A Guide from a Chinese Southerner
Survey review by Aonan He
For those like me who come from southern China, hotpot is part of our soul. We eat very spicy food. Particularly for hotpot, a red chilli oily hotpot with a strongly spicy taste in it is a must. Imagine the crushed chilli pepper gradually sliding down the tip of your tongue and stimulating your taste buds, and then bringing that picante excitement to your throat and stomach! In the winter time in Edmonton, a nice hotpot can get you rid of all the coldness and give you immense coziness. For anyone looking for Chinese fare in winter, it is a must.
To start, you just need to order your soup base, boil whatever ingredients you ordered into your soup base, then dip the cooked ingredients into the sauce you have made yourself. Now you are ready to enjoy your hotpot.
As a native of southern China, I just LOVE spicy hotpot! I’ve decided to write this guide so that you can tailor your choice of hotpot to best suit your needs in Edmonton. In this review, I will leverage my southern-Chinese experiences to let you know what my top picks for the most authentic places are, which places I recommend as the best for hotpot beginners, as well as which places I personally do not recommend but does not hurt to try. No hotpot place is bad at its core, but I hope this can help you find your jam if you would like to heat your winter up in a pot from Edmonton!
Chinese Hot Pot Buffet
5420 Calgary Trail
Taste of Szechuan
3855 99 St NW
Liuyishou Hotpot
9700 105 Ave NW #168
Chili Hot Pot
7219 104 St NW
Chinese Hot Pot Buffet
5420 Calgary Trail : website : (780) 758-8895
General Impression:
Perfect for hotpot beginners to try out hotpot and for those who are seeking a great variety of food, side dishes, and desserts. It is also a fantastic place for families because kids love their ice cream after a nice warm hotpot. All ingredients provided are fresh and clean. Vegetarian/vegan choices are available.
The ambiance of the restaurant is the best among all the hotpot places in Edmonton, with modern design decoration. The place is very spacious withy tables to accommodate from 2 to more than 10 people. Washrooms are a little sketchy. Free parking is available just outside of the restaurant. Efficient and friendly service.
What I like:
This is probably one of the most popular hotpot places in Edmonton due to its great variety of food, including vegetables, seafood, meat, side dishes and all kinds of desserts. I often go there with some of my local friends who want to try hotpot and they all think it is amazing.
It has modern and western decorations inside which will catch your eyes immediately. It is quite spacious too. Even when you want to have a big party there, this restaurant can accommodate in their separate rooms with big round tables.
Of course, it is particularly famous for its variety of ingredients you can choose for your hotpot, because it is a buffet. Their ingredients are very fresh, including all kinds of noodles, seafood, vegetables, and meat. Shrimp is always the priority for me there.
You can get all of your raw ingredients by yourself except for the meat. You will have to order the meat but the price of the meat is included in the price you paid per person, regardless of the number of plates you order. There are a lot of dipping sauces you can choose from and I can always make my favorite oily sauce there.
The great variety of desserts like some pudding and ice cream after a hot meal is honestly heaven. What is even better is their service. The staff will instruct you how to cook your own ingredients and make your own sauce if you are very new to hotpot. If you have never tried a hotpot, this is your place to go.
What I dislike:
This place is a little pricey for a normal hotpot. Their soup base is so light that you can taste the water with spices instead of broth. It is passable, but it lacks some flavor, particularly in the spicy soups. For those who like spicy food, I wouldn’t recommend it. For me, this hotpot is definitely not authentic enough.
Available ingredients:
Sliced beef and lamb of various cuts, beef tripe and other organs, blood curds, various mushrooms, various Chinese vegetables, various root vegetables, processed meat balls, processed and fresh seafood including squid, shrimp, jellyfish, bean curds, noodles and glass noodles.
Things You Must Try:
Everything if you can! Side dishes such as cold seaweed dressed with sauce and peanuts are very good. Ice cream is good too!
