Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

Came here on a Saturday around 3pm and the place was dead. All but three customers in the entire place and the service was terrible. The person that sat us asked me and my boyfriend whether we had been there before. We said «no» and they didn’t even proceed to tell us how the AYCE worked. Luckily I did my research prior to coming so I knew what it was all about. There would be long periods of time before anyone even paid attention to us which made no sense when there were barely any customers. When they did talk to us, they were less than enthusiastic and helpful. 1 star for customer service. In terms of food, I would give it 2 stars. Everything was just alright — nothing amazing, nothing worth coming back to and not worth the price.

Probably the best priced AYCE lunch hot pot in all of LA county. But I was surprised to see that it was still slow for a Tuesday… I guess people don’t have enough time during their lunch breaks from work to make it over here for a 1 hour lunch.
Anyway, the sauce bar is a bit lacking compared to other Little Sheep places but it’s adequate. Meat and veggies were good but don’t even bother ordering more than 2 orders of beef and/​or lamb in one round because they’ll always just give you one plate. Good thing you can order for 3 rounds though.
Beef tripe and pig intestines were really good! Clean and not too fatty.

This is definitely a different kind of experience if you end up going to Little Sheep. There is the spicy and the mild broth. The spicy/​mild are often offered side by side, but separating the reservoirs of boiling liquid with a divider down the middle. They fry up all kinds of things in a liquid or oily brew here that keeps on boiling: an assortment of usual types of meats and seafood, as well as vegetables, mushrooms and dumplings, but many internal organs too like kidneys, liver and intestines also. There are various dipping sauces and everyone is to help themselves to whatever is sizzling in the Hot Pot. I suppose not everything served is to everyone’s taste, but there is enough variety to satisfy anyone.
Little Sheep offers a wonderful Hot Pot experience, with good service and variety of ingredients. Though not all the ingredients were appetizing or appealing to my Western taste, they seemed in good quantity and taste to my friends and family that eat like this regularly. Watch out for the Sichuan peppercorn, which produces a rather odd tingling, lip and tongue-​numbing experience!

Great for the family. The fresh egg noodles are the best.

AYCE Hotpot for $ 22.95 for dinner/​weekends and $ 16.95 for lunch is truly a steal! You get a great selection of meat, seafood, and veggies and they are all of excellent quality. Lamb, Angus beef, quail eggs, fish, calamari, lamb meatballs, cuttlefish balls, napa cabbage, corn, and spinach are a few of my favorite things! Be adventurous and try them out. They have a sauce bar and there are two flavor of broth that really showcase the food you are cooking. Lastly, I have received great hospitality here, everyone is friendly and kind despite the chaos of an all you can eat place.
Things to watch out for: Sometime they can miss a few orders. Be patient as I am sure it gets crazy in the kitchen. The wait can vary. I went on a Sunday night and I was told it would be an hour wait but I got in within 20 minutes.

A different version of the Japanese cuisine shaboo shaboo. The all you can eat is totally worth it. The ingredients are fresh and taste fantastic. I would highly recommend paying the extra to get prime cut meat. this service is horrible. And the place and the ambience isnot the greatest. But the food is tasty. I would give it a shot especially if the weather is cold.

Added a star bc they have the cilantro and green onion at the sauce bar now.
Went a few nights ago, waited ten minutes, got seated, and that was around 7:30/7:45? Impressive.
This time everything we ordered was brought to the table. Yay.
Still have a major gripe with service. The lady at the front is pretty good. All the servers are literally meh. No smile, no nothing– blank, expressionless, borderline bored faces. They don’t even acknowledge you when you ask for something. I’ll be honest, though, we did get what we asked for (napkins, water refills), but it was like a mini surprise every time something showed up bc it didn’t even seem like the servers heard us bc they didn’t respond to us AT ALL. No verbal response, not even a head nod.
Empty water glasses unless you flag someone down. Every. Single. Time. Perhaps doing their part for the drought…
I really want to boycott this place bc of the service, but the food is too good… I know, somebody find my spine.

