There's nothing I love more than a good hotpot. I've tried the All You Can Eat and the more fancy a la carte places and I've found that generally they are pretty much the same experience. Yes the fancy places do generally have better quality products but it's not really by much.
I had passed Hometown Hotpot a few times and it always seemed crowded so I figured it had to be worth a try. It's one of the AYCE places and they don't take reservations for small parties - so I would recommend that you get there early. Even though I got there at 6:30, I was told a bit snootily that we had to share a table, which honestly was fine. The only thing that wasn't fine was that the burner that was assigned to me was broken so I had to sit at a diagonal to Janet, which was annoying. As with any other hotpot places, you pick a broth and then you go to town and pick all your ingredients. I got the Chinese herbal broth and then we picked our usual line up of beef, fish balls, fish tofu, bok choy, clear noodles, enoki mushrooms, corn and fish fillet. Like every other place, they have a sauce station with all the appropriate sauces and toppings.
The overall quality was fine, although Janet was not a fan of the beef and felt that it was too frozen for her taste. I could see her point, although I generally feel like at most of these AYCE places the meat is always frozen and then defrosted. But I've definitely had fresh beef before at other places. The veggies and noodles were good, plentiful and pretty par for the course.
While the waiters were nice enough, we did have to chase them down a few times for more water for the broth. It was an totally fine experience overall, but the combination of a slightly rude hostess, having to share a table (when you don't have to do that at many other hotpot places) and having a broken burner, put this place a notch below the other hotpot places I've been to. I would say if you do come here, you're better off coming with a large group so that you can have a table to yourself. The plus side of this place is that it was very affordable, so for that I would definitely come again. Total bill: $36/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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