Grand Chinese Hot Pot

After driving by numerous times, we finally decided to try this place. There were 2 people working: a middle aged lady and a young girl.
Only a small selection of food to choose from. For a small restaurant with a limited menu, that makes sense. However of that small menu, quite a few things were also unavailable, which further reduces the choices.
Neither tea or water was offered upon being seated. Until about 25mins into our dinner did the tea arrive. Normally you would expect the tea to be hot, well it wasn’t even lukewarm. Mainly just cold tea…
They kept forgetting/​missing certain items (ex., veggies, noodles). Not only our table kept missing items, the couple next to us had to endure the same thing. We asked the older lady about our missing veggies and she comes out with a plate of lettuce and our original order form. She then begins to claim that we did not order any sort of veggies and that she is being nice to bring us some. It was clearly written on the order form, but she probably had a brain fart and did not see it.

It’s a small, family run restaurant. If you are looking for a fancy dinner, this is not a place for you.
They do have the best hot pot soup base (especially the spicy one) in town. Food is always fresh, price is very reasonable, and the lady owner is friendly. We live in the neighbourhood so we go there quiet often. Have been there for more than 20 times, never disappointed.

My first hot pot experience was supposed to be at Fatty Cow for someones birthday dinner treat from yours truly. Unfortunately, the procrastinator that I am, I didn’t think to make a reservation until last minute, and even upon realization, I decided to take my chances. No surprise (to everyone BUT me) when I showed up and the place was packed to the rafters, with no available table until 9:30. A quick search on Unilocal for neighboring hot pot places yielded this place, and off we went in search of sizzling hot eats to warm us up from the nippy November night.
The service here isn’t very good, but I half expected it, so I wasn’t appalled. We had to ask for water a few times before we got it, but we also got a complimentary glass of coke, so maybe that was the trade off?
We decided on a split pot, with two soup bases. We chose one spicy, and one not, and it was a good choice! The szechuan soup was incredibley hot, both in flavor and temperature, and even as our server slowly added hot water, it maintained its heat. After a little trial and error, we discovered that the two soups mixed together was the best choice, and I even found this more to my liking, as we could decide as we went along how spicy we wanted our soup.
As for the contents of the soup, it works like any AYCE spot. Big sheet of paper with all your options, just write down what you want and wait! There is plenty of meat and veggies to choose from. We added things like lamb, prawns, squid, mussells, mushrooms, spinach, boy choy, to name a few. The food came out kind of sporatically, and our oysters never came out at all. That being said, after nearly three hours of stuffing our faces, I, for one, wasn’t all that concerned.
The bill for two after taxes came to around $ 45. This one is comme ci comme ca in my books. On one hand, the service was not good, but ethnic restaurants are hit or miss in that department, with the latter being the most common. The food was tasty, we ate our fill, and I was pleased to not be going down on a toilet bowl immediately following. With my foodie senses tingling, my guess is that there is better hot pot to be discovered, but when all else fails, this one does in a pinch.

I went to my first Hot Pot experience at the Grand Chinese Hot Pot on Victoria Drive (1 block from David Thompson). I didn’t know what to expect, therefore, I went with an open mind and open attitude. I am glad that things worked out for me financially that I was able to attend this event tonight. I was looking for a social pick me up plus it was close to my neighborhood. I arrived early and was a bit thrown off by the ambience and lack of décor, looked too ghetto to me, however, the smell of hot soup kept me intrigued. Hot Pots are basically raw meets and veggies and you cook yourself in boiling soups. It’s kind of like a fondue party. I liked the idea of a communal culinary activity and the company was awesome which made it a fun pre-​weekend gathering. As soon as I sat down we were served complimentary cokes. I am on a cleanse maintenance diet, therefore, I mostly stuck to the beef slices in the basic stock soup. I did try some of the spicy soup and Larry was good enough to take a picture of me in my, «Holy fuck this shit is spicy face picture.» The cost was reasonable at $ 20 for all you can eat. They served an array of different kinds of meats. I tried some of the more daring meats, however, I skipped the more questionable ones. The Tofu was frozen and the soft tofu was really gross, therefore, I advise skipping these. They are cash and debit only. Thankfully I was pre-​warned about this.

Lovely hot pot. Delicious.
Staff was über friendly and helpful. As we’d picked a hot soup, she suggested we go with two soup bases: one hot and one not. She was indeed correct! (Pic:
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Ingredients were fresh and plentiful. It is an all you can eat, and like most AYCE places, there is a charge for food that is left. We picked a good number of dishes to add: beef tendon, mushrooms (3 kinds), spinach, baby bok choy, sliced pork, yam noodles, and winter melon. Everything was fresh and tasty.
Certainly nothing nicer than fresh ingredients cooked in a delicious steaming soup base right in front of you. My favourites were the spinach and bok choy in the szechuan base. HOT! And the yam noodles, I’d never tried these before in any form and they were delicious. What a lovely texture.
I’d suggest that even if you are super proficient with chopsticks, that you don’t wear your best shirt, as you undoubtedly will drip or spill something on yourself. It is difficult to prepare/​eat hot pot without doing so.
Cost per person: $ 16.95 for all you can eat, with a $ 5/​lb charge for leftovers. You can order more than once so don’t feel like you have to order everything on the first round. Pace yourself and enjoy. Guests are allowed 2 hours from the time they place first order.