The cold weather definitely increases my hankering for some Little Sheep. I love that I can eat a lot and not feel heavy leaving. And although it’s Little Sheep, I enjoy the pork and beef options better than the lamb. So husband gets the lamb and I get the pork. And though I’ve never turned down a good cut of meat, I love all the veggie options and the noodles when I go to Little Sheep.
And since you’re dunking everything in a healthy soup, I love how nothing is greasy or heavy.
Bonus props for the quick and pleasant service and clean décor.

I went here on the 27^th for lunch for my boyfriend’s birthday. The restaurant is undergoing new management so a couple things has change since the last I ate here.
1. Price went up
2. Slices of meat got smaller both looks and in ounces.
3. Changed the sauce bar to the other side. If someone coughed or sneeze at the sauce bar I probably would get sick because the glass doesn’t cover enough.
4. Big on portion control! For example, if you order one round of tofu you get 2 tofu per plate.
5. New staff (it doesn’t matter how long staff has been there, when I marked down 10 slices of free range chicken I got pork instead. I got the chicken when I flagged the waitress. I don’t understand how you can get food mixed up when the menu is a lot smaller now, and i marked what i want to cook in my pot, and it wasn’t during the rush!)
6. Your not limited like before, like first round of AYCE you can only get 3, then second round get 2 and last round 1 then you want more on the 4^th you get has much as you want. You only get 3 round load up as much as you can!
Overall 3 out 5 stars.
I finally tried the original house broth. It was good, but I’m going to stick to the vegetarian one.

I used to love this place, and was a regular, but in the past few months, I’ve noticed their budget cuts have tainted my experience to the point of no return. Please beware: the angus meat is tasteless and chewy and I made sure to just swished it around so it wasn’t overdone. It didn’t even taste like meat. When asked, they said they’ve been getting leaner meat so that’s why it’s more tough — but really? chewy? It didn’t taste like meat, it tasted like rubber. There were only 2 servers on Xmas eve, which caused a whole lot of problems, including lack of sauce refills, and forgetting our order for 1 hour.
I also asked about where my favorite sauce went. They used to have 2 buckets just for that sauce, the satay sauce, and apparently they’ve run out of it for months. Such a shame, considering that the sauce is the star of show when you’re eating boiled meat and vegetables.
Anyway, don’t think I’ll be back until they figure how to please their customers instead of trying to skimp on everything.

Expensive ($ 23 per head). It’s AYCE but really meager portion per order, like 1 head of bokchoi per «serving». One serving of quail eggs comes with 2. I kid you not. Also $ 3 more for better ingredients.
Always run out of sauces. Dirty bowls.
Perpetually understaffed.

Little Sheep offers Chinese style hot pot where the broth is flavored and if you choose to, you can have 2 types of broth in the soup pot where the center is divided. I have only tried their vegan/​vegetarian broth and I was happy with the flavor.
They offer $ 9.99 Lunch Special on Monday to Friday where you get a plate of toppings to cook in your hot pot.
For All-​You-​Can-​Eat, weekday Lunch is $ 15.95 and Weekend and Dinner is $ 22.95. This might be a better deal than a la carte because if you opt to pay for per item and you want to have variety, then your tab will easily run over $ 23 per person. With All-​You-​Can– Eat, you can have all the variety you want without worrying about your bill getting crazy. Note, if you want to order premium items, it will be $ 3 extra at $ 19 or $ 26 per person.
Service is a hit or miss. The first time I came it was a disaster. Basically zero service and we got up to fill our own water, make requests, etc. Their condiment bar was also very poor with limited sauces and no green onions or cilantro. On my second visit, the service was better and the condiment bar was at its full glory with everything stocked.
Little Sheep is a good place to go if you want hot soup, lots of variety of veggies/​mushrooms, and be totally full from your meal.

