Hot pot is a great Asian tradition where people gather
around a pot of steaming flavored water especially best on a cold winter night,
cooking raw food and consuming it with various types of condiments. There are a few of these places in Toronto
nowadays and after going to a few of the same places over and over again, I
decided to venture out and try a new hot pot restaurant.
Han Shi Fang Hot Pot Restaurant opened up approximately a
year ago in a new plaza in the heart of Scarborough. If one was driving on the street, one would
not be able to see this place unless they knew beforehand as it is tucked
inside a couple of long strips of plazas.
When we got there, there were plenty of free parking spots in front of
the restaurant. The place has about 20
tables or so in which half of them were full on a Saturday night.
Their entire menu is programmed into an Ipad. It seems like the more modern thing nowadays
where many of the new all you can eat restaurants have Ipads were people could
easily click and choose the items they want.
Scanning their menu, it seemed like they had lots of meats and
vegetables but seemed a little bit limited on the different types of seafood
that were there.
Once we made our selection, a fancy bowl and BBQ grill
apparatus were brought out to us. There
were four of us that evening and all four of us wanted a different soup
base. The restaurant boasted of 8
different soup bases and 12 different sauces however for the four more flavored
soup bases, there was an extra $10.00 surcharge to them. In the middle of this apparatus, was this BBQ
grill surrounded by the pots of boiling water where one could grill pork, beef
and vegetables like corn on top and have hot pot on the bottom. The waiter would come by periodically to
change the paper towel on the grill as oil would get absorbed quickly and to
prevent future pieces of meat from sticking on the grill. The whole bowl and grill deal was pretty
fancy however we were a little disappointed in that the soup base water took a
long time to boil. It seemed all the
heat was being channeled into the middle where the grill was located and only
when the water had evaporated halfway did the water finally begin to boil.
Despite the grandness of their tables and fanciness of their
paraphernalia, some of the other hot pot places that I have been to provided a
greater selection of choices to choose from.
The seafood, meats and vegetables were of the customary type and
specialty items, even on a Saturday, were not offered or given. It would have been great if they had
offered us a lobster or oysters or a special meat as an incentive to come in
especially on the weekend. Without it,
it felt like just an ordinary hot pot meal with nothing to really special to
look forward to despite the fancy hardware.
I do admit that their homemade unique fish and meatballs were pretty tasty
as they were very soft and well seasoned but everything else was average at
best.
It was $24.95 per person that
evening. Factoring tax and tips and the
extra cost for the soup base and it came out to be about $42 for the
evening. In my mind, I felt it was
probably a little bit on the expensive side despite the unique BBQ and hot pot
experience. The lack of special foods
made it difficult to justify the price one paid for the evening. Might wait a while before I come back for
round 2. Overall I give it a 3 out of 5.
Han Shi Fang
3250 Midland Avenue
Scarborough, Ontario
647-350-5599
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