Flame Szechuan Hot Pot and Sushi Restaurant

Actually I don’t even what to gave them a 1 star. First We had the lunch so we order 2 lunch combo and 1 Beijing picking duck it was worse meal I have ever had. The duck meat has wired taste and hard to chewy just like you put the duck meat in the basement since your grandmother born we just had one bite and put it on the side, and it cost $ 20. 2^nd the place is dark like a hall, I understand this place it is open in the basement but it doesn’t mean you need to keep it dark? One of the lunch combo you can taste nothing and other dish like mad of Sodium. During the lunch time we had NONE waitress was came ask us how was the food or do we need any water or anything. I wish Unilocal will have ZERO star for the review. I CAN NOT understand this kind of trash food how can served at Cambridge area?

I’ve eaten here twice now and will not be back. The wait staff were brusque to the point of rudeness and pushy. The food is just okay and incredibly overpriced. We had to ask for bowls twice. We didn’t like one of the vegetables in the veg combo (possibly jicama?) so left it in the basket off to the side. Our waiter dumped it on top of the spinach. I picked it off and put it aside again. He dumped it on top of the spinach again and didn’t answer at all when I asked him to stop doing that. Little Q is four times as good and half the price so we’ll be going there from now on.

Not real Chinese food.
The meat was rubbery, the hot and sour soup was viscous, even the steamed broccoli were oversalted. What a shame.

The restaurant opened in late 2015. Being there a couple of times so far and loved their hotpot. Their meat, veggie, tofu, and mushrooms were all fresh and they had so many different dipping sauces all tasty. The service was excellent as well.

This is really one of the worst hot pot places I’ve ever been to. Compared to LA, NYC, Taipei, etc., this place is not only terrible because of the poor quality of food but also the service. I had to wave my hands around like a maniac to get anything served and the quality of the meat was less than poor. The only reason I would come back is the dire need for hot pot and too lazy to take the trek to Chinatown.

Flame is a nice new option for hot pot in the Harvard Square area. I went with a group of friends and we ordered the vegetable broth and the mala (spicy) broth and an assortment of meats and vegetables. The food was fresh and quite good but didn’t stand out to me as better than the other hot pot options in Boston. They do have a sauce bar in the back where you can mix and match your own sauces, which is nice. We also got an order of sushi and an order of pad thai to explore other options on the menu. I wouldn’t recommend going outside the hot pot menu — while these dishes were decent, they definitely were not of the same quality you would get at a Japanese or a Thai restaurant. The price is quite expensive for the hot pot and for that money I would rather go to an AYCE place. Nice option in Harvard Square if you are craving hot pot and don’t want to travel, but otherwise I would probably look elsewhere.

The dry hot chicken, or la zi ji is the most flavorful rendition of the dish I’ve ever had.

I am in shock over how bad this place is. How it’s still in business in Cambridge is beyond me. First of all, the restaurant is in a creepy basement with poor ventilation. It was visually unappealing from the start. The «sauce bar» had congealed, crusty remnants of flavor options which were haphazardly floating in buckets of what used to be ice (health inspector take note). There were visible cleaning products littering the floor and weird artwork thrown on the walls.
Now for the food… Literally as soon as I uttered our order it appeared in front of us. I kid you not, there was not a 2 minute delay between ordering and receiving the food. This was particularly disturbing given that two of our items needed to be cooked. Apparently that was an oversight to the cooks at Flame, as the crab rangoons arrived at the table still frozen. Not only that, but the fish we ordered arrived in an awkward bowl of water (gagging as I’m writing this) and had a human hair chilling right on top — One of the most visually disturbing things I’ve had grace my table at a restaurant. Given that we have self respect, we immediately requested the check and got TF out of there as fast as humanly possible. The crass server didn’t even ask why we didn’t touch a morsel of our food. The only reason why we didn’t complain is because we had a Gilt City voucher and the bill was essentially taken care of, less tip.
Please do yourself a favor and avoid this place! It honestly seemed so filthy and I wouldn’t trust a bite of food from that kitchen. Yuck yuck yuck.

Not coming her ever again. Disappointed every time. Tried sushi lunch combo this time and the avocado was bad yet they still served it… Smh

My friends and I came here for hot pot. We ordered the double broth, consisting of mala broth and an herbal broth. The herbal broth was tasty and made for a good soup. The mala broth was too spicy and oily to be drunk (if you are even supposed to drink it. I have only had hot pot two times and do not know), but it gave a nice flavor to the ingredients.
Service was also great — we got some good suggestions on what ingredients to order.
The restaurant seems to be themed after the manga series One Piece. I forgot to ask why.

