VOLCANO Asian BBQ and Hot Pot — Restaurant in Town of Niskayuna

Ok ok I know I have been slacking with my brunch reviews but I feel like I have covered a good portion of my areas places! Today I offer you another option!!

The daughter, the GP and I kept seeing signs for this place and COULD NOT WAIT for it to open. She has taken me to Musu (to which I was pleased) but something close to home is always a plus. Now I heard people complain about "if I want to cook my food I can do that at home!" Well then this is NOT the place for you!!

I heard they were having a "soft opening", gave them a called and made a reservation for last night. When we got there it is a beautiful spot!! The look, the ambiance, the set up all wonderfully structured. The bar is not open yet and while I do love a good libations or three this was ok with me.

We got seated and the waitress came over. Her name was Apple and she was so pleasant. Since we had been to Korean BBQ before we kind of knew the process. The one thing that stood out was we didn't have to choose between Korean BBQ or hot pot. If u add $5.00 pp to your order YOU CAN HAVE BOTH!! Now the only caveat with this is the table has to choose as a collective. The daughter wanted both but I only wanted the BBQ so we decided to do both to get the whole experience.

Apple took all of our food choice orders for the BBQ first. She let us know all of the sauces were self serve as well as soda. The sauce selection was nice - everything from soy sauce to peanut sauce (my fav) to sesame oil. There was also a nice selection of fruits and kimchi.

The meats and veggies made their way to the table in nice portions and the cooking began!! We went with different cuts of steak, salmon, shrimp, asparagus, pineapple and pork belly. All of the food was fresh, the marinades were delicious and the portions were perfect. The grill was great. Apple put some oil in it and the non stick surface heated up nicely.

After enjoying all of the BBQ items we moved on to the hot pot. I went with a mushroom base, vermicelli, shrimp, crab sticks and spinach. The daughter did the miso base, crab sticks, ramen, broccoli, bok choy and lobster balls. The pots and ingredients were brought out and Apple showed us how to use the temperature controls for the burner. The one thing I love about the menu is there are cook times listed for all of the ingredients.

I however threw caution to the wind and put all my ingredients in the pot together!! So the concept is to cook the items in the broth, take them out and eat. I see pot o' broth and my mind goes to soup!! I ended up turning my pot off and eating it as a soup!! It was so good! I added a bit of soy sauce and garlic as well.

All in all HIGHLY RECOMMEND for something local, delicious food, great experience and service (despite the fact they were very busy). Apple was most helpful and attentive. I got to meet the owner Briana who is absolutely lovely!!

The only caveat IMO is the ordering process. It would be quicker and a bit more efficient if there were ordering tablets at the table as opposed to the wait staff taking the orders. That way the food goes directly to the chefs to prepare and the wait staff can just run it to the tables. Other than that we will definitely be back since we do enjoy the concept and the quality of the foods.

Side note - my pictures are not great due to I was enjoying the...

I called the restaurant earlier to ask what time they close and what time they seat their last table. I was told that they close at 10:00 and stop seating at 9:30. Unfortunately my husband works late and we googled this place because we might have had a chance of getting there before they close and getting food. Because of my husband's work schedule we got there at 9:25 and as soon as we got there the guy at the front was hesitant to seat us because he said the kitchen was closed and I told him that I called prior to coming and I was told that I can be there by 9:30 so he went and checked with the kitchen and came back and said it was fine that he can seat us but he said to order food quickly.

Once we were seated we had a waiter come over to us that also explained that the kitchen was closing and that we had to order food quickly so we felt very rushed from the beginning. I totally understand that the kitchen closed at 10:00 and that we were cutting it close. I really do get we didn't have alot of time to order food, however, because I called prior to inquire about seating and food, they really should have explained over the phone that 9:30 was too late. We don't have experience and have never been to this restaurant so I didn't really understand how it worked. But you are able to order food for 2 hours and we just didn't get that experience that we paid really good money for because the three of us (my husband and 7 year old daughter) all got the hot pot AND barbecue. For dessert we could only get ice cream and one round of food ordering for $150.

So we paid full price to have 15 minutes to order all the food we wanted, and felt rushed. If they would have explained over the phone that 9:30 would have been too late to be seated then we would have never have came that night for dinner and spent the money we did.

Again I understand that we were coming close to closing but because of the style dining, they should have last seating 2 hours prior to the kitchen closing so that people actually get what they pay for and enjoy the experience. At the very least they could have offered a discount or something since they really didn't want to seat us. The people were friendly otherwise and the food was...

Last night my husband and I decided to eat at volcano Asian BBQ and Hot pot for dinner this was our second time here the first time we were here was during grand opening so it's been awhile since we came back so now that we have came back the second time our second experience was even better than our first experience mind you the first experience was great but this time was even better we ordered Asian BBQ and we ordered the hot pot everything was delicious and we definitely left the restaurant super full mind you the service was great we ordered our food on the tablet and they came out with our food so quickly great service our server Cynthia she was so welcoming and explained the directions so perfectly on how to use the tablet and where everything is she was great love her energy also we had another server Paola she was phenomenal as well she made me bahama mama drink and it was perfect so perfect I had to have another one she can make some good drinks she has great energy as well we are definitely coming back again just because of those two servers made our night a good night when we come back we definitely want Cynthia and Paola as our servers . The food was phenomenal we had short ribs we had shrimp, lamb , ribye steak , the short ribs and ribye steaks on the grill were my favorite and we had mushrooms we had fried rice and the fried rice was very good . I'm not a soup person but I had soup anyways and the soup was actually really good here we had mi su soup hopefully I spelt that correctly but yes I recommend if you come here that you ask for Cynthia and Paola and you get the Asian BBQ and the mi su soup . It's really a great price for all you can eat ....