Qiao Lin Hotpot - Chicago Downtown — Restaurant in Chicago

Get the lamb extra for your hot pot. Promise you wont regret it. Restaurant week $30 lunchis the way to go if you want to try Qiao Lin as you get a variety of meat (chicken breast, beef short rib, pork meatball, white fish) and veg (bok choy, black fungus, enoki, broccoli) plus noodles and 2 pork dumplings-- all of which are ala carte at other times. Choice of 1, 2 or 3 broths for the table is included as well as the appetizer/soup/condiment bar, which is normally $2.99 a person. The best and most traditional hot pot item isn't part of the prix fix - the lamb (which was the only meat my Chinese friends ordered for us at a hot pot place in Beijing they frequent). Lots of Asians presumably Chinese were dining which is always a good sign. The 3 of us were happy to add lamb for $14.99 and there wasn't a Chinese dining group in the house without lamb on their table. Everything was excellent except the chicken had an odd texture - likely long marinated in mirin rice wine - and the white fish did not appeal to me. The traditional broth is the spicy chili and we all agreed that was the best out of spicy, golden chicken, or Thai Tom Yum. I like spicy; we chose medium heat and it wasn't that hot at all (I'll order hot next time) We had so many mushrooms left that I took home and made 3 servings of hot and sour soup with them (and other ingredients). Overall one of my best resto week experiences for food abundance (you really need to be hungry), great service, value and a nicely bright and new well designed space. If you run hot ask to be seated in the back - much colder but still a lot of daylight windows. Some room for improvement: the menu text in English is printed (or pdfd online) in seriously tiny and unreadable 3pt font. An accessible version would do wonders. And the condiment bar could use some spicy mustard and hoisin sauces, tho the tahini-like sesame paste was good with the lamb. A slotted or mesh spoon to fish out cooked meat would be good along with the solid ladles and probably less messy. If you like chicken feet don't skip the condiment bar, which also offered small squares of light passionfruit layered pastry as dessert. You can take leftover broth home so if you avoid boiling hot liquids in plastic bring your own thermos...

I was really looking forward to eating here, but as other reviews have mentioned, this establishment may not be worth your money. The wait time was to be expected, so I had no issues with that, but the customer experience was very disappointing. My party was sat at a table directly next to the extremely loud kitchen, completely drowning out our conversations and making it impossible to relax. Not sure why a table is placed there at all, as trying to get up at anytime will inevitably block servers and customers from getting through the thin walkway. Our server started off pleasant and helpful, though the atmosphere soured quickly. Around 10pm, she informed us the kitchen will be closing and to make any final decisions. About 5min after, we asked if it was too late to order a soda, to which the server replied, “It’s fine, I’ll just grab it” with visible stress and no eye contact. She was still in the process of taking final orders for other tables, so I don’t see what we did wrong here. This may be a misunderstanding, but most other restaurants are referring solely to food items that need to be prepared when they say, “the kitchen is closing.” This was meant to be a pleasant first experience for my party, and we have all worked or are currently in the service industry, so we have an empathetic understanding of being stressed at your job. However, for an establishment that has proudly invested over 3.5 million dollars into their experience, we would have rather appreciated the server politely informing us that no, we cannot order another soda, instead of treating customers as being an inconvenience. Also, I wish there was a bit more consciousness when claiming to welcome a ‘diverse customer base’. I am a man who dresses masculine, and I was called a lady. (I am used to it, but 3 times from the same employee after uncomfortable stunned silence from the whole table, felt excessive). The food was decent, but I cannot say I enjoyed it with the...

The first thing you notice when you're on the way to get seated is how big the restaurant is -- our server kept walking us down hallways, turning corners, passing so many other diners on the way to our table. We stopped by for an early Sat dinner (around 5:30 with a res) and were able to get seated roughly immediately, and the place really filled up while we were there!

One of the highlights was the ridiculously expansive sauce bar selections. Other than the typical set of hot pot sauces and condiments, they also offered pickled radish, mung bean soup, bing fen 冰粉, a variety of fruits and candies, chicken nuggets/fries, and countless others that I'm surely forgetting. Honestly feels like that could just be the whole meal haha

Overall, our meal was delicious and filling -- portion sizes were very big for the prices, and we definitely ordered too much (!) Some highlights:

-- The chicken broth was amazing -- really rich and aromatic flavour without being too heavy. The mala broth was really spicy but a bit too oily; it kind of weighed everything down a bit. (And we even ordered the lowest level of spicy!)

-- The 1 meter sliced beef is a must-try. Other than the creative presentation on a Looong Plate, the meat was tender and juicy (and esp cooked in the chicken broth, just so flavourful).

-- I quite liked the knife-cut noodles. Thick and chewy in the perfect way, it was a great neutral palate "cleanser" at the end of the meal.

-- The various veggies we ordered (cabbage, potato, radish, etc.) were all very fresh and tasty, but nothing particular to note otherwise.

Price point was fantastic -- it came out to around $30-something a piece for such a yummy meal (and we were absolutely stuffed afterwards). Apparently they also have some sort of membership program that gets even further discounts, too.

Will definitely plan to come back next time (and on an emptier...