Riverside Hotpot Cuisine

4.5 stars. This place is downright delicious. I always get the spicy broth and it never disappoints. I’ve also tried the vegetable broth and it was very, very bland so I’m not sure what to recommend to people who don’t like spice. I’d like to know what other non-​spicy broths are good so I can come here with friends who can’t handle the heat. The sauce bar is great, and the meat and the dumplings are very good. Be sure to finish at the end with the udon as a way to polish off the broth as a delicious soup. Also appreciate the hot sake. The staff is very nice and willing to explain how things work to first timers. The only thing that keeps me from coming back more often is that I can’t help but overeat every time!

Visited Riverside at the prompting of a groupon as many other reviewers said previously. And yes, when we calculated the amount spent with and without the groupon, we ended up saving about $ 3. The wait staff was friendly and asked if it was our first time. When we said yes, the woman explained the process and was helpful in her explaination. We both tried something simple and husband went with the chicken and I went with the vegetarian. The broth tasted very watered down and lacked flavor. When the server came back by she used the same pot to refill our broth even though we both had different broths. We sat near the kitchen and when a person was finished, they would throw the leftover sterno cans into a regular trash can. One time, I saw the flame was still going on the can. I did not like many of the accoutrements that came with the hot pot, many looked less than fresh and the chicken looked as if it had been thawed and refrozen several times. Even with the broth, the chicken was dry and chewy. I would not go back for the amount that was paid and the quality of food.

I took my friends here yesterday and it was all our first time. Server explained the concept/​procedures very well. She even recommended tomato and beef broth and we were all very happy with it! We all got the happy hour menu for about $ 18 and we were all so full!
It was such a great experience! I will totally be back! Perfect for this winter season!

Hot pot season! I’ve been there twice. Once for lunch and once for dinner. I was overall happy and happily full both times with service, the sauce bar, the menu selection! Nothing too crazy on the menu and nothing too exotic so it should compliment most people.
The individual pots is a good idea. One of those times i was sick so I didn’t have to worry about contaminating the entire pot.

This was such a fun trip! I might be oversimplifying it, but I liken it to Asian fondue, and just as much fun.
I doubt I’d be coming here too often, because it’s a bit out of the way for me, but I’d definitely be back. It’s easy to find (a few minutes off 270) and has plenty of free parking. The shopping center has tons of other attractions, so you can make an afternoon or evening of your trip.
We came here about 9pm on a Saturday and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too full. We were seated right away, and the waitress was so helpful! She asked if we’d been before (we hadn’t) and gave us a quick, but detailed rundown of the hot pot experience. It can be a bit overwhelming the first time, but we got into it VERY quickly as we tried out our favorite foods. I got the spicy broth which was definitely SPICY. Luckily, when they added broth, the spice decreased and I could focus on the delicious flavor.
The foods were a mix of fresh and frozen, which I was OK with. I don’t mind foods being frozen if it means I won’t get sick! Everything was pretty tasty, especially when dipped in the various sauces. We felt like gluttons for having like 4 sauces apiece, but we shared them and that made for better experimentation.
Overall, I’d recommend this restaurant. It’s not your typical dinner out and is definitely worth the cost.

If you like hot pot, this is the place to go. The spicy soup base is to die for if you are into spicy food. There is a variety of food to choose from for all-​you-​can-​eat dinner, e.g. beef, lamb, seafood, tofu, vegetables, egg, noodle, dumpling, … but it is a bit pricey.
The space is limited in this place. With individual hot pots on the table, it is hard to move your arms around. It is also a bit hard to breath when every table is cooking…

This was my first time at Riverside and now I am hooked! For $ 25 you get your own personal hot pot and all the food you can eat. The menu is pretty straightforward: you choose a broth and then whatever ingredients you want. After you order, you get up and go to the sauce station to make your own personalized array of sauces.
Highlights:
–You get a lot of food for the price
–Definitely recommend the tomato and brisket broth. It was perfectly seasoned and tasted great with the wonton noodles
–Fatty brisket: Thin and cooks quickly. Very tasty and great with beef sauce
–Sauce bar: It is pretty cool that you get to make your own sauce. They provide a bunch of sauces that you can mix up and try.
–Bacon: Takes longer to cook, but definitely worth it. Cut is thicker than the brisket and is very succulent.
–Yuka: Add this if you want some sweetness to your broth! It tastes just like a potato.
Do be careful where you walk though because the floor is very slippery. I witnessed two people who almost lost it on the way to their table. Also there is a 10% fee applied if you leave a lot of food behind, so be sure you order as much as you can handle.

