Hot Pot - Parramatta

Being an asian on a cold Winter's night, what better than to hotpot with friends.

Being asian probably also involves being lazy and cheap.


Hence, to satisfy all the above criterion, my friends and I chose the relatively new hotpot place in Parramatta called... "Hot Pot" (how original!). It's an all you can eat for $16.95. Well, kind of.
There is simply just additional costs for the soup base (either chicken, or a huge range of spicy soups), additional costs for seafood, additional costs for sauce, and additional costs for an egg (a lot of people like dipping their foods in raw egg - but not I). On top of that, you need to pay for drinks (especially if you wish to get a super hot and spicy soup base).

So really, it's probably not $16.95.

Hot and Spicy soup

As you may have guessed, this orange-red looking broth is one of the chilli soups (which ranged from 'mild' to 'normal' to 'hot' to 'spicy'). After suggestions from a friend, my partner opted for the 'hot' option which he later regretted, as he complained about it not being chilli enough. But don't be fooled, this may simply because my partner is a bit deprived in the taste-buds department. I only had to taste a drop of this soup to have the chilli aroma linger in my mouth (but as I said before, I'm not a chilli eater).

Chicken broth

I chose the safe option for my soup base - the chicken broth. Wasn't excellent, but wasn't bad either.

Our first order of food - includes beef, mushroom selection, beef tripe, chicken, pork balls, beef balls, coriander balls, quail eggs, potato starch noodles

Part of the beauty of an all you can eat is that you can order as much as you want, as many times as you want. And hence, our table was soon filled with food!

Close up of the beef, pork, and coriander balls, and quail eggs.

Close up of our mushroom selection - oyster mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, enoki, shitake, button mushrooms.

Food emerged in the hot and spicy soup.

Food emerged in the Chicken broth.

Even though the hot and spicy broth seems to make the food look kind of groggy and murky (compared to the clean, crispness of the food in my chicken broth), I have heard many good things about it from my chilli-loving friends. So don't be turned off the chilli soup bases just because of my biases!

Overall, the service wasn't too great, and the food wasn't too fantastic... but it provided for a fun-filled, warm, and friendly environment for a nice (and convenient) dinner out with friends. What more could you ask for?

Whilst this time, I basically stuffed myself with shrooms and beef tripe, maybe next time, I'll come back and check out how the seafood is at this place! :)

Ratings:
Food - 6/10
Service - 2/10
Ambiance - 4/10
Value for money - 6/10
Overall - 18/40

Hot Pot
Level 1
125 Church St
Parramatta
Tel: (02) 9635 9768