Pop Pot & Tea (Diamond Bar) 三媽嗅嗅鍋 — Restaurant in Diamond Bar

I am a hot pot lover. I had food here 2 times in pandemic, it was not very tasty or bad but today I came back, food and services were very good. I ordered house special hot pot and stinky tofu Hot pot is in good size, not as small as Boiling points with good portion of topping. The soup very tasty, not too oily is what I like. Stinky tofu: big portion and very good. It was my first time trying stinky tofu and it was not stink as much as I thought, the pickle to eat with the tofu is excellent. Wish that they had sauce to dip the tofu, the soy sauce and chili paste at table is not for dipping stinky tofu. Minus points I gave 4 star because the Napa cabbage in soup looked very very bad, black spots on every piece that make me loose my appetite somehow. Hope the owner or manager remind kitchen to follow food hygiene standard otherwise someone may get sick or poison because eating those bad cabbage. ( picture attached) One more thing is the sauce to dip is just below average, if the restaurant can improve more sauce then it will enhance the hot pot flavor so much. I have to give my compliment for the 2 staffs who working at 7pm and the kitchen people as well. The restaurant is packed, like 100% full but they seat guests and send food to table very smooth, waiting time for food is short like less than 10 minutes. I always wait like more than 1 hour to have sit in Boiling Point Chino Hill and then 20-30m for food there, they have at least 3 staffs per shift but always slow and slow. Here only 2 staffs but they clean table, serve food, attended to all guests needs, issue...

For the longest time I actually avoided this place due to the low rated reviews on Yelp, but finally thought I really had to know of my own accord if it's really as bad as every said it was. We came here for dinner last night and honestly had a great experience.

Their decor was very clean and trendy. I didn't know they also offered private rooms that had games and karaoke (the restaurant can actually get pretty rowdy from the loud music and sometimes drunk patrons). They have plenty of options on their menu, although just unfortunate that their lamb meat option was in a soup that I didn't quite like and every other pot was of pork meat. You can swap to beef meat for $1.00 extra. I ended up going with their House Special "Stinky Pot" (stinky tofu) 臭臭鍋. I'm a pretty avid Boiling Point goer and I have to say, Pop Pot definitely had more food. Their portion felt almost double that of Boiling Point's. There was three VERY large pieces of stinky tofu, a good amount of pork slices, and a bunch of other ingredients like intestine, quail egg, tempura, kamaboko, etc. I almost couldn't finish my food! The flavors were good, it wasn't too salty or anything and loved the variety of ingredients used. The boyfriend also quite enjoyed his Satay Beef pot too.

There was also plenty of workers around that we were always able to get somebody's attention. They also always checked up on us making sure our soups were filled and such. Maybe it was because it wasn't too crazy busy that it was a good time. Hoping for continued good experience...

I always order Taiwanese soup, so here's my comparison between this place, boiling point and Pot on Fire.

Love love love how fresh the ingredients are. The beef is soft and tasty. Sometimes at BP the meat is super chewy. Pot on Fire is great too, but I still get chewy meat.

Both the toppings offered at PP and POF are much more simplified than BP, but soup base is spot on and imo better than BP. BP tends to change their ingredients frequently and after a couple years of being a diehard fan they finally lost my loyalty when they served me what tasted like hot spicy beef water sprinkled with one clam and a half frozen fish ball. Every place has a bad day, but after a slow decline in their quality this was the straw that broke the camel's back. POF has been my go to for hot pot since then and they are great too. But after discovering this place I think I may have to update my list.

Order of restaurants

1. Pop Pot
2. Pot on Fire
3. Del Taco
4. Panda Express
5. Olive Garden
6. Boiling Point

I ordered for take out and their service was quick...