New Mala Hotpot — Restaurant in Hsinchu

Everything about this place is great. The food was fresh, tons of Hagen Daz ice cream to choose from and both non/alcoholic beverages available. I believe Wine and Taiwan beer was on tap for a small surcharge. I was too busy eating to take pictures!

The only downside is the ordering system and the speed it took for our hotpot to warm up. The ordering system is online, so you need to scan a QR code to select what you want to order (you can only use one phone). We weren't able to load up the ordering system and had to wait for a while between selections for the screen to load. It felt like using a Dial up system again. You can only order 2 meat selections at a time which frustrated us even more. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take 5 minutes per screen to load and to send out our orders. I understand Fridays are busy but if your system can't handle the load, either upgrade or at least offer to manually take the orders if this happens. Once our hotpot arrived it was half filled, which is fine but it took a while to boil. If there wasn't a time limit it wouldn't be such a big issue. Since there is a time limit I felt all these problems made us even more frustrated than we should be.

I'm sure I will visit again, will take more pictures next time and hopefully the ordering system...

The spice broth is yummy. AYCE included a lot of options. Order meat and seafood as you go with QR code. I found that US beef tasted better than the wagyu. You can order max 2 quantities of the same type every order. There's extra broth at the buffet bar if you need refill. There are a sauce bar to make your own dipping sauce. A lot of ice cream flavors with (i think) 4 or 5 different brands. Credit card is accepted but you...

The quality and the variety of food here is good. The quantity is of course very good because it's a free flow eat all you can eat buffet. The place is well-staffed but they seem to focus more on cleaning and tidying up the place rather than on serving the customers. This place closes at 9:30pm and last order is at 9:00pm. They stop letting customers in...