Smelly Pot

I assume that most people might nominate «Boiling Point» as the best when it comes to Taiwanese hot pot. However, I’ve got a bone to pick with this statement. I prefer Smelly Pot to Boiling Point for a number of reasons.
First, you don’t have to wait insanely for a common, easy-​to-​prepare food on a weekday. Comm’n we are talking about a meal, not Disneyland.
Second, Smelly Pot presents more fresh veggie and much more variety of flavors for the broth base. Smelly Pot always brightens my day with its creativity (e.g., combining popcorn chicken and hot pot, adding «thousand eggs» into the soup) and you will never be disappointed with these inventive ideas!
Last and prolly the most important thing — it is TASTY. I’d like to try all the 10 different flavors of its hot pot. If you go there before 3 p.m., you will be treated with a cup of authentic, classic Taiwanese black tea. The sauces provided there are exactly the same with what you can have at Boiling Point but the service and overall food quality is way superior.

Comparable if not better than the other HP joints in the area.
Meat and Soup Bases are tastier and uses quality products as compared to others.
The soups even sell out.

1 Star for their SERVICE. 3 Star for their FOOD = Total 2 star
I actually came here several times because I like it better than BP. There is no wait for this place and they offer great lunch deals. However, my very last dining experience really disappointed me. I usually ordered their Taiwanese spicy hotpot because I love ramen and spicy flavor. Compared with BP, they are more generous in giving enough veggies and beef (even beef is overcooked). Here comes the problem, all the food took forever to come out. Yesterday we ordered around 12:15 pm and was waiting until 12:45 pm and did NOT get our food. Not even drinks were served. The restaurant was not even full. Around 12:50 pm different waitress came and told us that she LOST our order taken from different waitress. How did this happen?? At that point, we were all starving and angry but we tried to be patient. Not only the order was lost, the drink was not served until 1:00 pm. People came later than us already finished eating and left. The first waitress seemed pretty new, I saw her dropping the hotpot on people’s table, falling down several times and even hitting her own head on the wall accidentally in this 30 minutes. I mean doesn’t restaurant does employee training. I was afraid if she would drop hotpot on me whenever she walked by. Anyway after 1 hour of wait, we finally got our food but our drinks were all WRONG. Every drink came out no sugar and some of them were warm. Sadly, we were too tired to remind them because everyone was starving. I was eating in the fear of waitress dropping soup and anger of waiting. Guess I will need to find new hotpot place now.

Another Boiling Point copycat joint = Another place I tried since my GF loves these Taiwanese Hot Pot places.
I prefer this place over Boiling Points for a few reasons:
–No wait
–Cleaner
–Better Service
–Bigger pots = More food
Although food quality and taste are comparable, I would prefer coming here since I don’t have to deal with the wait and terrible service I have experienced at the BP locations I’ve been to. They have a lunch special where you get a free Green Tea or Wintermelon Tea too!

I gave two stars is because the bad services. I like the food there, very tasty and very traditional Taiwanese Hot Pot style. I come here for lunch often and there are few young kids work there. the guys making drinks there is very nice as usual but the waitress is very not friendly. today is the second or third time I saw her there. She really has attitude problem. She will throw the drink on your table and if you ask for something, she will come to you not asking «how can I help you» instead of «what do you need» (怎麼啦??)??? I strongly suggest the owner to give her/​his team better training for manners. Otherwise, the restaurant gonna lose more customer.

Worst customer service, chewy tendon in the beef slices… so bad that half is in the stomach the other half you’re still chewing in your mouth The pot keeps flaming out when the waitress doesn’t even notice it. Spare yourself just stay away!
这是我非常不满意的一次吃饭。首先这家店的东西换肉要加钱，第二酒精加热的东西一而再再而三的点不着，生的菜需要加热才能吃，不加热我怎么下筷子？第三说了不要猪肉和猪肉有关的东西，还给我放有猪肉的东西。第四那里的牛肉是有筋的，吃到嘴里嚼着咽下去的还跟嘴里连着，如果把他吐出来，还要连胃里的一起扯出来。牛肉硬的嚼木头。最让人失望的是服务员，一个女服务员！态度差到让人无法忍受！这样的人没有一点敬业精神，拿着工资出来混日子，老板怎么让这种人来工作？鬼才会再去第二次！失望

