Hot Pot City — Restaurant in Westminster

First and foremost: Not AYCE, all dishes are charged a la cart based on whether it's a side, veggie, or meat dish. With that knowledge ahead of time, based on reviews and the cool concept of a hot pot and a grill on the same stove, I was very excited to try this place out. Even took my mother here to try it with me. We left after dinner with the same impression: Worth trying once, but we're probably not repeating.

Pros: The hotpot/grill concept was fun! Nothing like being able to dip or grill up a delicious piece of meat at your whim! Grilled mushrooms too! The prepped fridge concept made my inner bbq/hot pot chef absolutely delighted. I wish I can have a fridge full of prepped meats and veggies like that at home to just start grabbing from! Wide selection of veggies. Freshness and cleanliness of the veggies and meats. Service was friendly from the family that owns and runs the restaurant.

Cons: Meat selection sub par compared to other bbq places in the area. Sauce station seems disorganized and messy with a lot of bottles. A conventional scoop bin format with sauce dishes or pre-packed containers might help. Price. The biggest issue here honestly. We ended up paying $80 each for dinner and 2 teas. My mother does not eat too much either; if I brought one of the 'bros', we would run the bill up much higher. Part of that price issue was that they charged for the noodles! I wanted to try the 4 different types of noodles and ended up paying for each. With top notch Ayce places less than 10 minutes away at $30-$35, I can't justify coming back here knowing that on a hungry day, I can rack up more than a $50 bill myself.

If you want more control over your hotpot/bbq ingredients and maybe want to do both at once, and you have a smaller appetite, Hot Pot City is definitely worth a try. Otherwise, lots of great AYCE or premium a la cart hot pot/bbq options...

Let's start with the good stuff first. There is a variety of meats here.

There are lots various meats from beef, venison, pork, fish balls, and imitation crab meat. Veggies ranging from american broccoli, napa cabbage, mushrooms, spinach, eggplant, baby corn and other different greens to choose from. Noodles: Ramen, egg noodles and rice noodles. Unlimited rice (get it yourself) Soup base: Regular, spicy, and Thai style. (I recommend the Thai style soup) Grill your own meat

The not so good stuff.

Pay to cook your own meat. Pay to get your own meat from the fridge 4 pieces of short rib (roughly 1.5 strips of short rib) $4.25. 4-5 pieces of thinly sliced ribeye steak $4.25, chicken thigh meat (roughly 2 chicken thighs) $4.25 Pay to get your own veggies from the fridge. I think the each veggie plate is about $3.25-$3.50 Price per Plate system. Meaning, certain size plates are a certain price. However, plates that are stacked up on the already small tables just take up room. Service was just meh. Floors were pretty slippery.

So, in short, pay to do 90% of your own things. I mean, I cook my own meat at KBBQ, but at least they bring me the meat and veggies. If you're a big eater like I am, there is hardly any room to put the empty plates. Plus, since each plate is a particular price, food adds up super quick. 5 plates of short rib come out to about $21-22 for about 6 short rib strips. Add in your, veggies, noodles and $1 extra for spicy soup and $2 extra for Thai soup, then you're in for a surprise in the bill.

Maybe a system should be devised in order to place the plates so they're out of the way when eating. The flavor weren't bad at all. It's a good concept, but, personally I wouldn't go out of my way to come eat. Check it out...

The idea of having a hot pot surrounded by a bbq cast iron grill is pretty innovative in terms of this being my first experience in encountering one. This is a self serving place on basis of getting charge per item. They have some variety of meats, a cornucopia choices of veggies and a plethora of seafood. The rib eye is quite tasty but it is sliced very thin for the pricing. We ordered the spicy broth for the hot pot but for me, I feel like it's more of acquired taste for the soup broth. We also got some short ribs, okra, salmon, quail eggs and some noodles and I believe the rice was free of charge. I think this is more of a 3 star side but the service was good and the idea of the hot pot combined with a grill gave it that extra star. I do recommend you do try this place, the quality is decent and it's something different having a myriad of options. Wish more places were around...