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot is a Mongolian inspired restaurant where you cook your food in a Chinese herbal broth or in a spicy broth. They have 2 options: an à la carte menu and an all-​you-​can-​eat menu (AYCE). We calculated some items and found out that it was cheaper getting AYCE. However, the a la carte choices were not necessarily on the AYCE menu, so really look over the AYCE menu beforehand.
For the AYCE, you are provided with a clipboard and the list of food items. The concept is similar to Shabu-​Shabu, where you select meats, vegetables, and even various dipping sauces. The dipping sauces are self serve at the «Sauce bar» in the middle of the restaurant. As a first timer, we discovered this by ourselves, as no one pointed out what to do.
Step one: Select a broth. There’s only 2 broths to choose from: house original or house spicy. We selected the «ying and yang» broth: a steaming pot with both kind of broths was set in the center of the table. One is milky in color, with an assortment of fresh ingredients such as goji berries, jujubes, black cardamom pods, ginseng and herbs. For those who like their meal on the fiery side, the other side of the pot is a spicy crimson broth with «mala» chili oil, cloves of garlic and peppercorns.
The spicy section didn’t start off as spicy, but gradually it became hotter. We scooped out some of the peppers, and was amazed at how much they put in. The non spicy was completely the opposite. Not spicy at all, and quite honestly, no flavor. Even when we mixed the spicy with non spicy, it was still pretty spicy. The flavor overwhelmed the meats and vegetables we added, and it overwhelmed the dipping sauces. So unlike Shabu, where the sauces compliments the food, we found the sauces quite useless, as the spicy broth was just too powerful.
Round 1 — Next step: Order your food from the check off list. We started light, as we didn’t want to fill up quickly on the meats. Napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, shrimp and beef meatballs, dumplings, won tons, crab sticks, sausages and fresh cut noodles was our first course. The meatballs and dumplings were not bad, and a good way to kick start your appetite. Portions are small to avoid waste.
Round 2– We chose a heavier meat loaded menu for this round: sliced pork and beef, beef and lamb meatballs, fillet of fish, 2 types of tofu and a medley of shiitake and oyster mushrooms. The meats were just ok but I could not taste the flavor since the broth overwhelmed the flavor of the meat. I couldn’t tell if it was prime or just an ok grade. In fact, I could not tell if it was beef or pork, if it weren’t for the texture.
Round 3 — Completely void of vegetables, this last round had sliced lamb, another order of fish, pork meatballs, chicken, mussels and a hand cut egg noodles. We really liked the fish, as it soaked up the flavor of the broth, which the sliced meats didn’t do. The noodles were great, but no one wants to fill up on carbs. The chicken was just ok as well.
Dinner for 2 wasn’t cheap. Before tip, it came to $ 50 and there was no drink or dessert. Even though it was AYCE, after a while, the food combinations were pretty much the same, and I got tired of the same taste after the last round.
Service was just ok. Double check to make sure you get what you asked for. We didn’t get some items (but it was checked off our list) and we even obtained some new items which we didn’t ask for.
As mentioned, the sauces didn’t help combat the overwhelming broth. I would much rather go to a Shabu place, where the broth is more subtle, and where I can taste the food, not just the broth. I’m not a fan of this experience, but am glad I tried it. I guess this isn’t for me, and there’s far too many other AYCE «hot pot» type places which offers better food for less.

I was invited to try this place with a friend/​co-​worker of mine and laughed in her face when she told me that it was located in the Rolling Hills Plaza. «I’ve been there tons of times and have never seen Little Sheep! It can’t be there!» Well, I guess I just was never looking for it and was proven wrong. Even after dining there four or five times now, I still have trouble remembering exactly where it is and end up circling the plaza.
Little Sheep is very popular and one of those restaurants that require you to sign your name on a sheet of paper upon walking in, if there is a wait (90% of the time, there is). My friends and I try to tag-​team and make whoever arrives at the place first, run in and write our name down. Our wait time has been anywhere between 10 – 75 minutes. It really just depends on if you go at peak lunch/​dinner hours. The most frustrating thing about the waiting process is that there is usually no one at the front desk to give you an estimated time. Even if you stand at the front for 5 minutes, waiting to speak to someone, you most likely will not be helped until a table is available and then, maybe, you can ask them.
I enjoy their wide selection of items available for AYCE. My friends and I usually don’t order anything too crazy, but just stick with what we know like angus beef, pork belly, tofu, napa cabbage, bok choy, enoki mushrooms, crab sticks, etc. The menu is pretty extensive. But keep in mind, like most AYCE places, you can order as much as you want, but if you don’t finish it, you will be charged for what you leave behind. So order in moderation! You can choose if you want spicy or non-​spicy broth. It is full of a ton of different spices, that some find a little overwhelming. I really enjoy it and find it to be really tasty, especially in comparison to other places where it’s mostly water and flavorless.
They have a sauce bar where you can mix up your dipping sauce to your liking. The selection includes things like garlic ponzu sauce, hot sauces, green onions, chopped garlic, and such. This is perfect so that you can customize the sauce and you can also get up and refill it as often as you’d like, without having to wait for a server to do it for you.
I would probably have given five stars if service here was better. The servers just don’t check back often enough. Whenever we want to get another round of food, no one can ever be found. I don’t like to physically get up from my table to ask to be served, but sometimes it really does come down to that, which is annoying.
But, Little Sheep is tasty and I know my friends and I will be back.