I give it a 2 star due to the wait time & lack of service.
Came here w/​hubby to have lunch. Place isn’t bad, seemed clean. We walked in, sat ourselves down. Waited about 5 + min for our order to be taken. I ordered the house special hot pot. Not bad. Thought the amount of food was good. Flavor of the broth was nice. The stinky tofu was good, it didn’t have the strong scent it usually has, but the flavor was there.
I did have a problem with the wait. We waited about 40 min for our food to arrive. Yea… Exactly. There was large group of 8 ahead of us, so it was to be expected there’d be a wait but almost 40 min wait? Seriously? Thankfully the waiter gave us our drinks while waiting. The drinks were put In a To go cup. The size def small. It seemed more like a child’s cup. Be warned. I’ve never had a drink that small. They should get bigger size cups. You’d think since the wait was so long, they’d refill our drinks? Nope. See how we were doing? Nope.
In the 25 min mark, I waived down the waiter to ask how much longer. 5 – 10 more min he said. Really? Ugh… He did apologize for the wait. Then again when we paid our bill. Wished they should have done something about the wait.
Would I come back? No.

The food was fine (I’m notoriously easy to please when it comes to hot pot), although for a place called «Smelly Pot» I would’ve expected the flavor of the stinky tofu to be stronger. It also kinda sucks that they don’t really have any true vegetarian offerings like BP, Hot Spot, Jazz Cat (they can take out the meat and replace with more vegetables, but the only option for broth is chicken), though I know that doesn’t tend to be a universal problem.
It was really the attitude of the waitress that insured that I’ll never come back. Attitude up the wazoo. Took our order acting like we were uninvited guests who showed up at her house to freeload her food instead of showing up as patrons to her place of work. That, y’know, she gets paid for. Ate with family who asked if an acquaintance was scheduled to work that night, instead of just saying she wasn’t sure who the person being referred to was and leaving it at that, she snapped in the most condescending tone imaginable, «Look, we all have nicknames here so if you just say his name it’s not like I’m going to know who that is,» and rolled her eyes. I honestly can understand the intolerance for small talk when it’s busy but there were… drumroll… three tables in the entire place, and all of them already had their food, so she had pretty much nothing to do.
And do nothing she did, never stopped by to check up, never offered water, spent the rest of the time texting, and then when it came time for the bill, she dropped it off WHILE HAVING A CONVERSATION ON HER PHONE and flung a stamp card on the table as an afterthought.
Thanks I guess, but no way I’m coming back. Bye, Felicia! If you don’t feel like waiting for BP, go to Hot Spot on Gale instead, skip this place. Better food and great service.

this place stink. and no i don’t mean it literally lol. i had sukiyaki and not only they put cilantro in my sukiyaki, they also cracked the egg in it –_​– sukiyaki doesn’t have cilantro and usually they leave the egg out for customers to decide how they want it. the meat is alright, but i do like the fact there were plenty of food.
wondering why i went there for sukiyaki? i didn’t pick the place, and i was there for a friend haha.

Ok, I used to be Boiling point’s regular, but I decided to give this place a try today. And I was very very very disappointed. I came in 9:00 and left 9:40, because of they FORGOT PUT IN OUR ORDER, and there s only 2 tables of customer. They made us waited 40 mins without checking on us, finally I lost my patient after the same music played 4 rounds and asked them about our pots. The server just told us they FORGOT! How could a place like that still survive today? None of the server felt weird that we ve been siting there for so long with a total empty table. They all were just chatting over counter. I don’t see them check on the other 1 and only customer either.
I will never come back, that’s all.

Bro. I don’t even know where to start…
1. Their Facebook poster promo and the one on their store wall doesn’t state what time the promo started which resulted in a horde of people waiting outside their restaurant confused. Apparently the promotion starts at 6:00pm. We were also turned away around 4:00 pm to be allowed to sit inside. When I asked if we can just order drinks and just wait till the time, the guy said he had to ask the manager if that was allowed. W a t. They’ve been opened for business all day. Wtf. They insisted we had to wait till 6:00pm to sit inside.
2. Nowhere on their promotion posters says that we had to CHECK-​IN ON FACEBOOK to get the promotion. We were told AFTER we had gotten our check.
3. They don’t offer lamb regular hotpot only sukiyaki not to metion they weren’t serving lamb tonight for some reason. I rushed to look at the menu again and realized 90% of their menu offers only pork. I’m not a huge fan of pork and I’m really sensitive to spicy stuff so I literally stared at the manager and asked «So… What do you have that’s beef and not spicy?» She replied the only thing they offered was a Satay Beef pot. Great. One option.
4. The second we sat down three people asked us if we were ready to order. BRO. We don’t even have menus and fuck, give us like two minutes to look at the menu (if and when we do get it).
ONLY SALVATION OF THE NIGHT: There was ONE single waiter that actually did his job properly. Made sure our waters were filled, checked up on us frequent enough and overall had a great smile and attitude. Albeit the entire store felt like they were overwhelmed as they had a full house and people waiting outside. It was as if they weren’t ready for the crowd.
This experience was like going to the Happiest Place on Earth except you’re with shitty people that just made the entire experience terrible. (._​_​_​.)*

