Tasty Pot — Restaurant in San Diego

Came here with a group of 4 on Christmas day. Surprisingly there was quite a bit of people but we did not have to wait for a table. This place gets super busy as this was my second time coming here.

I've tried their lamb and beef hot soups (mild for both). In the lamb soup, the only ingredient I didn't like was the pork blood rice cake. Fairly tasteless and really had no place in the dish in my opinion. It was basically a "garnish". Next time I'm going to try to substitute it for something else (eg fishcake). I hope it's doable.

From the beef hot soup. For some reason the corn wasn't good. Probably because it wasn't fresh. I am a huge fan of corn but it didn't do well in the dish I had. Everything else was great.

In terms of spiciness level, mild was perfect for me. Just added another dimension of flavor profile to the dish without overwhelming it. I think any higher degree of spiciness, it wouldn't be as tasteful.

The dish is on a box with the fire gel in the center. The fire gel in the center is completely enclosed so you can't get access to it. Other restaurants have it accessible so you can turn off the flame yourself. I suspect something happened so they probably changed it to this kind of setup.

In terms of service, if they get busy then you won't exactly get the best service. They do make a good attempt at keeping all the water levels up. All the staff members are friendly and they try their best to attend to everyone's needs.

I've also tried their rose matcha latte. I thought it was good. Not overly sweet. I would prefer the red bean matcha latte from Happy Lemon. Red bean appears to be better cooked and stronger tea flavor.

They accept amex. Free parking is not an issue.

Overall I highly recommend this place. I plan to try other individual hot pot places but as for now, this...

The food tasted great (4 stars) I mostly just didn't care as much for the service, noise, price, or restaurant atmosphere.

I could be wrong about the quality of the food and the price since I don't frequent this style of restaurant, so my assessment is based comparisons to restaurants I visit more often such as Cantina Mayahuel, Soda and Swine, Starlight, or Great Maple. At $19+ for a dumpling bowl I could only finish about half of and a green tea, this was an expensive meal.

I think the service could be better than my experience suggests since they were very nice once I had their attention. The problem then was the general din that was ever present and lead to at least one "what did you say" in every attempted communication. There was at least one exchange that left me wondering what I was and had just responded to. Blurting out words as a response to questions I still do not know. It was livelly though and I bet younger people and families might get bye just fine.

The look is also pretty good, though the floor plan left me feeling like I was close enough to be eating dinner with two other groups. Not terrible but not great.

One big mark in its favor is it is much better than many/most of the other...

We had an excellent dinner even when we arrived fairly late (and ended up leaving about 30 mins after the closing time, but with no pressure to leave from staff who even offered more tea and broth). It's great that we could each have our own choice of soup/base, because each of the 3 of us had a very different choice. Servings are huge and very generous with meat and vegetables, not just noodles.

Shout out to James who really made it a great experience, because it was our first time in a "hot pot" and we frankly didn't know what we were doing when ordering. He very patiently and in a very friendly way explained several styles with exactly what to expect, gave us great recommendations, even made sure we weren't ordering "add ons" that we really didn't need because they were already included. Perfect suggestions on how to mix the 3 different sauces too.

My wife and daughter also enjoyed their teas (I just had water, didn't check if they served beer). We definitely plan to come back when we visit the area again, but it really made a HUGE difference to have someone with all the experience helping us pick the best dish for each one of us, so thank you...