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Garden City Hot Pot Restaurant
Category: Restaurants Chinese Chinese [Edit]
1205 - 8788 McKim WyRichmond, BC V6X 4E2
Neighbourhood: Golden Village
(604) 303-0909
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Has TV:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
17 reviews for Garden City Hot Pot Restaurant
17 reviews in English
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Review from Lynn H.
Toronto, ON
12/18/2011 1 Check-in Here
This is the best hot pot i have ever had...EVER!! Great service, really fresh food, good soup and choice of 2 drinks (plum juice or chrysanthemum.) We ordered lots of beef, pork, tofu, noodles..the usual stuff. Loved it!! I am looking forward to my next trip to Vancouver so we can eat here again. SO NOM NOM!!!
If you're ever in Richmond and want to have hot pot...COME HERE!!! -
Review from K N.
Vancouver, BC
5/14/2012
The Hot Pot was delicious! We wanted to try a new place for Mother's Day, and it didn't disappoint. Their hot pots have a division on each pot so you can have 2 different food mixes per pot. The serving sizes are good, and while it seems like it could get pricey, it still ends up less than going to AYCE. The dim sum menu is also really good and really tasty. If I can say one bad thing, it's that even with a reservation, we ended up waiting just over 30 minutes (granted, we were a large group and asked for 2 pots). The service was really good, and very friendly to folks who haven't tried hot pot before.
Definitely would recommend this place and go again! -
Review from Larry L.
1/23/2012 1 Check-in Here
At first you may think this is pricey and yeah, it is. Actually it really isn't much more than the all you can eat places if you eat in moderation. Meaning that you are not out there to stuff youself to obesity and diabetes and heart problems then, you could have a good meal, be full enough to be satisfied and call it a night.
The meat dishes are a bit better quality than the AYCE places and the selection is better. Unfortunately for me they still didn't have what I was looking for, but they still had enough to keep me satisfied.
Be carefull that you don't over order, and there isn't really a time limit so you can eat properly. So you can order, eat, then order more if needed.
Simon K has a good review from last year that still stands today for 2012.
Part of the Top Gun Group, so if you happen to have a discount card, bring it!
As for the Condiments bar, they bring the stuff to you and they'll service what you choose off their cart. -
Review from Alex H.
12/22/2011
Went on a Monday night with the g-unit, her first time going to hot pot.
Ordered:
half chicken stock soup and half garlic spicy broth. chicken stock was a bit bland but the garlic spicy broth was full of flavor. probably about a 6 on the spicy level and i like hot food.
We ordered scallops, pork cheek, wonton, fatty beef, spinach, oyster mushrooms, baby bok choy. Everything was fresh and tasted delicious.
The service was friendly and speedy, the lady making the dipping sauce was very nice and helpful /condimentsuicide
Would definitely go back again and would be even better with more friends to experience a greater variety of meats/veggies. -
Review from Elizabeth T.
2/20/2012
Good & speedy service. Pricey hotpot but probably worth it for the quality of the meat and veggies is above standard. They have very good Chinese artisan tea (I got dragonwell) and an unusually wide selection of soup bases (I got chicken ginseng). If you're willing to spare the extra $, this would be a fine dining experience.
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Review from Bryan D.
9/22/2011 1 Check-in Here
Never really have been a fan of hot pot but this place was ok. The ability to create your own sauce was pretty cool and probably was the reason I somewhat enjoyed this place.
Hot Pots never really had an appeal to me since boiling stuff, and possibly over cooking tends to make stuff taste pretty plain. The sauce makes up for that but that is my gripe about hot pot to begin with. The food itself doesn't have much flavor and I need to smother in sauce.
However this place was ok, my personal sauce made it taste better, but I felt for what it is it was kinda on the pricier side. Granted I was in a party of 15...
And from California where prices of food seem a little bit cheaper... -
Review from Peggy S.
1/10/2011
GENIUS! Hot pot + dim sum + sashimi, genius!! It's for when you want them all and can't simply pick one. And when have I ever not wanted them all at the same time? Genius!
We picked the lunch hot pot combo, which came with salmon sashimi, two dim sum dishes (shrimp dumplings and shu mai) geoduck, oyster, beef, various fresh balls, veggies, tofu and noodle, as well as a sesame ball dessert. On top of that, we ordered some more dim sum baskets.
I liked that you get to choose plum tea or sweet chrysanthemum tea (I think that's what they are...) to start with, but you can also order other various brew tea - they bring you the leaves, and you can brew them at your table.
The waitress brought us a cart full of condiments that you can choose from, and she mixes them for you. I think there were at least 12 different things you can mix and match with, including sesame sauce, satay sauce, soy sauce, ginger, chives, chili sauce, chili paste, vinegar, cilantro, and numerous other seasonings.