Ok, I should have given this place 2+ hours. My friend and I came and we only had about an hour. This is really not enough time to get the full experience. We had one spicy broth and one mushroom broth. So many things to put in it to cook that I can’t even break it all down.
Some highlights:
Octopi — When you cook em they curl their arms up: Hands Up Ockie was our phrase of choice.
Squid — Don’t leave it in too long and it is just right.
Really liked the beautiful eye round
Bacon Never knew I like it boiled but always a good choice.
Next time we will take more time to explore all the sauce and spice options on the bar.
What a cool place. I’d like to come with a larger group and really park it for a long time to experience all they have to offer.
They could do a better job of guiding the new diners with how to season, cook, spice, eat and participate most fully in the experience.

3.5ish stars. I have had much better AYCE hot pot, albeit in NYC and not Maryland.
The restaurant itself is pretty small so I can definitely see how it would get packed on the weekends. However, we didn’t have too much trouble getting a table for two on a Monday night. Nonetheless, the place was full around 7:30 PM.
You are given a slip of paper on which to mark down the items you want. I would highly recommend going for less at first, as you are welcome to order as many rounds as you want. I am guilty of having eyes bigger than my stomach, so I definitely went on the safe side at first. The service here is relatively fast so I didn’t have much complaints. There is a 2 hour time limit on the AYCE, though I am not sure how closely they time you.
As for the food, I do have a few complaints… I frequently make hot pot at home so I wasn’t blown away. First, the pots are heated with a tiny tin of chafing fuel. This is not an effective heating source and my fire had died down about an hour later. It took forever for the broth to even come to a boil. Second, everything needs to be thawed better. I understand that food safety comes into play, but I was literally sticking rock hard, frozen meat into my broth. Third, my veggie broth was so flavorless that it might as well have been plain boiling water. Luckily there are a plethora of sauces available to help spice things up.
For $ 23.99 pp, you can definitely do better just getting the ingredients from an Asian supermarket and making this at home. I just don’t think this place is worth it for how much it costs.

Came here today for lunch with my wife. They only had their regular lunch buffet deal fir $ 24. The weekday lunch deal is much better.
That being said I tried the items that normally I would have to pay extra for. Not really worth it. The only things I like ares the prime rib and the brisket. My wife trotted the mushroom soup bar which was OK. I chose the curry soup base which was pretty horrible. It was very greasy. But anyway, the service was quick and friendly.
I am not sure if I will be coming back here for a while, but if I do it would be for the weekday lunch special.

Exceptional quality, quantity, and service. Über umami with four different choices of broth, dozens of choices of items, and a full bar of homemade condiments and sauces.
Some days are just great days for hot pot. Wait until a day like that, skip lunch, and then settle in for all-​you-​can-​eat at Riverside. After you choose your broth, your own personal vat of amazingness is brought out to you with a flame underneath to keep it warm. You select which items you’d like to dunk in your soup, and they come out arranged on a large tray. You are free to visit the sauce bar at any time, and I highly recommend that you taste your way through the sauces, even if you look like the crazy person with five sauce dishes. When your broth gets low, your server will refill it from a teakettle.
So, you’re still left with big decisions about which broth to try and which items to order. I liked the mushroom broth, which was savory without being too salty (gotta let the sauces sing). The tiny dumplings, fish balls, and frozen tofu were among my favorite items. But all of that is totally up to you. You check items off a little card, so you have the chance to really explore the menu.
I can’t wait to go back, now that winter is on!