The hotpot is expensive and so-​so, BUT the cooked dishes are amazing. The service is also excellent.
Dry hot chicken
Pen Pen Xiang
Even a humble veggie and tofu soup was surprisingly excellent.

I’m a huge fan of hotpot and Sichuan food, so I was excited to try Flame. My husband and I went for lunch and ordered hotpot and also one Sichuan dish to share.
First the décor, it’s dark and roomy, with strange manga/​Asian comic character figurines, including a big one in the middle. Like a teenage guy decorated the place? It wasn’t too crowded.
Some of the servers were nicer and more responsive than others. Our main waiter (male) seemed rather grumpy and answered questions very curt answers. Other female wait staff were much more helpful.
The quality of the hotpot (judged by freshness, taste, and quantity) was ok. It’s definitely enough to order one hotpot kit and then add a few other things for two people. There are other hotpot places in town with better quality and freshness for price though.
The sichuan dish we ordered (peng peng xiang in Chinese) was more Americanized than I was expecting. It was still good, but could’ve been more authentic.
I’m always shocked by how much hotpot in Boston costs, and Flame was no different. With tip our lunch came out to close to $ 80, which astounds me.
I may be back because of proximity, but with other better hotpot (and Sichuan) options out there, it won’t necessarily be my first choice.

I went here tonight because a friend hosted a gathering. I have not left a restaurant feeling so grumpy and annoyed in a long time.
We waited about 20 minutes for anyone to come by and ask for our orders. Then they asked if any of us wanted hot pot, and proceeded to tell us that they needed us to get up so they could plug in a few of the hot pot tables, without apologizing or interacting much at all. We mentioned that we wanted both of the end tables plugged in since the people getting hot pot were sitting there, but they ignored us and plugged in two separated pots. We ended up having to shuffle around and squish in together a couple of times.
The scallion pancakes were delicious, and the best thing I had tonight.
I shared the chirashi (a pile of sushi fish and rice). It was okay, the sushi fish tasted like fish when seasoned, the rice was not sushi rice — no vinegar. Bland and boring. I ate it anyway because I was hungry, and could not make myself eat the soup.
The szechuan beef soup tasted like cilantro and hot chili pepper, and was full of what tasted like linguini noodles. The beef was gristley, full of cartilage and hard to eat. I gave up.
No one ever came by to ask how anything was.
At the end, we all waited around about 20 minutes for the check. Someone finally got up and paid for their portion and left. They mentioned they would come with our checks. They asked all of us what we had, again, to make sure they got it right. Ok. Well, another 20 minutes and nothing came. We asked the host for the check and they came out finally. Then, when I asked them to please split the bill on two cards, they said, sure, then said, no, can one of us pay with cash? I understand not wanting to pay fees, but then they split the bill for others so they obviously can do it. And with the prices they charge, making me feel stupid was not a good end to the night. I said fine, and paid with my card.
I have not had this bad of an experience at a restaurant in a long time. Please pay attention to your guests, plug in hot plates before guests arrive (we had a reservation), get checks out promptly, and don’t force people not to split a bill on cards.
Expensive, tasteless /​inedible, and unfriendly.
I want to wish them well since they’re new, but…
I won’t be back.

We were super excited about this place opening nearby because we love hot potting, though this is the first time I’ve done it in a restaurant. Every table has a burner and some have 2. We recommend trying to get the round tables because the burner takes up most of the space on the square ones so there is very little space for your plate. If you want you can get a hot pot that has two separate compartments so you can try two different broths if you want. We got the Mala broth and the herbal broth. Both were really good, but I stuck to the herbal side since I don’t really like anything spicy.
The checklist they give you to select your menu options is somewhat confusing, so you have to read it carefully and ask the waitperson questions to explain things. I like that you have an option of choosing combinations of meat, noodles or rice, and assorted random veggies or doing some or all a la carte. We ended up getting extra veggies because the leafy greens cook down to nothing. The uncooked beef we got was fatty, just like another Unilocaler mentioned, but fat adds flavor to the broth so whatever. It’s so thin that I didn’t really notice the difference, it’s not like getting a fatty piece of steak. They have a sauce bar on the side, which was fantastic. It gave us ideas for sauces to add as options for when we hot pot at home. We tried one app, the beef terriaki, and it was good but nothing special.
Overall, I think this is a great place to go with a date or friends because it’s a fun experience and customizable. I enjoy the convienence but since we have a hot pot and an H Mart a block away I think we’re going to be more likely to do it at home. But I am lazy, so you never know.

Average restaurant don’t know why it has 4.5 stars.
Staff was not friendly and didn’t give us good information about the food.
Not classy at all just an average place.

