The Bronze Empire — Restaurant in Denver

Travelled hours here to excellent ratings on Google maps and also recommendation from xhs. Had very high expectation upon coming in, but left with unpleasantness, unhappiness, frustration and disappointment. Felt super disrespected and even unwelcomed while dining here.

Prepared to spend a ton because I really wanted to enjoy this fancy meal. I thought, high price must equal extraordinary quality and service. However, the dishes came in with multiple issues besides small portions and overprice.

First of all, the napa cabbage in the veggie combo, was very bitter. I informed my server, and she gave me a new complete combo. I already started eating other dishes while waiting for the new veggie combo. The pot was small, I had to finish one thing before cooking others. While I was trying to enjoy the tofu combo, I was surprised to see that there were multiple mold spots on the fried tofu (see pic). I immediately felt sick about that, and asked a nearby server to see it. She offered to take this off from my bill. Since I already put some tofu combo in my broth, and did not feel safe to continue eating the broth because I was not sure whether the ones in my broth were completely free of mold or not, this server offered to change my broth and replace the items I had in the broth. I assumed that they understood the fact of this being a severe food safety concern and could lead to serious food poisoning caused by pathogenic bacterium. Till this moment, my experience has already started to go downhill but I appreciate their willingness to try to make it right.

I was kind of full before I was able to finish my food, given multiple interruptions to my meal enjoyment time, I asked to get to go boxes so that I could get the stuff in my broth out and then cook the new veggie combo that I didn't get to try yet. My server then came to give me some to go boxes and threw me the bill at the same time. Obviously I was asked to pay while I was only halfway done. Before I even reacted, she said she would come back again. I continued to eat my broth, when she came back trying to collect the folder, I literally had to tell her that I was still eating with a mouthful of food. I cooked the veggie combo. If the napa cabbage turned out fine after one bite, I would take it with me and eat it later. The thing was, the new napa cabbage remained to be very, very, very bitter. Felling bad, I still had to ask the server again, requesting the back of house staff to try them by themselves. She started to express unhappiness in her face, but had to take it back to the kitchen. After a couple minutes, she came out to (the manager?) at the reception desk, showing her anger, full of attitudes. She even started to show (the manager?) how she could directly eat the raw napa cabbage without tasting the bitterness. I was speechless after witnessing this. Then she came back to me, saying that they, and chefs all tried it and nobody but me tasted the bitterness that I described and they cannot find a napa cabbage that was "not bitter" but it wouldn't matter because they would cancel this item from the bill. The message I received from this was, she lost patience serving me, and she thought I was trying to trouble them because I didn't want to pay for what I've ordered. She didn't even bother to further explain, basically telling me with her behavior that, "if all you want is to pay less, here you go". I felt extremely disrespected by that. While I was trying tl finishing eating what was in my bowl, my server came back 23 more times trying to collect the plates and rush me out. She literally started to clean the table while I was still trying to calculate a reasonable tip to write down with my pen tip on the receipt (ended up giving 15% out of appreciation to their initial good responses to my concerns). But, I felt so so so annoyed by this. Basically she was saying "leave now" by saying "see you next time" 3 times while I was not done eating yet. The worst thing was, 10 minutes later, I had to go to the bathroom upon leaving the...

Saw this place now offered ayce hot pot and decided to give it a try. Had the option to make a reservation for 7:45 pm for a party of three about 20 minutes before making it to the restaurant. Made the reservation and still had to wait for the people that were there waiting to be seated before we did. The guy (host) who checked us in tried coming up with some excuse about our reservation but it just felt like it was ignored. He confirmed he had our reservation and essentially said we should had made a reservation for later and that the wait time would be another 15 minutes. As a business, if they cannot honor their online reservation services they should not offer it OR extend reservation wait times.

He was very unapologetic and kept telling us that it wasn’t the restaurants fault our reservation was not ready, definitely did not appreciate him belittling us and we still decided to wait. 10 minutes later, more or less, we were finally seated. However he did not speak with us, he whistled and gestured us to follow him without a single word spoken.

First time impressions and experience were already ruined at that point as first timers to this restaurant. It took another 20-30 minutes to finally get some of the food we ordered. Food rollout was slow, could have been because they were short on staff. Placing additional orders of anything was definitely difficult and would take a good 20 minutes to arrive after ordering. Was not even 9:00 PM and they ran out of rice cakes AND rice. Our waitress told us to make sure the hotplate was on the highest setting so the food can cook. This was not our first time at hot pot but we quickly realized why she had told us to keep it on high. The broth took a good 45 minutes for it to come to a boil. Which was not a big deal since getting the food was taking a while.

Honestly the food was good. Their offerings were great and skewers had a unique taste. The lamb skewer was delicious! Unfortunately, the service and overall experience ruined the chances of returning or even recommending this place to someone. Hospitality or friendliness were definitely not a part...

My sister and I visited this awesome restaurant yesterday from a glowing recommendation from a friend and his wife whom I hadn't seen in 10 years. They told me where it was and my sister (who was on a 12 hr United FA layover in Denver) and I drove straight over. I barely see her once a year and she loves going to hotpot when she lands, so we went there with nothing but the quick recommendation and high hopes.

It did NOT disappoint.

Upon arrival, we were met with the warmest greeting a cool fall evening could muster and we were happy 😊 and were told about the new all you can eat set pricing change from the old à la carte menu.

We were attended to by Kelly, who wa a si sweet and helped us with everything. She was knowledgeable about the menu. She answered all of our questions with ease.

We ordered the lamb skewers and hot Jasmine Tea. Both were delicious. We enjoyed the skewers so much we ordered more throughout our meal.

I ordered the butter broth and she ordered the original broth. Mine was extra spicy and gave major flavors of butter, Sichuan peppers, pork bone broth, and garlic.... perfect! She didn't want a spicy broth but kept taking ladles of my soup to add to hers she loved it so much!

We also ordered the ribeye, lamb, shrimp, fish balls, beef meatballs, bok chit, corn enoki, king oyster, black fungus, rice cakes, sweet potato noodles, and dumpling. They were served in smaller portions than other hotpot places I've been to but it's not a negative. In fact, I loved it. Serving the items this way means less waste and you can always order more.

It was busy during the time we went but we were not left feeling wanting. Although Kelly was our server, there were others who came by to inquire about our enjoyment and if we needed anything. The owner graced us with huge smiles and made us laugh! We really enjoyed him!

Thank you for making our first experience so enjoyable, Bronze Empire! We will definitely be back and are telling everyone about this amazing establishment.

Keep up the...