Hot pot!!! Hot pot!!! Good for a cold rainy day. Or heck– any day.
Been to a few of the hot pot places and for Gaithersburg this is pretty good. The service wasn’t bad. They can get busy so just flag them down… Once you order it come right out…
This place has individual hot pots. A little shallow but they can refill the soup at any time. I chose the spicy soup. And it was spicy. Not so much that I would cry… But it was to my satisfaction. Peppercorns floating in the soup… Just be careful!
Now once You pick a soup… Make the dipping sauce! So many choices… And if it all goes horribly wrong just go and make another one.
The selection of ingredients is decent. A good variety that will make you full. After may be order more and more and more… A few times ;) eat until you pop! I was pleasantly surprised.
Would I return? Sure. This is a once in a while thing…

Decent AYCE hot pot place. Make sure you know that the broth you want is the one you want. It costs $ 2 extra to switch the broth out after choosing in the beginning.
I prefer hot pot places where you can go up and choose the vegetables that you want, but the place is tiny so they only have a sauce bar and you order your meat and vegetables on an order sheet. Service is pretty fast though so it’s not that bad.
With tax and tip it’s $ 30.01

A banging hotpot spot. I enjoy the fact that each person gets their own personal hotpot. It has a wide selection of meats, seafood, veggies, noodles, etc. Furthermore, it’s sauce bar has all you need to make the perfect sauce. Out of the broths, I’ve tried the spicy, mushroom and curry.
The spicy broth was interesting. It had a good kick, that kinda lingers and numbs your mouth. Initially it was a nice taste, but the more you eat, the more buildup. It sucks that you can’t switch broths without paying extra. ³⁄₅
Mushroom was a nice mild broth, and got better as the meats and everything else cooked. Adds little flavor to meats, and allows you to dip in the sauces.
⁴⁄₅
Curry was a little bland, couldn’t taste much curry flavor. 3.5÷5
Service was pretty decent. Waiters and waitresses did a solid job bringing out more meats and drinks.
With winter around the corner, I see myself coming more often

Last Monday, Columbus Day, we went here… Oily, small portions, really pricey, iffy service… The music was practically deafening, it was some kind of rap/​pop Chinese music cranked up so loud we could barely hear each other. The food in some cases was super bland or in other cases was so hot that we couldn’t eat it and we weren’t notified that it was super hot. The good thing is that two out of three of us got our food in a sort of reasonable amount of time but I had to ask for times over 25 minutes for the third person’s food which was very very simple.

All you can eat! It’s a good choice to take protein lol.

I first learned of this hidden gem after reading write up in the Post. This was my first hot pot experience so I don’t have anywhere else to compare it to but I absolutely loved it! My fiancé however has traveled everywhere. He enjoyed it as much as I did and said it’s as authentic as it gets. Other Unilocalers have done an awesome job at describing the process so I’ll skip that part.
OVERALL: Must try! Loved the sauce bar with their already made sauces as well as the ingredients they provide to construct your own sauces! The chart on the wall that covers the cooking times is AWESOME! Would be nice to maybe have a miniature sized version on each table as it was super helpful. Note while the Unilocal page says they don’t serve alcohol, they in fact do! There’s a handful of beer, wine, and sake to choose from.
WHEN TO GO: We were here on a Saturday around 5:15pm and there were maybe three other tables of diners there. By the time we left (around 7:30) they were pretty packed. I’d definitely recommend coming here earlier like we did as the sauce bar was getting very crowded when we were finishing up. While it may seem like we were there for a long time, Riverside is an experience and not for those in a rush. They have somewhat cheaper all you can eat prices for lunch, happy hour, and (I think) late night after 9pm. Something to consider if you’re concerned about the price but even so you certainly get your moneys worth here!
FOOD: What I really liked was that they allow each diner to choose their own pot of broth. Nice touch given the numerous broth options plus helpful for those of us with allergies (which they were very attentive to). I had the mushroom broth while my boo had the vegetable broth. I’d definitely recommend one of these more basic broths if you’re going to order a wide variety of ingredients and/​or indulge in their spicy sauces. The ingredients do cook differently and you might not want everything spicy. I actually added some of their chopped garlic into my broth which made it extra delicious. Also make sure to order some noodles (I got the udon) as you’re starting to feel full. Adding them to the broth and making a soup out of it was amazing.
SERVICE: Service was superb. Our waitress asked if if was our first visit when we said yes she thuroughly explained everything in great detail. She, as well as the other wait staff, checked back on us often. They also paid close attention to our pots offering to fill them up with more broth or provide a new flame when necessary.
CONS: Again everything was really fantastic here and we’ll hopefully return often. My only complaint was that while we ordered quite a few things we didn’t know what some were when they came out on the big plate. It was hard to tell what was the prime rib slices compared to the house spicy beef slices. While 95% of the ingredients were fresh, like another reviewer said, we definitely noticed some meats were frozen while others weren’t on our meat plate. Even those that appeared to be the same meat.
Other than that, we loved our experience and can’t wait to come back for more!

