Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

Seriously? Charging for sauce? And you only have 4 kinds? Other little sheep locations not only have more varieties of sauce but they’re free? I’m already paying for my meal, sauces should be included in my meal. Also why is AYCE here so much more expensive than the AYCE little sheep in Irvine? It’s the exact same thing, or no the Little sheep here have way less sauces.
At least the food was good though and our server was nice and attentive! Can’t really go wrong with little sheep hot pot. We didn’t wait at all. We came at 8:30 for AYCE dinner on a Monday and were seated immediately.

My dad mentioned that he wanted to try hot pot years ago which is a great way to warm up on a cold day. However, winter would come and go, years went by, and the original Hot Pot that sparked his interested has closed since. This year, I vowed that we would make a conscious effort to take him before it warms up again.
Back in the day, hot pot was pretty standard that it is AYCE (all you can eat), you get up and choose your meats, and either dump in the hot pot broth or the grill. Nowadays, it seems like there are so many different options (with or without grill), AYCE and a la carte, table service where they bring you the meats or buffet style where you get it yourself. Aaaaahhhhhhh, so many decisions!
We were so close to going to Hot Pot City in Milpitas but my husband’s coworker mentioned Little Sheep in Union City. I had previously looked at the San Mateo location but figured my dad wanted an AYCE option. Well, the UC one has that on M-​Th. It doesn’t have everything on the AYCE menu but there is enough choices to go 3 rounds. You are limited to 1 ½ hours and 3 rounds of orders but you can duplicate or triplicate the dishes you liked. Who knew my dad was such a fan of quail eggs!
Our faves that we plan on ordering a few rounds next time is quail eggs, tripe, shrimp, fish filet, sliced lamb shoulder, supreme beef, enoki mushrooms and fried fish tofu. Pick your soup base carefully though as you are only allowed one choice and not choose a different one for subsequent rounds. They will add more of the same base to your pot but you may want to wait until the last round to add noodles (makes it too starchy) or anything anyone might be allergic too.
Since this is a table service ordering style where they bring you your choices, our server Hui was great, offering suggestions, checking up on us, and making sure we have everything we needed and more.

InitiaLLy I wanted to give this pLace 4 stars but because of Leon, i’LL happiLy give LittLe Sheep (Union City) 5 Stars!
Thanks to my feLLow Unilocaler & Buddy Harvey, I made visiting this Location a MUST.
The LittLe Sheep Hotpot Location in Cupertino has aLways been my aLL time fave hot spot restaurant but because of the Long wait and the expensive price tag that comes with it (we eat A WHOLE LOT)… My fiancé and I tend to go eLsewhere to satisfy our cravings.
Low and behoLd, I reaLize that there is another LittLe Sheep Location in the Bay and it offers AYCE!
ApparentLy, this is the onLy Location that offers AYCE and it is onLy avaiLabLe M-​Th.
From the moment we waLked in to the time we Left, customer service was good. It didn’t take too Long for us to get seated but we found our tabLe to be extremeLy smaLL and the peopLe sitting next to us kept bumping into our tabLe. We sat pretty cLose to them and it normaLLy wouLdn’t be an issue if our neighbors for that night weren’t soooo Loud and obnoxious! ERGH.
For future visits, i’LL make sure we ask for a booth– Less cLaustrophobic and Less irritating.
Leon was our primary server but aLL the workers were open to cLear out our empty dishes and take on extra reQuests that we had. This is a weLL working oiLed machine– everyone works so weLL together.
We are given our AYCE menu and a pen. You mark off aLL the dishes you want and are given 3 rounds to order whatever your heart desires. The menu was pretty extensive but it does Lack a few of my favorite dishes such as pumpkin sQuash, spinach, & asparagus.
Food was deLicious and the broth is out of this worLd. We got the haLf and haLf of OriginaL/​Spicy, next time I won’t waste my time with the originaL.
After two rounds, we were compLeteLy stuffed. We sat around trying to finish up aLL of our food. Leon was consistent in checking up with us to see if we needed anything but was not overbearing in any way. Our drinks were constantLy fiLLed and he was not onLy attentive to us, he was amazing to every tabLe he approached.
I’LL make the trek from San Jose to Union City (even if that means sitting in traffic) because the food is THAT good & you can’t beat the price.
FYI– there is a ONE hour Limit that we were not aware of. The gaL in the front wiLL keep tabs on your time and wiLL automaticaLLy bring your biLL to the tabLe.

