It was Father’s Day – my first. But forget about me, I wanted to take my dad out for dinner. Driven by guilt, obligation, or just plain wanting to do something nice – all of the reasons drove me down the same road. Yep, mandatory time with an awkward man who hates new experiences.
If it’s Mother’s Day, you can’t get a table anywhere. Good thing no one thinks of dear old dad. Seriously, we only waited about 15 minutes for a table here. Now I don’t know if it’s standard procedure or just because they expected a rush, but I became a little bit annoyed during my wait. While standing outside hanging out with my family, the hostess called out our name. I got excited because I thought we were getting seated, but I was wrong. Instead, she handed me the order sheet and told me to get my first round order ready. Ugh!
Now I understand that every restaurant wants to turn over tables quickly so they can get more customers in, but this was just plain ridiculous. Being the stubborn ass that I am, I didn’t fill out the order form. So when the hostess actually took us to a table, I got a chance to annoy her back (not something I usually like to do to restaurant workers). When she found out that I did absolutely nothing she got irritated and left in a hurry. I think I even made them wait for a few minutes to come back again to take the order.
So this hot pot restaurant is an all you can eat affair. Kind of like the sushi joints, you order off a checklist and get three rounds. There is a hotplate kind of device in the middle of the table where they place the broth pot. After you order, they bring out the soup and turn it on – keeping the liquid boiling hot. You can order up to two types of broths. They’re brought out in the same pot, but it has a divider down the center to separate the flavors.
I’m not that huge of a fan of hot pot or fondue in the first place, so you’ll have to take my review with a grain of salt. It was OK. My judgement is based on the fact that the food was of questionable quality. The bamboo shoots looked like they came from a can. The seafood tasted like they were just recently defrosted. The veggies did, however, look fresh. Would I come back to try Red Pot again? Maybe.
Red Pot – Garden Grove
It’s the hot pot soup base. On the left is the Spicy Herbal. On the right in the Tom Yum. The level of spice wasn’t too bad, but it was one of those things where the aftertaste kicks your butt. After some time, between the dipping and evaporation from boiling, the soup will slowly reduce. The staff will come back periodically to fill it back up.
There is a dipping sauce station in the middle of the restaurant up against a wall that leads to the restroom. Putting aside its questionable placement, the condiments like green onion, cilantro, and sauce are all self serve. I tried the House Special sauce and I didn’t like it. Anyway, I didn’t think that the food really needed any additional flavor, other than what it already picked up from the soup base.
A bunch of seafood, vegetables, and quail egg.
Napa cabbage and other veggies.
Pork and beef slices.
Talk to me, Goose.