Kungfu Hotpot — Restaurant in Philadelphia

We went on Sunday around 2 PM for a party of 2 people. There were at least 8 other parties seated when we arrived but definitely not rush hour/dinner-time busy. It took some waiting around before we were seated as there was no one at the front/reception area and there seemed to be only 1-2 waiters working. We did not have any troubles finding the restaurant. The entrance is down Cherry St, just past the grocery market. You have to take the elevator up to the 3rd floor.

We got the double pot with Extra Spicy and non-spicy Beef Bone Broth. The non-spicy/regular Beef Bone Broth was good but did seem a little diluted. It has ginger slices in it, so do be diligent if you’re not fond of eating raw ginger. Both broths are refilled with the non-spicy beef broth base.

You get a selection of specialty items when you first sit down, which includes dishes such as Wagyu, oysters, and clams. We were able to select 4 dishes and decided on getting 4 orders of the Wagyu. Not sure if the number of specialty dishes changes per party size, maybe 2 special dishes per person? In any case, the Wagyu was good but definitely not the best quality (compared to the Wagyu from Chubby Cattle). It was good but didn’t “melt in your mouth” as anticipated, which is fine considering it’s AYCE and not a Wagyu-themed hotpot restaurant like Chubby Cattle. The Wagyu was more tender than the AYCE beef belly slices and was a good choice to try. You also get an iPad to order the AYCE meat, which includes beef belly, pork belly, and a few other options.

There is a little area to grab appetizers, vegetables, and other hotpot items. I couldn’t help but feel like the food wasn’t as fresh as it could be. Or maybe it just felt left out, though still perfectly edible. For example, the fried chicken appetizers appeared old and soggy, though not sure how it actually tasted since I opted to not get it. The fried tofu skin were also a little damp. Everything was edible though and tasted fine after cooking in the broth.

There is a whole fridge of drinks to select from, all of which are included in the hotpot price and is unlimited. Just be wary about some of the drinks since we noticed a few had expired dates (for reference we ate here in March 2025). I think more popular drinks, like the aloe, won’t be a problem with their expiration dates. It’s not really a health hazard to drink unopened bottled drinks, but it’s always a bit of a turn off and makes you wonder what else is being left around or unchecked.

Overall, this hotpot restaurant was a good experience but easily forgettable for me—a one and done-type of experience. The broth, meat, and available food selections were good, but not as high quality to me as Feng Hotpot’s soup broth or Chubby Cattle’s Wagyu.

I do think Kungfu Hotpot is one of the better AYCE hotpot restaurants in the area and the price ($40 pp) is well justified for what it offers/AYCE. However, seeing expired drinks and unappetizing appetizers makes me wonder about the...

It was me and 2 of my friends ( we’re black btw ) that decided to try this place vs nine ting. We went in got seated and everything was good. The first waitress we had was nice and explained everything to us. Later when we got our food we couldn’t tell which of the meat was pork (one of us was Muslim) so we asked two people and one said there was pork at the table and someone else said we didn’t have pork at our table ( so we really hope it doesn’t).

We kept needing stuff cause we couldn’t find it and there was an older lady with glasses who was around us the most so we kept asking her. At some point you can tell she was getting annoyed with us for calling her over but she was all smiles at other table with people who look like her and when she turned to ‘help’ us it was like she was annoyed.

So we finally eat our food and two of us go to the bathroom they bring the bill saying we can pay up front and we say we’re gonna split it but they said they can only do it 2 ways. (Mind you there’s a party of 7 behind us with all separated checks.) an older man with glasses before he goes to split it says if we can give him our cards. So we’re confused cause before we could pay upfront and now we have to give him our cards. So to save the trouble we just give it to him. We were one of the few tables left and no one has given any staff their cards or was asked. So we won’t be back which is unfortunate cause the food was really good but it’s not worth the...

(Please don’t let my one star deter you. I only put one star because we didn’t get a chance to eat, but wanted to share my experience. Please read and you’ll understand. I’m sure it will change when I do.)

So, I decided to take my son and granddaughter out to dinner. I spent several days looking for a hotpot spot that had good reviews. I settled on Kungfu Hotpot. I was looking forward to eating here based on the nice reviews it received. Seemed like they had a pretty good selection of food, too. We were watching as they brought food out while we were waiting and it all looked fresh and delicious. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the chance to eat because it was really crowded. I got there at 5:30 pm and the guy behind the counter said it was a half an hour wait. I put my name down on the Waitlist iPad that they have sitting on the stand. Soon after, I got a text saying we would be seated between 5:57 pm and 6:12 pm. I thought to myself, “That’s not a bad wait”. Around 5:55 pm I clicked the link on the text that they send you that takes you to Yelp and I noticed that our wait time had jumped to 6:46 pm to 7:30 pm. At that point I decided to find somewhere else to go and eat. We all settled on Cubby Cattle ( I’ll put up a review of them in a few) around the corner. There was no wait and the food was very good. So maybe I’ll try again sometime in the future. Maybe get there when...