THEY DON’T HAVE SQUASH!!! My heart shattered when I didn’t see it on the AYCE menu because I love squash. Another spot in SoCal had it, but I guess that’s why the SoCal food scene will always be better than NorCal. They also ran out of corn, the second best thing next to squash.
Disappointments aside, everything else was bomb, especially the spicy soup base. They’re mighty generous with the orders and are good to check up on you. If you’re going for more than one round for AYCE, which you better to get your money’s worth, PLEASE also ask for a fresh pot of broth or round two won’t be good. We didn’t switch out pots, so our broth got thick and ended up burning with all the junk from round one and round two!
I wish they took better care in keeping your orders separate. They just throw most things together onto a plate, which matters to the people trying not to cross-​contaminate, IJS!!!

Don’t waste your time to go to this Little Sheep, the old lady with glasses in the front will never give you a table. My friends and I got a number for our party of 6, we patiently waited for 35 mins, then suddenly another party of 6 comes in who DOESN’T have a reservation and asks for a table and that old lady just gives them a table right away. I approached her and asked why they just walked in without a reservation and got a table while I’ve waited this whole time for my table and she only tells me that «you have to wait.» WTF what kind of logic is that. Can she not read that there already a party of 6 on her paper that’s BEEN waiting for a table.
Me and my friends just walked out at this point because we can’t talk this type of BS injustice.
They need to fire that lady because she really sucks at her job.

We arrived at this establishment at 1:30 pm on a weekday and were seated at 2 pm, all the while seeing that there were very few people actually seated.
At 2 pm, we were informed that the kitchen was closing at 2:15 pm.
This being my aunt and uncle’s first time having hot pot but wanting to give Little Sheep a try, we wanted a little help deciding on what to get. The waiter scoffed at us, came out with 3 different types of meat, and numerous veggies. We don’t necessarily prefer veggies over meat, but whatever, this is what the waiter suggested we get, right?
After asking for more meat to cook, we were informed that we could no longer order anything else.
Not to mention, we asked for water numerous times during our visit and were constantly bothered by the sound of busboys throwing plates around.
Needless to say, we are not coming back here again. the fact that we were technically blindsided and had our money taken for a 15 minute meal and that we had to ask for water several times is not worth the patronage.
If you’re looking for an exceptional hot pot place with friendly, attentive servers, I’d highly recommend Tasty Pot in Newark.

Awful service. It was 1:30 when we got in and we were not greeted for 15 minutes. Then the guy stuck his head out and said, «We only have room for 3 groups» and pointed to the 3 other groups and we were left. They were going to kick us out but we pointed to the 6+ empty tables and told them we were waiting for 15 minutes. They gave in and sat us too… after waiting for at least another 10 minutes. They didn’t accept any other guests who came in after us even though the lunch closing time was 2:30. At this point, it wasn’t even 2 yet. I understand that you’re busy, but that’s absolutely no excuse to not accept customers before closing time. That’s totally not fair.
Once we were seated, it didn’t take long to get our food– mostly because it’s a hot pot place and the customers cook their own damn food. The food was alright, it was better than I expected. The soup was a good temperature and we got a decent amount of food. The guy came to check on us every now and then and they let us stay until we finished our food and didn’t rush us.
I still wouldn’t come back, but I will say that the food was mediocre for its price.

