Happy Lamb Hot Pot 快乐小羊火锅 - Edinburgh — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Me and my friend travelled from out of town to try the new hot pot place. We had never tried any kind of hot pot restraunt before this and we wanted to try something knew. We let the staff know when they asked us that we had never been to a hot pot restaurant before and we were given little to no guidance.

We are vegetarian, on the website it said they provided vegetarian options (which they did as they had a vegan hot pot and tofu/veg ect). When we explained this to the server we were told that we would get our meals at half price as we were not ordering any meat items. She then proceeded to ask a man which we assumed was a manager if we would get the meals at a half price. She came back over and explained that we wouldn’t get the meals at a half price which we didn’t mind as we didn’t think it was going to be too pricy (she took the menu away from us prior to this so we didn’t know the price.)

After ordering the broth we were given no instructions of how to use it. She eventually came back over and told us to go get our ingredients which we did and we came back over and the hot pot was there. We didn’t have many issues with the food apart from the flavouring of the broths weren't very nice, but this is no fault to them it was just our preference.

Me and my friend felt as if we were unwelcome in the restaurant because we didn’t know how to use the hot pot and we were vegetarian.

We booked the table for 6pm and and on our confirmation email it said we had the table booked until 6pm until 7.45pm. When paying at around 7.15pm after we had paid our bill and my friend was still eating her ice cream the server came over to our table and started clearing our plates, she then came back over around 2 minutes later after speaking to the manager explaining that quote on quote “he was giving her shit because we were still at our table and they needed the table back” so we left because we felt very uncomfortable by this even know we still had 30 minutes left on the table.

The price seemed very unreasonable as we didn’t get any meat items and we never ate the majority of our food as we weren’t keen on the broth (again this is not fault of the restaurant) so we had little to nothing to eat and didn’t eat any meat products and had to pay £32 each for some noodles a few pieces of tofu and some veg. I definitely wouldn’t say that they are vegetarian friendly.

The man who I am assuming was the manager seemed to be storming around the restaurant in rage making us feel very unwelcome. I do understand that the restaurant was very busy and the manager was probably very stressed out but the atmosphere was very uneasy.

Safe to say we will not be returning and looks like we won’t be trying anything new...

Edit Having come back during the Easter holidays. The range of food has dropped. They amount of seafood was just prawns and pre defrosted rings of squid. No razor clams, baby squid , langoustine or snails like last time.Greens just Pak choi ,romaine and long stem spinach. The service. We arrived and ordered out pots of broth and meat. Another table besides us arrived 20 mins later and seem to receive their sliced beef and lamb meat before us. Even though they hadn't received they pots, where we had. The waitress was friendly to attended to us. But not sure if our table was getting mixed up with the one besides us. As we were brought the bill, when we didn't ask for it.

Very slow in topping up the hot pot ingredients on the bars .I had to return twice to see if any of the greens were topped up. The topping up of the broth left one pot very salty and bitter. Not sure if this was the contrate that had sat at the bottom of the jug. Couldn't eat no more with it cooking food very salty. At this point we were 70% full and didn't see the point of telling staff. I don't think I will rush back in a hurry if there is limited on stock and slowness in topping it up. So my once 5 out of 5 is putted down to 3/5

Opening month The set price includes unlimited hot pot, sauce station , hot/cold buffet food, small selection of desserts and Mr whippy cones and unlimited soft drinks, for 1hr 45mins. More time for larger tables. We were a table of six and got two hours. We went for the £28.99 set, the children were half price (under 12) Recommend the kumquat lemon juice , fresh and refreshing to wash down your hot pot food. Ice and iced water available .

One of the better hot pot experiences I have had in Edinburgh. And we have been to three in Edinburgh.

The soup base you can choose one or two. Nourishing Marrow Chicken Broth Spicy Marrow Chicken Broth Rich Tomato Broth Spicy Sour Pickled Cabbage Broth We picked two of the spicy broth, they were packed full of flavour . We can handle quite spicy .But it gradually got very spicy as the broth boiled down. We asked for chicken broth to be added to make it less spicy. Unlimited sliced beef and lamb , that cooks in seconds in the hot broth. A lot of staff on hand, the broth was regularly topped up. We were asked if we would like more sliced beef or lamb. The staff regularly checked on our table. They were all friendly and attentive. When you factor that it includes quite a few things. It's good value with a good range of hot pot ingredients.

My kids after dinner had three ice cream cones. And we all roughly had 2/3 drinks . Overall a good experience and would dine there again. 5% optional...

Disappointing experience — not worth it.

We came to Happy Lamb Hotpot for a birthday celebration and were really let down. Despite it being a special occasion, we were seated at the furthest table from the buffet, making it extremely inconvenient to get food. It felt like no effort was made to accommodate our booking as we were placed to the window area which was a tight and uncomfortable place to sit with four people. It genuinely feels like a waiting area since there's a sofa behind us.

Service was poor throughout. It was very difficult to get hold of any staff. When we did manage to flag someone down, they gave little to no explanation about how the service worked, which left us confused and having to figure things out ourselves. Staff were inattentive and at times outright rude — when one of the staff members was clearing up plates, a member said "Pass" in a blunt tone. We had to wait for a while for meats to arrive and I even ordered it twice since the first round took ages.

There could have been better variety in terms of buffet food - just typical Saturday night Chinese takeaway food - where was the range that was promised? The lamb ribs were very meagre and jerky-like - virtually no meat at all.

To top it off, we were rushed at the end of our meal, making the whole experience feel even more unpleasant. Though it states there is a 1.75h stay for customers, staff should remind customers when the time limit is approaching than approach the customers and tell them to leave within 5 minutes. I had to rush down multiple times to grab dessert whilst the clock was ticking so I couldn't enjoy the end of the meal. There was also a hidden charge for soft drinks — we assumed tea was complimentary, as a dispenser was situated next to the water station and away from the bottomless area, but were later told it counted as a soft drink, something that was not clearly explained or communicated: on the bottomless list of included drinks, tea was not on them.

We were also charged more than 5% service charge which was shocking considering the lack of service.

Overall, the experience felt chaotic and inconsiderate, with terrible service and zero attention to detail. For the price, it is not worth it, and would not recommend it — especially not for a...