Bruin Bowl Malatang — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Once you get past the intimidation factor, this place is actually very good.

This place is the right way to do a hot pot spot. There are a lot of toppings but you don’t have to worry about not cooking it properly because they do it for you! On the toppings though, I will say that they need to do a better job labeling them. Half the labels were worn away so I had no clue what I was eating — tasted good though.

Also, it works the same as those build your own yogurt places where they charge you by the pound. You gotta play it conservatively unless you wanna spend an unbelievable amount of money that you did not want or plan on spending. Things like corn come at a huge cost while you can load up on the sliced beef for relatively low cost.

The broth options are great! I got the beef bone broth at the second highest spice level and it was genuinely packing some serious heat — I also loaded it up with chili crisp.

As for the final bowl itself, it was very flavorful, the random toppings all fill out the taste and textures surprisingly well and it was kind of fun to eat.

Bruin Bowl Malatang is literally as good as you make it so if you make it well, you will absolutely...

No mala flavor! Beef soup at milf spice was spicy enough, but it has no mala flavor at all. No spices, no numbing feeling. It's just regular chili oil that they use. Maybe one has to get super hot for the mala to be added? This point was a huge disappointment.

Not much variety of items, not even the cheap stuff like vegetables. The chicken and fish maw soup must have had an entire cup of oil in it, I had a greasy throat feeling for hours afterwards. Plus, both the beef and chicken soups are entirely msg soup bases. Don't expect real fresh soup.

They should use ceramic bowls and metal utensils and not plastic for boiling hot soup - toxic.

If they tried a bit harder, they could have a nice little shop with a streM of customers. As it is, feels like they're dialing it in, just to take advantage of the current malatang trend. Not much pride in ownership or long term ambitions is reflected...

This place should be negative stars, here are the whys. 1. Low-grade food / high price, and kinda hides price behind wall. You are better off getting frozen processed meatballs fishballs and instant noodles from 99 ranch nearby, and making the soup yourself. The labels are not clear either. 2. Mixed and shared tong space for veggies and meats. This is really concerning for my vegetarian friend. This is not the advertised vegetarian friendly place. 3. Game the review system with free drinks. It is not a 4.8 star restaurant. 4. Shamelessly asking for tip in the payment screen while mostly self service. 5. Inconsistent bowl sizes. Some reviewers complained about this as well. Save yourself money and time. Avoid this place unless you wanna pay 10x for instant noodle soup. Also shadow banned. Hope others can...