Move over KBBQ, I think hot pot might be my new obsession! My boyfriend and I came for dinner on a Friday night and we both really enjoyed ourselves.
So, how it works is you order your soup base and then fill out a small paper menu with what types of meat, seafood and veggies you’d like. It’s all you can eat so don’t go crazy the first time ordering. Then everyone gets their own pot and you place your food in the pot to cook and pick them out with your chopsticks when they’re done. Go over to the sauce bar and create your own sauce and then dip your food in and enjoy!
I went with the Chongqing Spicy Soup as my base and it was definitely spicy! By the end of my meal my lips were on fire! But, I do love spicy food so this was no problem! Our favorites included the beef brisket, rib eye, mini dumplings and the udon noodles. My only complaint about the food, is that some of the meat came out frozen, while others were fresh. I would’ve preferred all of the meat to fresh, or at least thawed out before being served.
We stuffed ourselves and practically had to roll ourselves to the car, so if you have a big appetite, this is the place for you. I’ve seen Riverside pop up on Groupon a few times so be sure to check there first!

This was my first Chinese hotpot experience in the US, and it couldn’t have been better! I had plenty of authentic hotpot in Shanghai though so I know what it’s supposed to taste like.
We arrived on a Tuesday at 6 to find it pretty quiet but it filled halfway by around 7. My boyfriend and I had a Groupon so we got a discount for the same amount of (all you can eat!) food. It was the waiter who actually told us of the Groupon deal, so you can definitely say the service here is kind of really awesome.
We got the Sichuan and plain broth along with a variety of meats (beef, shrimp, scallop, fish cake, squid, etc) and veggies (mushrooms, radish, tofu, etc). I loved the spicy Sichuan and am pretty good with spicy food, but I still ended up drinking like 4 cups of water (=not as much food as I would have liked) — so put that into consideration if you aren’t a spicy person.
When I first saw the two plates of food, I thought we would quickly run out — we ended up not being able to finish either. So don’t underestimate the amount of food! And if you’re really hungry, put the fast cooking items (like beef) first so you can eat faster!
The servers always refilled our broths without us requesting, as they did our waters.
The topping bar is great and has a variety of sauces and plenty of scallions and cilantro so get creative, experiment, and pile em up!

Came here twice so far with a Groupon. It was ~$ 24 for adults all you can eat. So pretty pricey but definitely worth it if you can eat a lot in one sitting. I’ve had two different experiences here with the service. The first, there were not many waiters but also not many customers and they still showed poor service from the beginning. From of us sitting down and waiting for the distribution of food to pouring us water, to bringing us the check. But the second experience was much better. There was only one table left by the door and my mother did not want to be in the cold. They cleared a table in the back corner in less than 5 minutes for us so she would not be in the cold.
The food here is great. The meat is fresh and the broth is delicious. Both times I got the extra spicy broth and loved it. Minus the fact that it burned my tongue off and never learned my lesson. Next time I plan on trying the seafood broth. My favorites of the meat are the lamb, spicy beef, and clam. But really everything is good and worth a try. I really enjoyed the udon noodles but did not like the Cantonese wanton noodles. The wanton noodles would stick to each other and basically become one big blob of noodles.
Overall I would recommend this restaurant, especially if you had a Groupon. It is on the more expensive side. If you have a large group (8+), they do put tables together. So that is another plus if you want to go out with your friends and not deal with table problems and small spaces. Additionally, there is plenty of parking out front.
Pros:
–Fresh food
–Wide variety of broths to choose from
–Many choices for sauces
Cons:
–Price
–Busy (come 15 minutes earlier than you usually would)