We ordered six more dim sum baskets/plates on top of the hot pot. My family eat a lot... The dim sum items were all tasty, shrimp balls were big and fresh except that the filling falls away from the skin way too easily. Some of the fried dishes were too greasy, including the seafood pancake and this seafood salad fried in some sort of breading.
The salmon sashimi and the geoduck were only "OK" in terms of freshness, but at least they were not smelly.
The hot pot broth was very bland. I wish it was more flavorful because it's the best part about the hot pot! But no, it had to go and be bland :(
I don't think the food is "Wow, spectacular!" but the waitstaff is attentive and friendly, and there is a good variety and amount of food. Oh and I give it one more star for the genius idea!Listed in: Vancouver
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Review from Hipster C.
Vancouver, BC
3/30/2011
OMG! Dim sum and hot pot together?! Pure genius. That is what I have come to love about "The Ditch" - their superior offerings of Asian food.
Tea: They served you fresh loose leaf tea in a brewing pot in which you poured your own boiled water from the kettle conveniently sitting on the sleek black element of your table. From the brewing pot it was then poured into your actual tea cup. I kinda spilled tea all over the table, but it's probably due to my lack of tea sommelier skills!
Hotpot: We ordered the fish based soup with bean curd and noodles and 4 meats or seafoods. Light, flavourful and fresh.
Dim Sum: Delicately made, and served piping hot - just the way this mama likes it! The stuffed eggplant was amazing and the steamed dumplings also very good. The dessert sesame paste stuffed glutinous rice balls were tasty too.
Like another reviewer mentioned, you can purchase a membership card for 20% off their restaurant groups and with up to 40% early Dim Sum at their Top Gun Restaurant.
Recommended next time you're in "The Ditch"! -
Review from Kathy D.
6/14/2010 3 photos
I have never been a huge fan of hot pot so I wasn't really expecting much when our family friends brought us here, trying to show us what Richmond has to bring us when it came to chinese food.
I was surprisingly very impressed and satisfied towards the end of our meal though! If all hot pots were made this way, I think i would be a huge fan by now! I definitely would want to come back next time I am in Vancouver!
The restaurant venue itself is very spacious and clean. Each group has their own booths if wanted, which was neat. It was very private and you couldn't see other people. http://static1.px.yelp... There are tables available but for smaller size groups. Service was right on where at the beginning they would push out a cart, where they ask you what kind of sauce you would want for your hot pot dipping dishes. They would recommend what you want to be mixed in also if you look confused!
Everything was definitely VERY fresh. We got a good range of vegetables and meat. In addition we got fresh seafood off the sushi boat they displayed it on. It included salmon, shrimp, abalone, elephant trunk( i forgot the name ), and etc. http://static1.px.yelp... The soup itself to dip everything in was delicious but one side, we made it a bit TOO spicy. The broth otherwise was excellent. -
Review from Jando S.
8/15/2008
This place is no joke, real hot pot and all the time. I came here with a group of out of towners who were hungry and too picky to go anywhere else where they couldn't cook the food themselves. Our local guide had tried this place a few years earlier promising there was an All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) option only to find out they had discontinued it only a week earlier.
The place itself is deceivingly large. It didn't seem like a mega Dim Sum tea house but rather a medium sized restaurant with ample seating. The tables all had some sort of a pot burner and different setups within every table depending on group size. Our round table's center piece was a large pot divided in two sections for meats and veggies.
The ingredients given to us were fresh and hearty. Our meats were served thinly sliced on a plate and the veggies were replenished each time we cooked it to death. I wish they provided us with raw eggs for the sauce and it was a pain having to flag down service each time we needed something. In the end the price was right and it was a nice break from the regular Chinese food scene that is all over this section of Richmond. -
Review from Alexander J.
8/4/2010
In spite of the name, this is also one of the best Dim Sum and Tea restaurants in Richmond.
First, the tea -- they serve it traditional style: a bowl with a lid, loose tea leaves, hot water kettle and a big bowl for waste water. The "correct" procedure is as follows: 1) Pour hot water into the big bowl. 2) Roll your cup in the hot water to warm it. 3) Put the tea leaves into the cup. 4) Pour hot water into the cup. 5) Wait a bit. 6) Pour out the first batch of tea (but not the leaves!) into the waste water bin. Use the lid to keep the leaves in the cup. 7) Pour hot water into the cup. 8) Wait a bit. 9) Drink the tea, again tilting the lid to keep the leaves out of your mouth. Whew! But it's worth it.
The food is perfect, cooked to order at the right temperature not oily and delicious. While they have "standard" dim sum, they also have dishes from different regions as well as some creative newer dishes.
As mentioned before, the interior is nice, with roomy booths. Make reservations (you can even call ahead as little as 10 minutes before) or suffer the consequences. -
Review from Mike C.