They changed ownership.. Soup base doesn’t have enough flavor… we almost asked for salt because it was bland…
Either their waiter or the kitchen people needs to go to a math class.. We ordered some items like wonton that it comes in sets of 2 pieces… we wanted 4 orders… they bring us 2 pieces… we ordered again on the second round… we put 3 orders… it came 4 pieces… we order some items that never showed up… we had to later ask about them and took forever and still came out wrong…
Either change your menu to The correct amounts… or give the customers what they order…
Definitely will go to another location… hopefully they r better

I was thrilled when Little Sheep finally opened in Torrance but I haven’t had a chance to check out the restaurant until yesterday.
This location serves AYCE. It was ~$ 16 for lunch and ~$ 23 for dinner/​weekends which wasn’t too bad because you can easily go over that price when you get into eating hot pot. But obviously certain ‘better quality’ stuff were at extra cost and they definitely didn’t have as many options as their original menu was showing.
We got the half and half ying/​yang soup base and I immediately noticed the difference in their soup. Spicy broth wasn’t spicy enough until the end, even with gazillion peppers covering the whole soup, and overall very salty and herb-​y. I actually preferred their original broth even though I normally like the spicy broth. What I thought was interesting was when I asked for more soup half-​way into our dinner because it was getting unbearably salty from boiling the whole time. The server flat out told us not to use the sauces and not change their recipe and eat my hot pot just with the broth??? Well, it was salty and I obviously wasn’t flavoring the broth with their condiments, so I can only assume that she wasn’t happy about us asking for more soup…
As for their meat, their beef was terrible. It was very frozen and fragile but I won’t complain because it was AYCE. We also tried the pork shoulder which had some off smell but I did enjoy their pork belly (even though I normally prefer something with less fat when eating hot pot) because it was the freshest. Other veggies were okay, but I noticed that they weren’t cleaned too well. I actually recommend the calamari because that was quite fresh.
Overall, portions were inconsistent so we got more of one thing while less of others… and service was a bit lagging even though the place wasn’t quite packed.
If I am really hungry and am craving hot pot, I might return, but for someone who can’t eat too much, at most mediocre AYCE doesn’t work well.

What are you doing, Little Sheep?!
I’ve been so loyal to you for all these years and then you disappoint me like this?
I came here today and was very confused and upset to find that they took out nearly 75% of their «sauce bar» options.
Things that are no longer being given to customers anymore:
1. Sha-​cha sauce. this is a staple in every traditional Chinese family’s home. Why did you take out this option? Especially for the more traditional customers who need this sauce for their hot pot meals.
2. Garlic… what happened to the garlic?
3. Green onions. every hot pot place I’ve been to in Asia always have green onions. why take this away?
4. Cilantro. I don’t understand why you offer this for years and suddenly decide to take it away.
There are a few other options that they took away too, but these were the ones I usually have with my hot pot meals. There are only 4 options now and one of the sauce pails was empty for a good 15 minutes until I asked someone to refill it.
The sauce bar looks pretty depressing now, with ¾ of the table empty. If you’re going to take away options you offered before, at least lower your prices then.
Even some of the menu items (house shrimp ball) is different too. What happened to the cucumbers that it came with? Why did our order for the bread rolls come out half an hour later, cold?
Every person in my family agreed that the sauce bar was what made us like this place in the first place and kept us coming.
Also, when we came, there was an hour wait with six groups before us. At least three of them left because of the wait so we ended up waiting only half an hour. I asked if we could be seated outside on the patio, but were told no. Apparently, outside seating wasn’t allowed until nighttime, even if the weather is perfect outside. I don’t know if it’s a safety thing, but you just lost 3 groups of customers because outside seating (with at least 10+ tables) is only for nighttime.
Little Fat Sheep, please redeem your sauce bar.