I went to this place friday night for dinner and ordered Hot Pot for 2 and some sushi appetizers.
We had the Mala broth which was just too greasy. The broth itself was not very spicy unless you bit into one of the many spicy seeds in the broth. The oil was so overpowering in the broth that we couldn’t even taste the side sauce we created with it. We eventually asked to switch it out to the herbal broth with was much better.
We got the lamb and beef combo as one the the meals and that meat portion was pretty good. The side of vegetables that came with it however were very sad. It was a small portion with not a lot of variety like you get at shabu shabu.
Overall we paid $ 80 for the entire meal which is pretty steep for hot put. I would not go back here.

I wish I liked this place more. They have very low ceilings and poor ventilation – both are huge no no’s for hot pot restaurants since it guarantees that you’ll be walking around smelling like a bowl of steaming soup for the rest of the day
They are extremely all over the place. A hot pot restaurant with sushi and also full Chinese menu. The bubble tea was horrendous. We ordered litchee and they gave us a a blended litchee smoothie with milk. Can you imagine drinking apple juice blended with milk? Also, the tapioca was disgusting. They were so soggy and small. Probably because they were overlooked and had been sitting around all day.
The décor here is extremely whack and random. Animé and character posters all over the place. Really cannot tell what’s going through the owner’s head and why his or her staff has not said anything. It looks so cheap, gaudy, and tacky. It’s as if you were in an elementary school boy’s room
The worst part is they are extremely cheap with the pricing. We ordered two broths that were supposed to be $ 4 each. Instead of charging us that or 2 times $ 4, they charged us $ 9. Her reasoning was cuz we were ordering the double broth which is $ 9 – double broth is supposed to be house broth and broth of choice. If the house broth is complimentary, then why are you paying even more???
Also, I ordered the vegetarian platter which is supposed to come with the mushroom combo and veggies. They gave me white button mushrooms and a few enoki and a bunch of leaves. No tofu or any other vegetarian protein. How am I supposed to be full of that?!!
The things I did love though were that they had a make your own sauce bar in the back. You can grab as much cilantro, scallion, sesame oasate, sacha sauce, soy, etc as you wanted whenever. Also, they gave us orange slices and fortune cookies at the end of meal which were extremely refreshing

This review is only based on our visit for the hotpot in this place.
Service:
This is one of the few Chinese restaurants with good service in Boston Area. The server has checked in several times to make sure we enjoy our food.
Sauce Bar:
Outstanding point for the hotpot. Instead of providing random sauce on your own table, they have set up a separate section for customers to get their own sauce and refill. One suggestion to the bar, it would be better if it is a round table at the center of the restaurant instead of leaning on the wall so that it would take more people in one time instead of waiting for one person each time?
Food:
Broth — we have tried the herbal broth and mala (normal spicy), as traditional. I could really smell the herbal from the broth, which is a good sign. The combo comes with a free rice/​noodle, except for the Udon (has to add one dollar).
I did wish the meat combo has more meat, comparing to the price. The varieties is good enough, like egg dumpling, watercress
At the end of the dinner, they served oranges and different flavored fortune cookies. It was a surprise to me!

Excellent service, good place for hot pot. (They do have a lot of other choices there.)
For a decent amount of food you would probably pay the same amount at an AYCE place.
The meat is a good quality and veggies are fresh so nothing unique about it here. The sauce bar is probably the standout from other hot pots. You can create your own sauce with your favorite combinations and not have to keep asking for more «sacha» when at other places just give you a small plate of it. You know your sauce combination has 30% or more of it in there.
The quality is on par or better than other favorites around the area. Good location for Harvard Sq/​Central for those who do not want to travel to Chinatown or Allston. A bonus in the winter time. Some parking on the street which is not impossible to find but could be difficult during peak season or dead of winter when the pile of snow has your spot.
IMO I hope they just focus on their hot pot offering and reduce their prices. I won’t be mad if they removed the rest of the options that most people might not go for.

Really liked it! Generous beef portions for the set, did a half-​half (tomato broth and mala soup) for the hotpot. Tomato broth was pretty good. Mala was spicy enough (not super spicy though, will try the spicier one in the future), good range of vegetables, very efficient service. Could get a table easily at 12 noon on a Saturday but the restaurant became more full after.
Couple of quick notes:
Mala is obviously going to be oily. If you don’t like that, don’t order it, please.
The sauce bar is self service. This may be a point of attraction if you like to mix your own sauces, or not if you want everything chosen for you. I am neutral on this point — can’t see why this would be a reason to write an angry complaint, but also wouldn’t see it as a reason to love the store.