iPot

This restaurant was recommended to me by a friend. I always like to try new things so my friend thought that I would like it, and yup… my friend was right.
The first thing about this restaurant that caught my eye, was the name, iPot. That’s so cute! So with iPot, everyone gets their own little pot, kind of like the Japanese shabu shabu. I think what they have done here is combined Japanese and HK style hot pot, making a taiwanese style hot pot. According to my friend, the owner went to taiwan for holidays and fell in love with this concept. I can see why. So how this works is, you choose the meat you want, (beef, pork, chicken, fish, lamb, etc etc.). Then there’s a buffet of side dishes, like veggies, fish balls, seafood, dumplings and basically any other additions that would go into hot pot aside from the meat itself. Finally, there’s the drinks/​sauce station which is also buffet.
The meat gets served while you are selecting the other dishes and basically you do your own thing with your pot. The buffet selection is pretty good. There are so many different options with the balls. They have at least 10 – 12 different types, from uni ball. squid ball, lobster ball, and more.
It’s so much fun!
You can literally go on for hours if you can stomach it all. They have a starch station too so in case you wanted some noodles or what not, it’s all available!
One thing they have here where most places don’t is, they have the taiwanese peach or pineapple beer. yummerssss.
It’s cute, not a very big shop so book in advance. Will be back.

Personally I do not really like hot pot as I feel like most places they just pour some water down soup and whatever food you put in there are pretty blend without soy sauce. I might as well go drink soy sauce already. However, I heard from my friend that there is a place where you can have a pot all by yourself and there seems to be quite a lot of good review, I decided to go give it a try.
The Shabu Shabu Expert is located in Tin Hau and it is decorated like one of those hot pot places; but they have a wall full of pictures where all the happy diners are. That is definitely reassuring enough. Also, the place is very very tiny so I strongly recommend making a reservation beforehand; or else you might end up waiting for quite some time outside (you know how long it takes to have hotpot… hours…). After sitting down, I had a look at what options I got. Like always, I cannot have spicy food so I went with the healthier choice — the tomato broth. I am not sure they actually use all fresh tomato but you know sometimes hotpot place tends to use tons of tomato paste and it tastes pretty bad; however over here it tasted rather sweet and refreshing.
We also ordered fat beef and some lamb slices and they looked very fresh. For those who are not meat-​lovers, you can go to the salad bar and have unlimited veggies and dumplings there, which is PERFECT for me as I love vegetables. Some people also come here for the black pudding (pork blood pudding) but I cannot really take the texture and the thought of chewing blood so I gave it a pass… but my friend loved it so I guess it is a good try.
This place totally changed my opinion on hot pot because the broth is nicely flavored and the food here are generally fresh; the best part is we each have our own pot so I do not need to worry about who puts what inside the pot.