Hou Yi Hot Pot — Restaurant in New York

Hou Yi Hot Pot, Chinatown NYC The last place who accepted us after being rejected from most of places because they were full until pass dinner time. It’s AYCE hotpot around $40 tax and tips excluded must be dine-in in 100 minutes. The price kinda pricey for a seating setup like that, but the food are really good!

👍- The outdoors seating booth pretty convenient, cool but not cold due to heater setup. The service was good, super everything from fast service to friendly service, if you need anything you just have to keep waving until they saw you. 2 soup broth base per pot, the pot is enough for 3-4 person. Broth selections has so many confusing options, but they will suggest the best one or the popular one if you’re confused. Make sure you know your spicy level, the mild spicy is already spicy for me who eat habaneros pickles. super wide varieties of meat, pork beef chicken fish shrimp scallop sauce bar selection has outstanding option you’re free to mix and match. most cans drinks in fridge are included in AYCE except alcohol, but unopened drinks may costly if you accidentally bring them home. has wide ice cream selections, it’s included in AYCE and you can take it home, some of these are soft ice creams.

👎- the meat selections are wide, and when you order too many of them, you’ll get confused which cut are they. I would stick to just one or two type of meat next time, to be safe. they added hot water to the soup broth if you asked for broth refills, that kills the original broth taste. only 1 restroom available when we’re there, the queuing made you losing the 100minutes for the food even faster.

💡 - if you’re choosing the non spicy, make sure the other is non spicy too, in case the taste got transfer and the whole pot turn into spicy. call ahead prior dining in or make an appointment if coming with large group so your table is ready. #houyihotpot #chinatownmanhattan...

Excellent hot pot, great service (thank you Sandy!), and comfortable setting. Love this place, go when you are hungry ($40+ pp all you can eat in 100 minutes). On a cold and rainy day, go early, otherwise, be prepare to wait.

We went at about 6pm on a rainy Saturday, it was quite busy but we only had to wait about 15 minutes. But afterwards, I think people had to wait quite a long time.

We were quite happy with the very extensive selections of spicy and non-spicy soup base. We tried a beef based and a vegetarian based, both were very good.

There is also a large selection of meat, tofu, balls, vegetables. Try a bit of many things and they are very prompt in getting seconds and adding soup when we needed.

Alcohol drinks are extra, but all the soft drinks and ice creams (!) are part of the deal, including coconut drinks, lychee drinks, and yogurt juices! There are also many different flavors of ice creams after you are fully satisfied from the hot pot, so be sure to save just a little bit of room.

Excellent Service: several servers were all pretty friendly, our waitress Sandy was particularly warm and helpful. She offered us to the drinks while we were waiting for our table, and she was prompt, courteous, and patient during our meal. I know the servers are pretty busy and stressed in these types of busy hot pot places, so I think it’s worth noting.

The other thing about the service was: I think they set up their processes very well. As we walked in, we can see all the vegetables were organized neatly in the front, so when they get our orders, they can quickly get everything for us in a few minutes.

Tips: the shrimp pastes were pretty special, you can put it in with the tofu dishes as soon as they start heating the soups. They should be ready once the soup boils.

Restroom: just one unisex room, they kept it...

really enjoyable ayce selection of meats, seafood, vegs, fungi, sauces, and garnishing clean restroom, chill interior design, and cute outdoor seating with closed off wooden shacks and space heaters surprisingly high quality salmon

distinguishing factors: ++++unlimited drinks, ice cream (also free to take togo), wide variety of broths for hotpot base

weekday/weekend pricing mon-thurs $39.95 fri-sun $41.95

crabs out of stock, shrimps tasted frozen/low quality

if you change your broth base after they serve to you, you will be charged $20

was a bit disappointed with the broths we got, but to be charitable, idt our choices can reasonably be considered representative of their lineup. still wouldve left this place an easy 4 stars if not for my experience with the staff. many of them seemed nice but our server always had an attitude and asked for more tips when i already left a $9 tip on an order for two people ($91), where we didnt even eat much. additionally, they were really slow with bringing our requested items, brought much less than our requested quantities, and sometimes didnt even bring them at all. when time was up (1.5h), she rudely came over to shut off the hotpot while i was clearly still heating up some of the leftover uncooked food. the entire exp it felt like staff was watching you.

would recommend sitting outside or inside the shacks to avoid this surveillance feeling, but might even just go somewhere else altogether...