For Christmas Eve 2015, my family decided to come to Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot for lunch instead of dim sum at the Mayflower, which turned out to be a great decision. First of all, there was no wait for a table even though it was during prime lunch hours and it was during one of their AYCE hot pot days. I believe the Mayflower dim sum restaurant (located in the same plaza as Little Sheep) probably drew most of the lunch crowd away, which I am perfectly fine with since that means more hot pot for me.
Right when we were seated, we were given two hot pot menus. One of the menu has all the options available if you decide to get AYCE, whereas the other menu is for the regular pricing of the food for non AYCE. Of course, we were going to be pick the AYCE option even though it has less options than the regular menu. It was only $ 22.99 for adults and $ 16.99 for seniors over 65 or any children under 4ft height. Last time I came to Little Sheep, I paid almost $ 35 for the non AYCE meal and I ate less food than I did this time around. Definitely take advantage of the All you can eat (Mon-​Thurs) days if you can!
My family and I had too much fun picking the food we wanted to put in the hot pot. It was AYCE, so you must eat your money’s worth! We chose the original soup base, which was delicious and perfect for my grandparents who can’t handle the spicy soup base. Some of the options that I recommend for the hot pot–
Lamb Shoulder Slice
Hand Sliced Supreme Beef
Garlic Beef
Shrimp Head On
Fried Fish Tofu
Tong Ho Vegetable
Quail Eggs
Knife Cut Noodle
Fried Tofu
King Oyster Mushroom
Shiitake Mushroom
As for the fresh octopus and wide potato noodle, I say skip on those. The octopus was too hard to chew once placed in the soup and for the wide potato noodle, it took forever for the noodle to turn soft enough to eat.
Also, they didn’t charge for the tea, which is nice.
All in all, I would recommend Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot for all the families who does not want to cook/​clean to just come over for the AYCE days.

Wow! Arrived before they even opened for dinner (5:30pm). It was raining and I was huddled under my friend’s umbrella for five minutes, Unilocaling photos. Funny how the steam from pots belonging to customers seated next to a window totally fogged up said windows. I had a lot of fun attempting to cook.
Complete newbie when it comes to hot pot here, but tonight changed all that! Monday-​Thursday has the unlimited option for 1.5 hours with limited choices for about $ 23. No wonder there were a lot of folks waiting for a seat at 7:15pm. Opting for the regular choose your own items menu, we spent a heavy ~$ 80 ($ 3.75 soup base, veggies $ 4 each, meats range from $ 5 – 14 each) plus tip for TWO of us but that’s what happens when two hungry girls arrive early yet leave with full soup to go containers … anywho original non-​spicy base was the way to go! Halfway through, they came round to add more broth yum. We ordered sliced chicken breast, lamb shoulder slices, garlic beef, tiger prawns, beef meatballs, spinach, Napa cabbage, mushrooms, two orders of udon (for the second round of cooking after we started eating), cooked dumplings, rice cakes! Stir frequently to prevent burning! My friend used the strainer? ladle to dip her rice cakes in to cook them. Towards the end she dumped them all in haha. Keep stirring! And turn down the heat. As a side note, our waiter asked if we wanted sauce, and I went for the minced garlic in sesame oil. Their dumpling sauce is a mix of soy sauce and vinegar.
They were persistent in acquiring our soup pot after it seemed like we were done. Uh, we need to box everything up. With so much soup leftover, we asked for additional soup containers for the broth, with the other containers already filled to the brim with meat, noodles, and veggies. The mushrooms shrink in the broth! Yeah, I don’t cook a lot. Almost everything amuses me at these cook-​it-​yourself establishments.
In short, big meat portions and the sliced meat presentation was great! The chicken breast looked like ready to eat lunch meat arranged on a platter. Tasty classic broth, but there’s a spice they add that tastes funny after a long time. Have them pour more broth and get things bubbling again.
Half & half broths look like yin yangs!
Hot soup and rainy weather just go together.

This place has the worst service ever. I had to ask them a few times for the napkins because there were no napkins at the table. The servers seems to be ignoring me. I had to ask twice for the check.
The soup base was horrible. They gave me the wrong kind of base for. I ordered the original, and they gave me the sour pickle. The base was also salty.
I would not recommend coming back here.

