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There is no wonder why sizzling hot pot has 7 locations. They have 5 in the west coast area, 1 in Chicago, and now in Plano! If you have been wanting to try authentic Asian food. Here is the place. It isn’t too out of the norm of flavor. They do have some items that require an acquired taste but you can customize whatever you like in your pot.
So if you haven’t been to a Hunan-style place before, they ideally serve a pot of mixed meats, noodles, and veggies. The whole pot is customizable! They have a variety of meats to choose from such as bullfrog and snails but if you are aren’t feeling a little exotic then sticking with your familiar shrimp, beef, and beef tongue is just as good too! They serve it with a burner underneath the pot so that way your food stays warm, almost like a fajita platter you see at most Mexican restaurants. For the meats, I customized some of the best recommendations from the owner which included beef tongue, duck, and pork belly. For the veggie portion, the pot included potato, celery, bean sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli. I wouldn’t have thought the celery would give off so much flavor but let me tell you, it did. I highly recommend adding lobster balls and crab sticks. They soak in all the spice and add a chewy texture to the dish. All the meats were perfectly cooked especially the quail egg. The quail egg added a nice creaminess to the dish. I had my dry pot spice level of 3 and the flavor of spicy. I recommend toning the spice level down a notch because I initially I thought I could handle a 4, but they suggested I try a 3. They assured me if it wasn’t enough spicy they could always add more. Boy, were they right! I was hitting my limits with a level 3!
Beware, this dish is spicy. This is a sautéed shredded beef with wild pepper. The first unexpected bite of spice made me tear up a bit. It may not look spicy but if you love spice, you will enjoy every bite of this dish. The cilantro stems add a surprising crunch to it. The pickled peppers go well together with the other spicy peppers.
When they offered us coconut drinks, I wasn’t expecting fresh coconut! With all the different types of spice that were going on in every dish, I was still able to clear my palate with this drink. It was very refreshing, it calmed down my taste buds after my mouth got a bit too heated.
This dish brought me back home. This is chef magic tofu. My father use to make this dish a lot back at home, but he didn’t add sauce on top. This dish is very soft and light but the red sauce makes a huge difference and adds the flavor it needs to it. Underneath the red sauce is a mixture of egg and tofu. Although it is red, it isn’t spicy at all. It has a touch of sweetness to it, but it doesn’t taste like sweet and sour sauce. I asked what’s in the sauce because I have never tasted anything like it but they said it was a secret so, you’ll have to try it yourself.
Down to one of my favorite parts. The dessert! Now, I am not a huge dessert fan due to some desserts being too sweet but I tell ya. This sticky rice cake creates the perfect ending to the entire course. You can certainly taste that they are handmade every morning. These pumpkin and taro (yellow and dark purple) sticky rice cakes are something that I will be grabbing on my way home from work. They make it like no other Asian restaurants. The owner informed us that their taro ingredient is from a natural source and is not enhanced or altered with purple food coloring like other places that sell taro. Each sticky rice cake has a hint of everything, a hint of taro or pumpkin flavor, a hint of sugar, all lightly coated with fresh coconut flakes. It’s not too sweet at all. If you have never tried sticky rice cake before, the texture is almost like you are biting into a lightly flaky crunch with the contents of a gelatinous/marshmallow texture with hints of flavor, sweetness, and freshness of the coconut.
(Disclaimer: My menu sampling was complimentary, and all opinions are my own.)
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