9/24/2010
I fly approx 1K per year and eat in places world-wide. This amounted to the most underwhelming food, at the highest prices ever....
With condescending waitstaff, and stupid ala carte pricing....I was far from impressed. There are plenty of better choices nearby...you can do better..... -
Review from Stephanie C.
1/22/2011
Best hot pot in north America!! Get the premium fatty beef... Their sauce cart is also amazing they let you create your own sauce from like 12 different types of hot pot sauces... They also have sashimi grade salmon that you can cook, home made wontons, home made fish and meat balls, oyster... Etc
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Review from Simon K.
Coming for a hot pot experience that is not AYCE, one would have to think about coming to this place. Part of the Top Gun group of restaurants, right along Garden City, in Richmond, this fairly sized restaurant on the main level of this plaza (on McKim and Garden City) houses a pretty good hot pot experience. With the overflood of this style of cuisine, there are tons to choose from in regards to cooking your own food, and I would put this one high due to service and quality.
My review is purely based on having dinner, and not the lunch and dim sum that they also serve. If your used to eating AYCE hot pot, it is going to take a little to stomach the price per dish of the stuff you would usually not even care about (because it is AYCE) and just order due to the instinct of your stomach of just being hungry, so it is something to get used to when you cannot just randomly order everything on the menu, and you have to pick and choose. You may wonder on how much your getting with each selection priced at certain price points and calculate how much that usual $20 per head charged to you is worth prior to ordering. Just realize this, how many of us can actually eat their own money's worth when doing the 'all you can gorge' menu, and when is it enough.
Two people, we ordered a plate of sirlion beef, a plate of lamb, tofu, udon, enoki mushrooms, and cabbage, with a satay soup base. We were struggling at the end to finish all we ordered. They also come around always refilling your plum juice, a nice concentration, not too sweet, with a little zing. The orders for each individual plate of raw food is a fare size, when you start dabbling into dipping/cooking the food in the broth of your choice. Sometimes due to the instinct of the stomach, we tend to believe things look small, and our stomach is the big bad monster ready to devour a city, but that just is not the case, and the food I ordered between the two of us was just right, if not more than enough. The other thing, ordering by/being charged by the dish is the quality control. This place has been here for many years, and the care on the quality of each dish that is coming out is good, for raw food. The meat is just right, not too frozen, the vegetables are all washed clean, the tofu is arranged nicely on a plate, small little garnishing aside, this place is solid.
Remember, since this is one of those Top Gun restaurants, if you paid for their membership card, you get an additional 20% off. In price, this would have worked out to be the same, but you would not get into the moral delemna of over ordering, and fearing what the people say about you, due to the fact you are actually paying per plate! -
Review from Joel M.
White Rock, BC
11/6/2011
Visited this place last night based on other Yelp reviews. Those other reviews were bang-on. This place was excellent. Fresh food, excellent service (they were especially accomodating to us since they knew we had no idea what to order or how to do the hot pot thing), and reasonable prices (4 adults, a couple drinks each, tea, lots of food = $150 incl tax). They make the dipping sauce per-person based on your specifications. Again we had no idea what to order for sauce so the lady made us her special sauce - the flavour was amazing. All around a great experience and would definitely go back.
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Review from Corrine C.
2/22/2010 1 photo
It's all about the sauce... The server pushes a cart over to your table and asks you what would you like in your sauce. I didn't know what to do with so many options... At first I asked for just the satay sauce. Then our local friends went to town on the sauce and I knew what I had to do. I ask the server to give me everything but the chili sauce. I ended up never touching my little bowl of boring satay sauce. Now I know. It's not AYCE so you order off the menu. They have the staples of thinly sliced meats - pork, beef, etc and fish and shrimp balls, wontons, siu-kaus, tofu, tofu puffs, fresh veggies- watercress and pea vines, noodles, and the more exotic - beef tendon, pigs blood, and even chicken testicles. (note- we did not order the testicles but we all giggled over it on the menu.) They even have sashimi and sticky rice. The sticky rice was really good- little bits of meat and eggs in a little clay pot. mmm.... Restaurant was clean and well lit. Very nice presentation with each plate with a little baby carrot. I love the tofu- it was cut in heart shapes. And the chrysanthamum tea they serve is delicious- cold and sweet and they kept our cups full. I wish our hot pot places in Seattle would serve it too!
I'm glad I don't live in the Vancouver/Richmond area because I would eat everything in sight and be as big as a house. I can't wait until we go visit again!!!! -
Review from Katy N.
3/17/2009
LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE this HOT POT place. Was there 3 years ago for my birthday and came back the year after and the year after!!!!!! Everything was FRESH and you get to "choose your own sauce"!!!!! HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND with a group of people so you can order countless items to share :)
