Chu Shang Hotpot — Restaurant in Cherry Hill Township

We happened upon this spot today while actually going to the Asian Market next door and we were starving and our kids are a bunch of bougie kids so they demanded hot pot.

Right away you walk in and are greeted with huge fake cherry blossom trees that look amazing. Off to your far right, there is a play area for kids (HUGE THANK YOU, coming from parents of 3). There are delivery robots, staff placed strategically and most people happily conversing or on their phones while eating.

The lady who sat us down explained how to use the tablet for service pretty thoroughly, and explained that all of the drinks in the fridges are included, as well as the typical bar food in the back. The amount of sauces and such is expansive versus other places like A Pot and other knock-offs. But the hot appetizers lacked from those as well. When we first came in (around 2pm) the hot appetizers hadn't been refilled and there weren't enough fries to fill a happy meal, and only a couple wings and other things.

For drinks there's sodas, teas, juices and water of both traditional American and other varieties. Though I saw what seemed to be the start of a boba/tea area off to the immediate left when entering, it seemed to not be up and running during the day. Some other places have that option or have some premade so that, as an after thought, was a bummer. But otherwise ok!

Service was fantastic. Super attentive, super quick. Only setback there was waiting nearly 10 minutes for another bowl of rice.

Food was either great, or meh. We chose to do only the BBQ portion, and that limits the meats you get tremendously. Looking at other pictures, the thinly sliced beef, which at other hot pot/KBBQ places can be put on the grill for quick bites, was not an option here. Their angus steak cuts are a bit tough, and their bulgogi beef is just square-ish cuts of big tenderloins I believe. Sauce wasn't amazing, but it was the most tender of the slim choices. Garlic chicken was great! We even let ours sit a bit too long and they were still tender and juicy. Garlic shrimp was the biggest favorite for us and the kids besides the mussels. I feel like the BBQ meat options were super slim pickings.

They're very attentive to the plates and help if they see the BBQ plate not working as well. This place also offers butter to help circumvent the burning and that contributes a GREAT deal to leaving not smelling like burnt BBQ hot plates like most places and that was a HUGE plus.

SUPER AWESOME SIDE NOTES: -Huge fridge/freezer of Hagen Daaz Ice Cream bars. -They have semi private rooms on the right hand side that have hard closing doors, and on the left side they have curtain wrapped ones. We didn't ask how much extra they were or how to book them, but I image that if you have enough guest in your party or just want the privacy, you can most likely obtain a spot there! I think the curtain enclosed ones looked much more entertaining than the others. But for conversations better left at a whisper otherwise, the closed door options are great. The bathrooms were extremely clean (according to the females in the fam today). The guys room even had Febreeze to mask the smells if need be! Super thoughtful. They have sinks on the back wall with the fridges so if you want to wash your hands without going into the bathroom you can. SUPER THOUGHTFUL!

Though this place could definitely use all kinds of additional additions, like more meat and veggie choices, more appetizer/quick bar options and such, the vibes are great. No overbearing or overly loud music, no TV's to keep you preoccupied, staff is attentive and helpful and they have an abundance of plates and extra utensils (not traditional ones) on the table. For traditional American silverware, that is obtained in the back near the fridges/extra bars. Also, as someone else has said, this restaurant, along with practically every shop on the strip, doesn't cater to Americans first, so English isn't always the first language from staff, nor from menus, food or drink items. But if that's annoying or...

Compared to other Hot Pot restaurants in the area, this was a disappointment. While the atmosphere was beautiful and the restaurant itself was spacious, the biggest issue we had: Lack of Communication.

Unhelpful Service and Too Automated: to start, there’s no menus. In some cases that’d be fine, but if you have a large party, it’s extremely time consuming to pass around the iPad for everyone to order. Additionally, the servers were not helpful and not friendly. It was almost like they assumed you knew what would be in the menu and how to do hot pot. While we had done hot pot at other locations, not everyone did. And unlike other locations, the servers made no effort to engage with us or give more than a vague and hurried explanation to our party on how it all works. I also don’t think I saw the server smile once. Even the robot had a better personality.

The Food: The menu (with tiny pics on a smaller IPad) was confusing and there was no indication that the menu items would be so huge, and no prior warning that they would be adding food waste charges to our bill. The waiter told us it was a flat fee per person for the food, but when people ordered appetizers, we assumed it was included but was not (and since they leave you alone with the iPad and no assistance), there was no physical person to warn us, and our bill ended up being much higher than expected.

The food itself was fairly good. Not the best. Not as good as other hot pot restaurants (I.e. Top Pot in Delran and Philly).

The drinks were included and unlimited, which is nice… but unlike other restaurants (like Top Pot) there’s no fresh iced teas, Bobba, fruit drinks or milk tea. Just canned soda and bottled drinks with no English written on them. Again, not usually a problem, but when I asked the server what the bottle said, he told me, “I don’t know, I can’t read Mandarin” and walked away, not bothering to ask someone else who maybe did know.

Overall, it was not worth what we paid. We got charged for portions that were too big to eat because no one was there to help us order, and we were told no take out containers for the large amounts of food we paid extra for and were left to waste.

I will not be going back. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is because if you are a hot pot expert or know what you’re getting into, I suppose it works out, plus the atmosphere was nice. But based on how unhelpful the staff was, they should just save some money and stick with the robots and iPads. If they could improve their customer service, communication and invest in some physical menus, it might be...

Went here on Christmas afternoon with a party of 9, so we got our own private room, which was pretty nice and nicely decorated. To order “special” seafood, the waiter/waitress needs to be there with their iPad to do so, and there is a capped limit on how much you can order. I think it’s 2 special seafood per person. So that is not really “all you can eat” of them when they advertised it. Also, it was not very good in my opinion because it tastes so salty, old, and the size of the specialty seafood was small (portions were also small). Hotpot bases that we got (tom yum, healthy broth, and chili oil) were all bland and watered down or too salty. As for hotpot and bbq items, you would have to order them on the iPad, and they come out pretty quick! The items were pretty standard, typical hotpot & BBQ items, so I thought it was okay, nothing stood out to me tbh. Before coming, I read the reviews on here, and a lot of people mentioned the poor quality of service they received due to the staff members. Sadly, I also received bad service. One of the waiters changed my side of the table’s grill, and got some oil/butter of the grill dripped onto my winter jacket. When he changed the other side of the table’s grill, he held the grill on top of a baby stroller (which, by the way, had a baby in it) as he tried to grab other dishes to bring back. We all were so baffled by his professionalism that another waiter came in, and we reported it to him. The owner? lady came and apologized for her employee’s lack of professionalism since they’re all “still under training.” She took my jacket and attempted to get rid of the grease (which thankfully she did) and apologized to the mother of the baby. She gave me a free meal, but what really annoyed me the whole time was that waiter that changed our grills never apologized. He never came back again; the lady gave us a new waiter. Since we got a private room and our doors are open, I saw so many of the other waiters and waitresses staring at my room and spilling teas to each other while pointing at MY ROOM. If you’re going to spill tea, at least do it in secret instead of watching my whole family eat as you’re spilling the tea of what happened because we can see you do everything! Lack of professionalism and lack of social cues. Very mediocre lunch and so not worth the almost $44 per person meal even though I got my meal for free. Totally don’t recommend this restaurant if you care about the quality of food, professionalism from the staff, and the management. Cause clearly it was a...