Hot Pot 608 — Restaurant in Madison

Our group of five tried Hot Pot 608 on University Avenue last night. I always love a good hot pot and Hot Pot 608 did not let me down.

We were greeted immediately and led to our table. Our waiter came by and learned that we had not been to this hot pot, so he walked us through the process. Like other hot pots I have been to, they have a sauce station with various ingredients and directions for making a number of sauces and you pick your broth(s) in advance, and they bring it to your table. You can have two separate broths in each pot using a divider. But this was different in that this is an All You Can Eat (AYCE) Hot Pot. Other Hot Pots also have options for AYCE noodles and maybe potato or sweet potato, but this was AYCE for everything including appetizers, vegetables, seafood, and meats. It was $35 per person which seemed high at first but once you realize how much food you can get it is well worth it.

We started by ordering some appetizers. Honestly, I probably could have made a meal just w/those. We tried pot-stickers, pork egg rolls, fried chicken teriyaki, and shrimp dumplings. I wasn't' a huge fan of the egg rolls, they coating was pretty dense, but everything else was great. When I go back, I'd like to try the pork buns.

We ordered our first set of meats as well as rice which they bring to you and then headed up to the refrigerators where they keep the vegetables, additional meats, seafood and noodles. I won't list all of the options, check out their menu, but suffice it to say it was truly impressive. I was really pleased w/the quality of the food including the seafood like squid, shrimp and fish balls. I also loved the variety of vegetables including lotus root, black fungus, enoki and king oyster mushrooms, Bok-choy, napa, and broccoli. It's a fun dining experience to cook your food in the broth. My favorite was the spicy marrow.

We ordered more appetizers and more rice. There are some options for dessert but other than the custard bun I didn't try any. Honestly there were so many options to choose from, but I was so full by the time I left that I didn't try even a quarter of the different items.

I would definitely go back to Hot Pot 608. A fun, tasty, and filling...

My husband and I used to eat dinner here at least twice a week. We enjoyed the quality of the food, and everything was fresh. However, since their recent reopening, the quality of the food has significantly gone downhill. All of the ingredients are laid out in a buffet style, and they only have a limited number of tongs for a variety of ingredients. Having a limited number of tongs for a large number of ingredients is a disaster for cross-contamination.

The appetizers also tasted like they had been sitting out for hours; they were not fresh at all. In addition, they tasted like they had been fried multiple times throughout the day. The broth was also extremely salty; I even had to ask for some water to dilute the saltiness.

We were also served drinks in a cup that only had one piece of ice in it, which didn't make a difference to our room-temperature drinks. The soda my husband was served had no fizz whatsoever and tasted like watered-down Diet Coke. I'm not sure why they got rid of their fridges; their ingredients were way fresher before.

I hope they will bring their old restaurant model back because this is not it. If I could rate this a ZERO, I would! This was an awful experience. To be honest, I don't think I will ever go back there again. For those looking for some good AYCE hotpot, I recommend Gobi Hotpot & Mongolian Grill, Korill Grill, or...

I went there today, I brought my friends from out of town and let me say I am disappointed... All of my friends like hotpot and all you can eat, they wanted the all you can eat meat hot pot, firstly the service took forever to even get the broth for the hotpot, next the "spicy" hot pot had 12 chili peppers making it inedible for someone who doesn't eat jalapenos for fun. the hotpot was "all you can eat" yet the server only came 2 times. but that was the least of our problems. One of my friends is Muslim observed Halal food standards and they used the same ladle and same tongs in the "all you can eat" (none of the appetizers and half of the cold ingredients weren't there) buffet which had poor sanitization and limited availability. There is one hot pot per table. I called the server twice for the check and they came for the third time... On top of all of this, there was I KID YOU NOT, softcore pornography on the TV... I do not know what show they were displaying, but with the minimal amount of care they could have prevented this. NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY. Above all, the service was terrible, food was SO BAD, I paid 36 dollars for ONE PERSON all you can eat hotpot with my friends and was let down and probably got some food borne illness... Will not be coming back... I'm not coming back I have...