Editor’s Note: Jayden Yang, in his edmontonscene review of the Chinese Hot Pot restaurant, thought it was the best hotpot in Edmonton. Read his review here.
Taste of Szechuan
3855 99 St NW : no website : (780) 988-5966
General Impression:
One of the most authentic hotpot places in Edmonton! Highly recommended if you are seeking a thick and heavy soup base with all kinds of essential spices! Vegetarian/vegan choices are available.
The place is not as big as the Chinese Hot Pot Buffet but is very clean. The staff are very nice and patient. It is often quiet and is perfect for those who want to try hotpot in a nice and quiet ambiance. Free parking is available outside of the restaurant.
What I like:
The Szechuan spicy soup base and the corn base are the best! I usually order them as a mix soup base where there is a steel divider in a large pot to let you have two types of soup at the same time. Their soup base is always thick enough for you to taste the complexity of the spices put in the soup base.
A good hotpot base should be complicated so that you can enjoy the mixed taste brought along by all kinds of spices. Taste of Szechuan puts at least three kinds of major chili peppers in the spicy soup base with other minor condiments. The spicy soup base is not the boiled water mixed with some chili peppers, rather, it tastes more like a stew made of various chili peppers.
For the corn soup base, I am not sure exactly how they make it, but the smashed corn with a couple of dates in it will just soothe your cold throat in the wintertime. This place has a quiet vibe which is odd, because a hotpot restaurant is usually full of people and noises. Due to this, I can always enjoy a quiet hotpot with my friends in a nice and peaceful manner, which is so hard to get in a hotpot restaurant.
What I dislike:
The only thing that I feel a little unsure about is the vintage red color of the walls and the chairs inside. It always conveys a sensual combination of warmness and mystery, which for me is a strange combination. This is highly personal. Anyways, I am there because of the taste.
Available ingredients:
Sliced beef and lamb of various cuts, beef tripe and other organs, blood curds, various mushrooms, various Chinese vegetables, various root vegetables, meat balls, processed and fresh seafood including squid, shrimp, seaweed, shrimp paste, quail eggs, fried tenderloin fingers, bean curds and other bean products, noodles and glass noodles.
Things You Must Try:
All soup bases, particularly the Szechuan spicy soup base!
Liuyishou Hotpot
9700 105 Ave NW (#168) : website : (780) 425-8888
General Impression:
Always my first choice when thinking about hotpot in Edmonton! It is one of the most authentic hotpot with their famous chili butter oil soup base! Highly recommended if you want to try another authentic spicy hotpot in Edmonton!
They have modern minimalist decorations inside, very clean and bright. The place is small but could accommodate tables of 2-10 people. Their side dishes such as the dressed edamame and fried peanuts are fantastic! Food is fresh and the staff are extremely nice. There is one parking lot behind the restaurant but you do have to pay for it.
What I like:
The special chilli beef oil soup base is just AMAZING!
I never see this butter soup base in any other restaurants in Edmonton but at this place. The soup base is so thick and heavy that you could definitely smell it before you enter the door. Their beef and lamb are the best if you are a meat lover. Every time when I go there with my friends I will order the combo of beef and lamb with a vegetable and mushroom platter, then their special shrimp paste and beef tendon.
For dipping sauce, they have quite a few options for you to choose to make your own.
For dessert after hotpot, my favorite is always the cold jelly, which I don’t think you can find in any other hotpot restaurant in Edmonton. Every time when I visit that place, it reminds me of the taste of my hometown.
What I dislike:
Besides the inconvenience for parking, the tables are a little too crowded. Every time I try to get up from the seat I have to move very slowly to not bump into other people. This is not comfortable and sometimes embarrassing. Other than that, their hotpot tastes the best in Edmonton!
Available ingredients:
Sliced beef and lamb of various cuts, beef tripe and other organs, blood curds, various mushrooms, various Chinese vegetables, various root vegetables, meat balls, processed and fresh seafood, shrimp paste, quail eggs, bean curds and other bean products, noodles and glass noodles.
