, even though i can take very spicy food. Beef was very tender and juicy, with the chilli flakes all over the meat.

Specialty meatball platter - It consisted of fish ball, lobster salad sauce ball, handmade beef tendon meatball, pork and mushroom meatball and squid ink cuttlefish ball. Their meatball were very chewy and fresh in taste, with the fishball very smooth and beef tendon able to taste that it was handmade. When we took a bite on the lobster ball, the sauce came flowing out and was flavourful.

Signature intestine platter - It consisted of signature Liu's beef tripes, goose intestine, duck blood, pig kidney and pig liver. This intestine platter made it a great choice for people who loved to eat intestine parts. They were fresh and chewy, juicy as it absorbed the essence of the soup base.

Sweet potato flat noodles - Flat noodles were slightly thick in texture and heavy, making it very chewy and filling on the stomach.

We ended off our meal with assorted sweet beans and taro shaved ice with soy pudding. The ice was shaved till soft and smooth, with the sweet sauce making it sweet and cooling. There were red beans, sweet corn, taro and mango cubes etc in it. They were sweet and chewy, making a good...

Everyone knows that I love spicy hot pot, Taiwan, Sichuan, Chongqing, all are my favorite, as each has its own spicy flavor.  I have book-marked this restaurant a long time ago, but somehow always missed.  Until recently, it reopened in a new location which much closer to where I work, The restaurant has recently launched an all you can eat hot pot set, both for lunch and dinner. With a good appetite, I can eat very at ease.  You can choose red oil hot spicy mala plus assorted mushroom soup or shabu shabu.  Of course I chose the former, I came here for their signature spicy red oil soup.  Their signature red oil mala soup, layered flavour, tasty and amora is slowly dipped out, getting spicier and spicier, but not enough hemp, I tried medium spicy, eat very happy, in fact, next time can try most spicy level.  Hot pot ingredients has wide variety, there are more than 20 kinds of any point ingredients, including meat balls, fish dumplings, tofu vegetables, etc., the main food also has several.  Meat has five options: pork, boneless short rib, chuck tender, beef, A4 Kagoshima beef  and seafood platter. We can choose three from five. We tried all five choices, I think the best taste is A4 Kagoshima beef, very tender, seafood side, although really fresh, raw shrimp will jump, but I think if the taste can focus on meat.  Drinks are also available.  Although the price is not cheap, but they have new ingredients, high quality, coupled with the artful restaurant decoration, comfortable.  Great for...

Overall the experience with my friends were great, but the service doesn't even deserve a star. The staff were not entirely upfront about the finer details or points on the order form also as we were getting seated. After being rushed to finish our food, in an empty restaurant. The staff asked us to pay and as we were about to leave, the staff stopped us to tell us the "small print" of leftovers we would need to extend our time or pay for the remainder per gram. The staff even pushed their cart with the weigh at the table so we are blocked from leaving the table.

We didn't mind either options, but not the way the staff approach the overall situation, the language that has been used, and the main staff who insisted we pay for the bill, left and allowed another colleague who had no idea what happened to sort and deal with...