I went here on my first date with my current boyfriend, so on that reason alone I would give this place rave reviews. In all seriousness, though, get the AYCE option. You can’t go wrong. They offer potatoes (boyfriend’s fav food) which I don’t recall seeing other hot pot places doing. I think there’s a time limit but most AYCE places enforce one now.
Personally, I rather just do hot pot in the comfort of my own home, but this place is priced well and I can’t complain when I’m cooking my own meat so I’ll probably end up going again with him during our school break.

I would say the food here overall is pretty good. I’ve been here twice & I haven’t ordered anything that I didn’t like. The original broth is by far my favorite. The spicy broth isn’t that spicy & not as flavorful as the original broth so this second time, I didn’t make the mistake or ordering the spicy broth.
I like to order lamb & beef as my go-​to meats. This time, the lamb appeared freezer frosted. When the lamb finished cooking, there was a scaly appearance to the meat. We made sure we didn’t over cook the meat to make sure that wasn’t the issue at hand, but found out it was actually the meat itself. It didn’t seem as fresh as the other meats we ordered (beef & chicken). I like to also include napa, spinach, enoki, bok choy, tofu & thick noodles. The 4 sauces that they have here are definitely not worth getting. They’re only $ 0.50 each, but they are very bland. Just get the spicy & sweet chili sauces that they provide for free. Much more flavor in those if the soup isn’t giving you enough flavor.
There was no huge issues with the food, but our server was not doing his job. Granted the restaurant was busy, he never came to check in on us except to fill our water at the very end. We got half way through cooking our food & the soup level was so low the food started burning. There was a lot of smoke & a really bad smell. We had to flag our waiter down who was busy attending to other customers. When he finally came to fill the soup, he did apologize but our broth was already burnt. The rest of the time we were cooking our food, it ended up tasting burnt. Not a very pleasant experience at that point.
The environment was very nice though. Situated at the corner in a not too busy location of Union City. We arrived around 7:30 pm with a wait time of around 20 – 30 minutes. The first time I tried this location a couple months back, there was no wait time at all, but it was also a Saturday night. This time, it was a Thursday night.
The place was packed from the time we arrived to even the time we left almost 2 hours later. Would definitely come back again, just hoping for a more attentive waiter.

We had a wonderful hotpot dinner… we opted not to do the all you can eat… we found that the items we liked weren’t included in the deal… so we ordered off the menu… the price does come to a higher price but well worth it…
It really is a great place for gatherings…

Little sheep is sooo good! Honestly, people either love this place or hate it because of the flavor of the broth. It has a very strong herb smell and taste so it can be a little too overwhelming or weird to some people. but I love it! This place is more of a Chinese style hot pot in comparison to Japanese shabu shabu. The broth is super flavorful here so you don’t really need any dipping sauces (unlike shabu where you usually rely on dipping sauces to give your food flavor). All the ingredients (meat/​veggies/​etc.) here are always fresh too!
The one downside about this place is the price. Each plate is pretty expensive, especially considering the portion they give you, so the prices rack up to a pretty hefty bill at the end of the meal. Unless it’s a special occasion, I only think it’s worth eating here when they have the AYCE option during summertime (for this year, 2015, it’s every Tuesdays for $ 22.99 but sadly it ends at the end of September).
The service here is okay, they do check up on you every once in awhile but when it gets busy, you have to always call them over if you want to order more food or for soup refills.

It’s good. I love their soup base. The AYCE option was not offered so hubby and I ordered the meat platter plus 3 other beef plates and some other seafood platter. Waiter tried to dissuade us from ordering so much meat but we were starving! Food came out quick then it was time to cook. Service was quick and efficient, the only downside is the gnats flying around. Way too much of them flying around our table. At the end of the meal, I can see one of the workers using a sticky trap trying to catch these gnats. What a huge turnoff! The other workers were just standing there watching too. I like the place but may hold off returning until the gnats are taken care of.

