Hot pot is one of my favorite things to eat - even in 90 degree heat. Janet and I usually go to 99 Favor Taste on our birthdays because you get to eat free there on your birthday but we decided to try out a new place for our joint birthday - even if it wasn't free.
Little Sheep is actually a large chain with locations in China, Japan, Canada and the US but there is only one location in the city (although there is one in Flushing, Queens). My first impression of this place is that it was super clean and fairly quiet - although this was at 6:30pm on a Tuesday and by the time we left at 8:30pm the place was packed with a fairly long line. Similar to every other hot pot place, you pick your broth and then pick your ingredients. Unlike 99 Favor Taste, it is NOT an all you can eat situation, so don't go too crazy with the ordering. Luckily, if you come Monday-Thursday, for $15 you have the option of an all-you-can-eat meat special (choice of 4 different quality meats ranging from beef to lamb to pork). You make you order on a check list and hand it to your waiter. Our waiter was really nice and looked at our list and immediately told us we ordered way too much food - especially since we were getting the all-you-can-eat meat option. He recommended 2-3 veggies and maybe a noodle, which we had pared down from the 8 veggie options we had checked off. I guess old habits are hard to break since we were so accustomed to just ordering everything from the menu in an all-you-can-eat place and we still ended up ordering 4 veggies and a noodle.
For our broth, we chose the the regular non-spicy version, although you can get a split pot with different broths. My only complaint here is that I didn't love the broth as much as I love the pig bone broth at 99 Favor Taste. This one was good but it was just missing that salty bone flavor. As for the ingredients, we were so happy we listened to the waiter because the size of the orders here were quite large, especially the meat options. I definitely left at the end feeling like we overdid it with the ordering. The plus here is that the ingredients were noticeably fresher with most of them seemingly to be non-frozen unlike other hot pot places. The meat was especially high quality - it had a great bright red color which any fresh meat should. They are famous for their lamb, which was exellent, but I still preferred the fatty beef slices more. The vegetables and noodles were also great - fresh and prepared and cut well.
We tried really really hard to finish everything we ordered and we did a fairly good job of it but we definitely had some left overs. Luckily, they aren't super strict here and didn't charge us extra for it. We were a bit nervous at first that by ordering per ingredient it was going to end up being really expensive but it actually turned out to be the exact same price as the all-you-can eat experience at 99 Favor Taste but with way better quality and a calmer, less crazed vibe. While there will always a place in my heart for the loud crazy all-you-can-eat places, Little Sheep is definitely going to be my new go-to hot pot place. They don't take reservations for parties less than 6, so definitely go early and go on a weekday to take advantage of the meat special! Total bill: $30/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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