Haidilao Hotpot - Akihabara — Restaurant in Tokyo

This Hai Di Lao is amazing.

Service 10/10 Food 10/10 Cleanliness 10/10

To get to the restaurant, it seems the Chomp Chomp elevator only lets you select the 5th floor after 11am (when Hai Di Lao opens).

Our waiter ホール (ハハ) was so helpful. He speaks fluent Mandarin and also English, which helped us because we don’t really speak Japanese. He was friendly and attentive! I’m impressed he gave us little bags for our masks, hair ties, and a glasses lens wipe too. He made sure our water was full, took away used dishes, and refilled our soup. Amazing service!

I also got my nails done by Yukari (ひかり?). She was incredibly nice and made my nails look beautiful! I was indecisive over what color and design to pick, so I asked her to do what she thinks would be pretty and she nailed it. She was very professional, focused, and friendly during the entire process. After she finished, she also showed us the way out and held the elevator for us. I’m super happy with my nails and the service she showed us!

The other staff members were great. We didn’t know how to make one of the sauces and one of them helped us make them and recommended others for our soup bases/meats.

The food was amazing. The meat was fresh and tender. I highly recommend the fish as well. The broth was sooo good too.

I would definitely come back next time...

My favorite Mala that never disappoints.

If from JR, use Central exit then turn right (South). The building with Haidilao is across the small road. Very convenient.

The place is huge. Lots of tables.

The staff are polite, kind, and mostly speak Chinese to you automatically 😆 but they also speak Japanese. Not sure about English, but should be fine. Some of them are very attentive but not everyone. However, the female store manager (I believe) I met on Saturday morning was amazing.

If you cannot finish the meal, you can bring the leftover home. Inform the staff, and they will pack the food (you can choose to pack the ingredients either fresh or cooked in soup) for you. The container is quite small, so better tell the staff if you need more soup.

If you go alone, like I did, they will ask if you need a big panda doll to accompany you or not. Who can say no to a cute panda?

Also very pricey, but it is premium mala...

We made reservation the day before on Saturday for dinner at 7pm on Sunday. We reached the restaurant at 6.45pm and waited for our turn. However, until 7.30pm we didn’t get my table, we were planning to leave, the waiter said they are cleaning tables, and there would be only 1 group ahead us hence we stayed. We waited another 15 minutes, and we saw 3 groups were served seated, excluding us. We were angry until we were standing and looking for the waiter, the waiter was walking around in front of us from far, but we could see him clearly. We decided to leave, and the waiter said he was looking for us for several times. We said nothing but left the restaurant. Been a HDL lover in Singapore, but we experienced the worst in...