The Union City location has AYCE Mon-​Thurs instead of just Tuesdays, like the other locations. The food is good, but I blame myself for always eating too much here… Latest discovery are the potato noodles… they only need to be cooked for a few seconds (about 15 – 30 seconds) before they’re ready, and if you love that chewy mochi type texture, this is the way to go. It’s life changing…
I go nuts for the garlic beef, lamb in wine sauce, tendon, tong ho, tempura, and mushrooms.

Me and my friends were here for all you can eat. Seriously each person for $ 29 we can just get whatever we want and the broth from ranch 99. This will cost less than what we have to pay. The food was okay. The portion of ALL YOU CAN EAT is so little no matter how many orders I put on the items. The waiter was kinda rude and working SO slow with some kind of attitude problem. They missed out the sliced pork for our table and we have to wait for nearly 20 mins to get it. And the thing is for all you can eat you only get to have certain limit of time to finish the food.
We ended up paying additional $ 0.50 just because our table asked for the dipping sauce! $ 0.50 for such a small plate of sauce? I will suggest you to bring your own dipping sauce from either home or ranch 99
Overall I will not recommend to my friends UNLESS I see there’s any improvement on ur services.

If you’re a fan for good AYCE hot pot, then this place may be the place for you. Not exactly a fan of all the random herbs they put in the broth, but nevertheless my stomach and tastebuds had a good time here.
My friend and I came here for the AYCE ($ 21.99 Mon-​Thurs Only!!!). We came a hour or two before closing, so there weren’t that much of a wait. A lot of variety, from various types of meats to seafood to tofu to mushrooms to veggies!
My favorites are the Enoki Mushrooms (taste amazing!), pork slices (taste better than beef!), and fried tofu!
Quality of meat is uhh questionable at times. One order of beef slices we got was extremely dark, and after cooking it for a super long time, it still looked super pink. My friend ate it, and suffice to say that he had a date with his toilet when he got home.

I’ve been driving past this place for a week now, so my cravings for hotpot emerged…
I’ve tried this back in socal and it was pretty good, so I wasn’t expecting any different from here. Its definitely bigger, a lot more seating! However. they need to work on their dusting because you can see the dust accumulating on the seat barriers… gross…
The soup was great! We got half and half so it had lots of flavors and spices. We came on a holiday so there was no AYCE. what a shame…
We ordered 2 plates of thinly sliced beef, thinly sliced beef&lamb, napa cabbage, udon, tofu, and fish balls. Everything was great, loved the quality of the lamb!!!
I left full, satisfied, and warm. I docked this place 1star because the bill came out to be like $ 70 including tip… most expensive hotpot EVER!!! so be warned… don’t come on weekends&holidays! Stick with their $ 22 AYCE deal Mon-​Thurs!

Dang, I’ve been coming here since 2006 and I just realized that I never wrote a review. In my defense, I prefer eating hot pot at home since it saves a bunch of money, but it’s nice to go out once in a while for their quality meats.
Little Sheep has been my «go to» hot pot place since I can remember simply because it’s the closest one to my house (I may be wrong, since there’s been a bunch opening up in Fremont). The experience is very standard, you are seated and given a menu with check boxes; you can pick anything from meats, seafood, veges, to other exotic foods that may make you go «wtf?».
On average, I usually spend ~$ 20/​person when I go out for hotpot since I’m a fat ass, so I definitely recommend the $ 21 AYCE value if you think you eat a lot. To be honest, I’m not sure if the other locations offer this deal, but I’ll be prepared for next time.
Before I finish, I want to quickly go over the service. Overall, I think the service is really quick and friendly, but it is borderline uncomfortable. During my most recent visit, the restaurant itself wasn’t very busy and me and my friend took our sweet time eating our meal. When we were wrapping up, I swear that 4 different servers came by to take away our hotpot even though I repeatedly said that we weren’t done. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to waste food!