Yikes! This place has gone way downhill from the pre-Covid days. It used to be a decent place for hot pot... decent price for decent food. It was never top quality hot pot, but it was... decent. Our latest trip there was NOT decent. We were looking for a hot pot place that wouldn 't break the bank for my son 's birthday since he likes hot pot. We decided to go to Lavender since we haven 't been here since Covid started. Upon arrival, the restaurant was pretty much empty. A huge party just finished and left, and we were led to the table next to this where this huge party was. Keep this in mind..... My mom first witnesses a waitress take the uneaten plates of meat off of the vacated tables nea...
TLDR The idea and setup is really good but they just need to spend a little more for better ingredients and they'd do really well. Being a hot pot place in the Bay Area, they have big competition and with their cheap ingredients, I can do better at home. Would not recommend. For the pros: They have the option to sit at a single pot table to share or to have individual pots per person. Their interior decor is really nice. They have an end table for you to put your dishes on to save on table space. Their food is all out for you to grab and self serve like a buffet and their meat goes around the restaurant on a cute little robot. They have a lot of soup options. For the cons: Despite having a l...
They have a private room available for large group events. Each person gets their own individual soup pot and there's a bunch of different soup bases to choose from. I decided to go with a neutral Japanese miso for my base. My husband and father each went with the spicy kimchi and warning the soup actually packs quite a bit of heat. You can make your own sauce at the sauce bar and the other hot pot ingredients are served buffet style you grab your own tray and load up on the items that you want in your hot pot. For the meat, they have a cool little robot that rolls through the restaurant with trays of beef, pork, and lamb on it and you just grab what you want. Unfortunately, the robot's func...
Do not consider this restaurant as an option. Instead, I recommend going to Tasty Pot if you have a craving for hotpot. Here is why:
1. The utensils, plates, and bowls were extremely dirty. Pay attention to any oil stains or specks on your utensils, as this indicates that they were not properly washed. Additionally, I found a dead bug in my water cup. The ladle used for scooping the soup was also unclean.
2. The soups were diluted and tasteless. If you ask for a refill, they will add tap water to the soup.
3. Avoid going after 9pm, as they often run out of pork and beef, leaving only lamb and a small amount of chicken available. During my visit at 9:30pm, it seemed that the raw chicken ha...
Reserva una mesa ahora
Sooooo delicious!! This was my first time trying hot pot and I can definitely say I was very pleasantly surprised. I was a little hesitant to try this place because the reviews are very iffy, but I'm so glad I tried it anyway! I ordered the Chongqing Spicy Soup base and it was extremely delicious and flavorful. We came around lunchtime (until 3pm) and it cost about $20 a person, which is amazing for an all you can eat hot pot restaurant. There was a huge array of foods to choose from (vegetables, various meats, and more) and the sauce station was also expansive. This process was self serving like most places. In terms of raw meats, they have beef and lamb only and I found both to be quite go...
First and last visit. This place is disgusting. I have no idea why anyone would go here except for the price. You pay for what you get. The soups are bland, only two choices of meat that are not worth the eats. It's very grainy and cheap. Everything looks questionable at the buffet. There was also a dead fly underneath a stack of meat on the tray. Only happen to see as I was lifting up a piece of meat into the soup. Gross! All the negative reviews noted on Yelp are indeed true especially on the cheap quality, flies, unclean, etc... there are definitely better hotpot venues to enjoy and this truly was NOT the place.
I came here three times with different friends in the past two month. The service was equally good as before covid but food quality went downhill. I am not very picky with food but the taste of the soup has changed for sure and one time I overheard a customer complaining about their shrimps were spoiled. I know is hard to keep a business running these days, but food safety and customer experience are also important. Do I recommend this place, not until they improve their quality.
I tried hot pot for the first time ever and boy did I love it! We ordered the Chongqing soup it was spicy but sooooo worth it! My favorites were tofu, chicken, fish, bok choy, noodles and peanuts with the soup. Later on I tried the shaved ice and it was the perfect way to close out our 2 hour lunch!
Reserva una mesa ahora
This restaurant is no longer serving halal food. The food quality, atmosphere, and service are all poor. This was a terrible dining experience.
After my previous review, I discovered unclean ladles and ants in my meal! Extremely unsatisfactory.