I love Little Sheep hot pot… so much fun, salty, savory, MSG-​saturated goodness!
This venue is large and actually pretty modern-​chic. There is an outdoor dining area which seemed chill. We came on a Friday night without reservations at around 8pm and there was no wait. Plus it’s in a plaza with a bunch of other stuff, so you can walk around in case you do have to wait for a table.
Food was great. We ordered the All You Can Eat and got our money’s worth for sure. The soups were delicious but very salty. Didn’t need any extra sauce after boiling the food in either soup base (spicy or regular). We ordered 3 rounds of food. Of course you can’t go wrong with your staples like napa cabbage, bok choy, some mushrooms, udon or glass noodles. In addition to slices of beef, we ordered some seafood, dumplings, tofu, cuttle fish balls etc. Selection is really not bad for AYCE. If you order dishes individually, I recall the bill will really add up.
I highly recommend the pork dumplings, but make sure you cook them thoroughly! At least like 8 minutes just to be safe.
Fantastic thing about AYCE too are the small portions so that you can try many different things.
Why not 5 stars? The service was absolutely terrible. Actually, not existent. Don’t expect anything form the service.
After we were seated, nobody brought out waters for a while, until we asked. Someone came to turn on the stove and set down our soups, but no greeting or eye contact at all. We ordered a carafe of iced tea and were given dirty (dirty is an understatement) glasses… they were still dripping wet from the dish washer and actually had about 1 cm of warm water inside the glass. Disgusting! We turned them upside down to let the water out and wiped them with our own napkins.
Worst of all, when a server came to remove an empty dish, she put the same utensil that was used to pick up raw meats on that dish onto my (eating) plate. First of all, I don’t understand why she didn’t just take the dish and the utensil if they came together. Second, rude! Why did she have to put it on my plate? Does anyone have any concept of how bacteria is transferred around here? Hello?
Anyways. I won’t front and say «I’ll never be back» but, yeah, the service is really bad.
Just come for the food.

Little Sheep is one of my favorite hot pot places to eat at! I’m super happy that they started doing AYCE for $ 19.99 + $ 3.00 for premium items but I’m not sure if this is permanent or just for a limited time because when they first opened there was no such thing. It can get pretty pricey ordering from the a la carte menu so I would definitely recommend doing AYCE since it’s more worth it. You’ll pay less than if you order from the a la carte menu and you’ll also enjoy it more because you’re able to have variety.
I always get the House Original Pot soup base because I don’t like spicy. My favorite items at this place are Supreme Angus Beef, USDA Choice Ribeye, House Beef Meatballs, Fresh Fish Filet, Fish Balls, Tong Ho, Enoki Mushroom, Spinach. The meat is super good and it only takes a few seconds to cook. The fish filet is good as well. I mostly eat beef when coming here and just eat a little of everything else.
The line here really depends on the time you go. It gets pretty busy on the weekends and I believe they take also reservations. The place isn’t really that big so definitely try going early or make reservations. My most recent visit was a Friday around 6:00pm and I didn’t have to wait at all. There is plenty of parking outside but it does get kind of crowded at night because of the movie theater and other restaurants.
Like many low reviews on this page, the service does suck here. Usually when I come, I receive pretty bad service but I’m Chinese so I’m used to it. My most recent visit was actually pretty good though since the servers were prompt and quick to bring out our food.
My only complaint here is that apparently if one person at your table orders AYCE, you ALL have to order AYCE. I think that is so stupid because not everyone wants AYCE and should have the choice to choose.

Little Sheep shares real estate with Nijiya and AMC Theaters. It can get really busy.
The AYCE is a better option at $ 19.99. There’s copious amount of selections. I didn’t really care for the flavor of one or more ingredients, which I was unable to articulate. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out until I was done that there was a self serve sauce bar.
I will try this place again. This time, I’ll know where the sauce bar is.