Happy Lamb Hot Pot — Restaurant in Chicago

My very first hot pot experience! I felt like Chinatown in Chicago on a snowy day was the most fitting time for this.

We did the AYCE - great value. We literally fought to finish. We did the best of both worlds broth / the original and the spicy version of the original broth.

Meat: We ordered Prime aged lamb, marbled lamb, marinated garlic beef, hand sliced beef short plate, tender chicken fillet, and Kurobuta pork. All were great. I LOVED the lamb options. With an Armenian background and mother and with California roots, I grew up eating a lot of lamb. These options were impressive. I would’ve been satisfied not doing the beef or pork options. Chicken was one of my top favorites. The meats themselves are super flavorful in the broth alone. Still we made some sauces ourselves just to experience a different taste profile.

Meatballs & paste: We ordered house shrimp paste and Fuzhou fish balls. The shrimp paste was delicious and unctuous. I liked it more than the head on shrimp. The fish balls were just not to my personal palate - a bit fishy.

Seafood: We ordered head on shrimp and mini octopus. They were of good quality, however I got more enjoyment out of other items we ordered.

Vegetarian: We ordered Tong Ho - which I understand to be the grass of the chrysanthemum plant, baby bok choy, potato, pumpkin, sweet corn, baby bamboo hearts, and cilantro. I enjoyed it all except the bamboo heaters and tong ho were not to my textural preferences tho the flavors were good. The cilantro wilts very quickly; we mostly rused it to flavor the broth. I would advice more veg than we did. We filled up on meat; however the pumpkin and potato in the broth was mmmm mmm delicious.

Tofu & Mushrooms: We ordered enoki mushrooms and shitake mushrooms. I did not care for either, tho I love mushrooms. I just do not prefer my mushrooms, especially those varieties, boiled in soup broths. To each their own!!

Noodles & rice: We initially did not order noodles or rice just to not fill up on starch. However, we really felt like some rice was necessary with this meal. On the second round, we ordered fresh thick noodles, Chinese croutons - a sort of airy bread that beautifully soaked up the broth, House lamb wontons, and steamed white rice. The wontons were delicious. The noodles were good but I could’ve skipped them as the portion size of both noodles and rice was huge. We hardly got any potatoes (4 slices) or pumpkin (4 slices) yet a ton of starch. If they are worried about food waste, it would seem reasonable to allow half portions of the starches. Especially if you are only a party of two.

We did not have any room for the fried buns, which are fried and glazed. Our neighboring table had them twice, so they must’ve been good!

You order here in rounds - you get three. We got through the second and could not continue. They come around to refill your broths with the base broth as it will boil and reduce over time. Seriously, it was a HOT pot - I burnt my tongue drinking broth straight from the pot instead of letting it cool in my own bowl. Lesson learned ☺️.

Well well worth the money. We added up what we would’ve spent if we had done it a la carte - it would’ve been 125 before tax or tip. We spent 58 after tax and before tip with the AYCE and spent 3.5 hours there without feeling rushed at all. It was a lovely experience. I definitely...

There are two perfect foods that go well with with colder months in Chicago: ramen and hot pot. This is the second time visiting this place for hot pot, and it is still as consistently soul-warming as it was the first time I visited!

I arrived without putting myself and my wife on the waitlist prior, and took about 45 minutes to be seated (Friday evening). This was expected, thus, it did not bother us too much, plus, they have some small bags of chips and ice cream as snacks while you wait. Once we were seated, the waitstaff took care of us with friendliness and quickness. We put in the first round of our order, including the most important part, that being the broth of the hot pot. We selected the half and half option of the original and spicy marrow broths, as I like spice in my life, but my wife not so much, along with an assortment of meats, veggies, and noodles. There was a sauce station that we helped ourselves to before the food arrive, where I got a salty and spicy sauce to further flavor every bite. The food took no more than 10-15 minutes after ordering to be brought out, to my stomach's delight, and we began to dig in.

Both the broths were hearty and flavorful, and felt like the warm embrace of a blanket on a cold winter day, with the spicy broth having an extra layer of warmth that I enjoyed. All of the meats, veggies, and noodles were good, but the standouts were the prime-aged lamb, bok choy, and house lamb wontons. We got second helpings of all 3 as the lamb and wontons tasted fresh and delicious, and melted in your mouth along with the broth; the bok choy is a favorite of ours, and tasted great mixed in with the rest of our medley. By the end of the meal, we were more than stuffed for a reasonable price (we got their all you can eat option), and left with a smile on our face.

Happy Lamb along with Qiao Lin Hot Pot are my two favorite places for hot pot in Chicago, though, Qiao Lin currently has more hype surrounding it (a 2-3 hour wait on Friday evenings, and accepts no reservations). Happy Lamb is just as tasty and flavorful, and highly recommend stopping here to satisfy the hot...

Super fresh, super delicious. I read the reviews around service/drinks before coming and we decided to come anyway and it was so worth it. They seem to have solved the drink problem by putting carafes of water at the tables shortly after you arrive. People complained their server never came back to check on them, which was true. However, it looked like our server was taking care of upwards of 15 tables if not more, and was carrying the broths out, drinks out, checks, etc for every single table.

For the best experience: Go outside of normal food times, if you can. If not: Check in via yelp to the restaurant, it’ll give you an estimate of how much time before you are seated. (Relatively accurate for us) Check out the menus posted in people’s photos to get an idea of what you want before hand. When you get to the restaurant and check in with the host they will hand you a paper to fill out with what you want. (All you can eat is what you’ll get unless you specify a la carte) write out what you want- it doesn’t matter where you write it, it all comes out at once. Order whatever drinks you’ll want when the server is first there. Enjoy and pace but be mindful- they might ask you to leave after 90 minutes. (We finished before 90 minutes and were there waiting for our check for a bit after, but it was 8:30 and I think they were getting the last people seated, and food prepped.) Remember, this is a very popular and very very busy restaurant. Tip the servers well, they are doing the best they can given the incredible amount of people they are serving nonstop for upwards of full shifts.

Note: we ordered too much for two people: one a heavier eater the other a lighter eater. 3 servings of lamb, 2 servings of beef, cabbage, quail eggs, bok choy, cilantro, mini octopus, daikon, potatoes, seaweed knots, fish cake, seaweed, and king oyster mushrooms, fried bread, and thick noodles was way too much for 2 people. Outside of what was specified, everything else...