Things You Must Try:
Spicy beef oil soup base (Liu’s House Special Soup Base) is a must! Besides, the House Special Beef Tripe and the House Special Shrimp Paste are absolutely authentic!
Chili Hot Pot
7219 104 St : website : (780) 989-0831
General Impression:
Definitely not a go-to for my southern Chinese spicy taste buds, nor for those who want to try authentic Chinese hotpot. Their soup base is the most tasteless: basically just water with some token spices on the surface. Ingredients are okay but not very fresh for some of the seafood options. The options for dipping sauce are just as mediocre in comparison to other hotpot restaurants. The most worth noting item is the pudding desserts served after you finish your hotpot. Vegetarian/vegan soup base and ingredients’ choices are available.
The place is not very big. The indoor ambiance looks quite dated, without any design or decoration that I could name. Seating accommodates from 2 to 8 people. The level of cleanliness is low, as you often find sticky oily tables. The staff are friendly. There are special prices for specific times (check it out on the website). Street parking is available.
What I like:
Literally nothing. The only thing worth mentioning though is their pudding desserts, which are served to your table after you finish your hotpot. The pudding desserts have two flavors: blueberry and mango, with evaporated milk on it. They are served cold and will make you feel refreshed especially after a warm hotpot. However, to be honest, the only positive experience on my first day was the complimentary pudding desserts after the meal, and even then it is most likely due to the contrast from the tasteless hotpot preceding it.
What I dislike:
Their soup base is the worst! I have only been to this place ONCE in the past three years because there is literally no flavor in their hotpot. The soup base is the key for a hotpot, whether it is a large pot or small pot. Like a good whisky, a nice hotpot soup base must be thick and heavy enough so that you could smell the boiling spices, the complexity of the aroma of nature. Otherwise, the boiled ingredients would taste like wax.
The essential soup base I normally order at first in any hotpot restaurant is always the spicy chilli soup. When I first went there with a group of friends around three years ago, we each ordered a small pot of different soup bases for each of us: Sichuan spicy soup, lamb and herbs soup, goji berry soup, tomato soup, Chinese herbs soup, and cordyceps fungus soup. I did not expect my Szechuan spicy soup to be authentic and very spicy (since I knew there were a lot of Chinese restaurants in Edmonton claiming to be Szechuan was not necessarily made of anything remotely Szechuan related), but how could my spicy soup not taste spicy at all yet end up smelling and tasting medicinal? Not only that but each soup base we ordered almost tasted the same! They all had a more or less herbal smell and taste!
It was so disappointing and I honestly did not know how they did it. Besides, there were then not many options for making your own dipping sauce – luckily they have more options right now. A traditional Chinese southern dipping sauce, which is, of course, my favorite, is made of sesame oil and mashed garlic, within which you can add green onions, cilantro, pepper, hot chili pepper, and other spices and sauce depending on your own taste. I was hoping to make a spicy dipping sauce to add some flavors into the non-spicy cooked ingredients. However, there were no cilantro and hot chili peppers but just some similar soy sauce dip. My hotpot ended up tasting like boiled wax to me, which was definitely surprising and disappointing.
Available ingredients:
Sliced beef and lamb, beef tripe, mushrooms, Chinese vegetables, root vegetables, processed meat balls, processed seafood, squid, shrimp, noodles and glass noodles.
Things You Must Try:
Nothing but the pudding dessert.
Conclusion
In general, go to the Chinese Hot Pot Buffet if you are a hotpot beginner or if you are just very hungry. Taste of Szechuan is definitely your to-go if you want to try authentic Chinese hotpot in a quiet vibe, otherwise Liuyishou Hot Pot is your best bet, especially if you are not going to be driving.
Chinese Hot Pot Buffet
5420 Calgary Trail
Taste of Szechuan
3855 99 St NW
Liuyishou Hotpot
9700 105 Ave NW #168
Chili Hot Pot
7219 104 St NW
Recent Comments