Zero … We saw the chef dropped meat on floor and put it back in dish so say ewwwwwwwwwwwwww
Taste and service — horrible and slow
Coffee slush? Omg taste like ice and no sweet n not the taste of coffee at all. So asked to fix that agin but same shit… So it not worth for $ 4.75 without tax
WILL NEVER COME BACK

Someone sent me and email telling me this place had a special for two weeks. It was buy one get one free deal and it looked promising.
We arrived and the place was packed to capacity and we had to wait about 20 minutes so I was assuming two things. The food was good or everyone was there for the buy one get one free deal.
After sitting down and discussing the menu with the waitress I decided to go with the land deal but I wanted the miso soup and lamb but it didn’t come in that configuration so I just went with the lamb cause the picture looked better. Little did I know the picture is quite deceiving. It shows what’s in the pot but I only got two chunks of lamb with meat on it and two other with a large chunk of fat on it. I can’t say I enjoy eating straight up fat.
After placing our order we sat and waited for a good 25 minutes. At this point the restaurant is thinking out and were are looking around trying to figure out what happened to our meal. I flag down the waiter and he said he’ll check then I receive my bowl and five minutes later my friend receives his. I don’t know what took so long in the first place plus we ordered the same thing.
For the value I don’t see its worth for $ 15.99 unless they bumped up the menu price for the promotion. Since all the menu items had a new price on it that’s what they might have done. Giving us the impression we got a deal but in reality it wasn’t but we won’t know until I come back again which is unlikely. This bowl at other places is worth a mere $ 7.99 at most because I seriously felt that’s all it’s worth. The lamb parts is less than stellar and the quantity and quality was below par.
If you truly want to thrive in this competitive market you must offer better quality goods for the price you want to charge. Second up is service which is lacking in timing after order is placed. Plus bowls should be delivered in unison not in five minute increments. Train your staff to be more alert as they are fiddling with their phones or chit chatting with their colleagues because after waving someone down it took five minutes to get the bill.

Came here cold and hungry last Sat with husband and two friends. Love that there was no wait.
I ordered the sesame oil chicken pot with rice noodle.
Husband ordered the porridge pot with pork on the cover of the menu.
My other friend had the spicy pot with beef.
I absolutely love the flavor of my sesame chicken broth. It was so comforting on a cold night. The draw back? There was hardly any chicken in it! At one point I almost thought they forgot to put in the chicken, and then I scooped up very tiny pieces of chicken on the bottom of the pot. I’m not a major meat eater, but seriously, this is not a good way to do business.
Now let’s talk about my friend’s spicy pot. I feel like for the amount of spiciness, they need to have more flavor for the broth to balance the flavor. It was all spicy not enough savory. The pot came with beef and other assorted seafoods. The beef, was like chewing on card board! I have never had such bad quality beef in a hot pot before. I am not expecting wagyu or kobe, but that kind of dry and toughness was pretty hard to take.
The best overall pot was the porridge pot. The broth was very well flavored, pork was tender and delicious, wild rice in there give the perfect texture.
Over all, this place for me is still worth coming back to. I would probably stay away from the beef. And since I am no big meat eater, I will continue to order my favorite sesame chicken pot with rice noodle.
However, I really hope they could improve the quality and quantity of the meats in their pot.
Find a new beef supplier and be generous on ur chicken!!!
P. S. I think this is very important for some of us, all four of us didn’t felt there was any MSG in the broth. Our mouth felt very clean afterwards. Which is a big plus.

So there’s The Shack if you don’t want to wait for Boiling Crab, and now there’s Smelly Pot if you don’t want to wait for Boiling Point! If you’re a Boiling Point fan, try this place out. I thought it tasted about the same. I also liked their sauces.
Upon entering, I did notice a smell but what am I to expect with a restaurant named «Smelly Pot»? I’ve never had stinky tofu nor been around it. So I’m going to safely assume it was the stinky tofu!
I tried the popcorn chicken hotpot (it doesn’t have stinky tofu) and it was satisfying enough. The warm broth warmed me up on a chilly winter evening. However, I wish the broth had more layers of flavor. I did like the rice that came with the hot pot though. It reminded me of sushi-​quality rice.
I got one of their smoothies and thought it was all right. I regretted getting it afterward and wished I would’ve just visited Tastea or Jungle Tea Bar for my smoothie fix instead. This was my boyfriend’s first time trying hot pot in a restaurant and he was sick and craving tofu soup. So his house special with stinky tofu really hit the spot for him. He loved it!
As for me, I think I’ve had better. I’m more of a fan of «Hot Pot, Hot Pot» in Monterey Park and love the broth selections there. Service was good. They were always around and available to ask for something. One major downer was when there was a spider on our table. We told our server and she ran to get another server to kill it. Made me squeamish and I had to ask for a new table and new cups of water!

