YGF Malatang杨国福麻辣烫 — Restaurant in Boston

My friend and I visited Boston and decided to grab a quick bite. We ended up at YGF since it was close by from where we were. Like any standard Malatang spot, you pick your own ingredients and weight it for the price. It was 14.99/lb. The bowl came out to around $24 which was quite pricey for malatang. This was fine with us since we just assumed it's Boston.

We find a seat and the bowl was brought to us. There was a sauce bar where we can get our own dipping sauce and water. The food was actually really tasty but what threw us off was the service, or rather the lackof service.

When I went up to pay, the lady at the front told me the total bill with tax and other services whatnot was ~$24. She showed me the scanner for my card and I saw that she had pre-selected the highest tip option. There was really no service for me to tip for besides the bowl being brought out. I was going to tip regardless but the fact that it was pre-selected was outrageous. I changed the option to no tip and scanned my card real quick. She told me that the tip was not included in my bill and I told her that I know. I told her that I would give her cash instead which she agreed to.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this place for malatang in Boston as there are many other better spots...

I would give 0 stars. First veggie and meat selections are okay. Its out first and last time. I feel like whatever we put there they remove it since when it came prepared I felt lot of stuff missing. Soup is good no complains. Bathroom is worst like come on. There were paper and handsoap but the bathroom itself the smell and vice versa. Also who are we tipping there ???? 🤔 genuine question we do all the things by ourself the lady in counter is busy it's a small area understandable we took drinks from fridge by ourselves, do all the stuff by ourself the only thing she helped was get the food to our table her job normal and my friend asked for a fork thats it. At the end we came to counter to pay but she hurried to our table and showed us the bill OKAY paid and then she blurted out TIPS is not included in bill u have to tip so I have her cash 10 dollars which is more than 15% since my friend was the one who paid for the food. Like the other reviews she would not let us leave if we wouldn't...

Food was decent, nice that they had different broth options like tomato, beef bone, and dry pot. But what really made my experience sour and unwilling to come back and support this place is the waitress today who refuses to let you go if you don’t tip her until she’s satisfied with how much she tipped. She asked us for a cash tip which we were OK with and handed it to her but she loudly asked for more and wouldn’t let us leave. It was audacious considering this was self-service and we did not even get any service from this waitress or anyone else, so I didn’t believe in giving a bigger tip nor do I feel like they deserved one to begin with. Go support Kung Fu Malatang in Allston instead because they have never done me wrong and the malatang there is...