Saigon Hot Pot — Restaurant in North Kingstown

The restaurant recently opened and has some growing pains and is missing a few items. First off the name Saigon has me thinking Vietnamese but the menu is mostly a Korean theme. I don't get using a Vietnamese City in the name of a Korean style restaurant. I did not like the way the appetizer and sauces are presented. They are sitting out, nothing is hot or cold. The appetizer station is not hygienic at all and I can't see how anything even remotely close to proper temperatures either hot or cold are being maintained for items containing meat & seafood. The sauces are in open containers on a flat counter with no protection from anything that falls from the counter or anyone leaning, breathing/sneezing over the sauce containers, totally gross IMO. Also it's a KOREAN BBQ style restaurant but there is no kimchi or other pickled Korean style vegetables in the appetizer area. This was bizarre.

Waiter was pleasant but busy, didn't do a very good job of giving us the opportunity to order beer/ wine etc. Eventually he did mention drinks but by then we had already started eating. The ordering system is confusing and not at all explained on the menu. I can see the motivation behind having to order limited items as an attempt to prevent wasted food but it's an awkward way to order and the menu doesn't have any information/notes/instructions regarding the ordering requirements.

Now the good. The tables are high tech with induction heating for the hot pots and an induction table top grill. The hot pots work amazingly well and the grill, while a little slow eventually gets the job done with even, smokeless heat. Everything that was brought to us, meat, seafood & vegetables were of good quality and appeared to be fresh. Once we got the ordering and the induction cooking devices dialed in the food was good.

I think it's a coin flip if this place will survive. The food is actually good, the prices are fair but it's disorganized and clunkily run. Yes, some of this can be attributed to just opening but I think there are actual systems in how the place is being run that need to change for it to be successful. We were there on Labor Day at dinner time and the place was less then 25% occupied and service was still slow. On a busy night, I am inclined to believe the place would be totally slammed and not able to function.

Would I go back?

Most likely but that appetizer/ sauce station needs to be changed ASAP. I also think the ordering system is a problem and the 5% charge for using a credit card is just going to impact tips for the staff. I had cash and tipped at 22% but if I hadn't had cash and when the waiter handed me the check and said that there was a 5% up charge for paying with a CC, I would have tipped 17%.

There should be visible sign in the restaurant that says " 5% DISCOUNT if paying with cash" but to automatically tack on a 5% service fee on the check that assumes credit card payment is IMO not acceptable and it irritated me. I hope they are successful because the food overall was ok and the prices are a decent value but the place needs to make some adjustments and if it doesn't, I will be surprised if a year from now it's...

We came on the opening day and clearly they have major kinks that they need to work out. However, the food quality was good and we will be coming back again.

Good: Classic, authentic hotpot experience. Hotpot (and korean bbq) is a restaurant experience where you order raw meat/veggies and cook it yourself. With different broths to choose from for cooking your meat and the selection of meats, veggies and starch, and creating custom sauces to dip cooked meat into you can order exactly what you want to have the best personalized experience. There selection was very good and the quality was good, but sadly they were out of enoki mushrooms! Here they have individual hotpots for each person so everyone can get their own desired broth flavor! They also have KBBQ but we did not try it.

Need for improvement: No where does it say there is a 2 hour time limit (which is standard for all you can eat I will admit). No where does it really explain what hotpot is. Especially some of the servers were unsure of how to explain what it is. Train your servers so they can properly help people understand what hotpot is. The ordering system needs work. Nowhere does it say only two meats per person per order. What is the point of ordering per person if it all gets brought out at once with no indication of who's meat is who's. Mabey ordering general for the table or paper menus to fill out will expedite the process. The sauce station has a good selection but is in the middle of a walkway which is very busy and not ideal. Clearly the kitchen was not ready to handle the volume of customers. Do not seat people if you can not provide handle the volume. Precut more meat/veggies to allow for quicker delivery to waiting customers. There was not drink menu besides a list of alcoholic mixed drinks and how can an Asian restaurant with tea cups not have hot tea? With the size of the tea cups, there needs to be a pitcher of water per table!

Overall, if you go at a less busy time, you will get your food and have a good experience. But if you can't get your food to cook, what is the point of...

A new cuisine for us, so it was a learning experience. We just did the hot pot, not the bbq too. We were there for lunch, so we could not order some of the items, they were for dinner only. That was a disappointment. The miso broth was very good. The broth boiled down, and was replaced by the staff with a clear broth that was too salty. The waiter said it was the base broth for all of them, but the miso was not that salty. Most of the add ons we liked, even though the meats were not very lean. A couple of choices that we made, not so good. The fish ball and the lobster ball. Not for our palate, but our fault for ordering something we had no knowledge of. The taste was way too fishy for us. They don't include knives in their setups, which we really needed. The appetizer bar left a lot to be desired. The only two familiar items, to us, were the chicken wings and onion rings. The chicken wings were very small and greasy. We didn't have the onion rings. The rest of the items did not look that appetizing. The wait staff were very pleasant and helpful. Also my husband did not like the idea of cooking his own food. So lesson learned, not one that we are...