Interesting name, but I’m not entirely sure that having a unique name would inspire my mouth to water thinking about something «smelly» as the word generally carries a negative connotation. All in all though, Smelly Pot delivers decent tasting hotpots with slightly different ingredients from BP but there’s noticeably something lacking in their service and atmosphere. Had it not been for my Taiwanese friend who recommended this place, I would’ve never noticed it despite having been to its plaza frequently in the past for Curry House, In N Out, banks, and Nijiya Market. Lost? Smelly Pot is in the very corner where Union Bank is located.
Upon entering, the first thing that hit me… or didn’t hit me was signature scent of stinky tofu which I was profoundly thankful for. The second and almost immediate thought was that the place was incredibly tiny and tables were uncomfortably small and cramped next to one another. Thirdly, there was no hostess stand or any kind of waiting area in the restaurant — I entered the store, and I was already standing awkwardly between two tables waiting for a waiter to greet and seat me which didn’t happen for the first few minutes since two employees were blatantly ignoring me to clean up a table nearby. Eventually another employee from behind the counter kindly and politely guided me to a table while I waited for my friend to arrive. Throughout our meal, not a friendly face nor gesture was received from the employees with the exception of the one gentleman who sat us.
Similar to BP, their lunch hot pots come with your choice of green/​black tea and rice/​noodles. Prices mimic BP as well with some of their options being $ 11 while others were a little pricier at $ 14. I opted for beef while my friend had the Spicy Taiwanese. Besides nothing tasting better than my typical visits to BP, what disappointed me most was that it seemed like the portions were smaller as I only received 3 small (and flavorless) pieces of beef and was served half a portion of rice because they ran out. The broth was boring, the green tea came in a teeny tiny cup with «La Kaffa» on it, and where were the sauces? Perhaps I’m biased, but there is not a single reason as to why I would make an effort to come back.

I’m not going to lie. I came with my friend here just for the name. We both enjoyed the house special tofu soup, and it was delicious! Lunch prices are about 10 bucks so it won’t break your wallet. Unless you real poor than you should just grab something at AM/​PM.
We wanted another bowl or rice, but somehow they ran out of rice at 3pm. There is a market in the same plaza so I would assume you can just go buy more. I guess I’ll just have my friend fill her purse with some rice just in case next time. ALWAYS BE READY. Rice is life!
Also I enjoyed that the waiter laughed at my joke hard enough to spit on me. Spitting usually cost extra. He got an extra tip for that.

I am in love with this place! An amazing place to get lunch that is super flavorful and for now, a hidden gem. We all love the famous Boiling Point, but those waits are sometimes insane. Smelly Pot has the same idea had BP, but the hot pots have different ingredients and are slightly different. Both served with rice and green/​black tea.
I really enjoyed the house special with stinky tofu. They really got me there, I love the tofu, so soft, definitely cooked it for a long time before serving.
Compared to BP, when I need a quick meal, I would consider this place over BP. It’s good!

Pretty Damn Good Hot Pot place!
I tried the Stinky Tofu Hot Pot and really felt as if I was dying with the smell, but it was just so good to resist! I am coming back for more Stinky Tofu Hot pot! :)

Delicious Taiwanese Hot Pot! Despite what the name says, this place is not all that smelly (which is a good thing).
Previously called La Kaffa, Smelly Pot is here with a whole new menu! I was told by my friends that this restaurant is very popular is Taiwan, so I was excited to try it with my family. We were pleasantly surprised by how flavorful the broths were! I would even say that it has more flavor than Boiling Point. I personally ordered the Japanese Miso pot. It was very good, especially when you order it a little spicy! My dad ordered the Beef Satay pot, which was recommended to him, and he enjoyed his as well. Other people in my party ordered the Sukiyaki pot, Curry Fishball pot, and Stinky Tofu pot.
They were out of boba when I went at lunchtime, but the watermelon juice I ordered tasted very fresh. What sold me for this place was the owner. He was so kind and helpful with giving us recommendations. Everyone here seemed to know him, and it’s always a good sign when a restaurant has regulars! Next time, I want to try their desserts!