YuanLaoSi HotPot (袁老四老火锅）
Me and my friends are die hard fans for chinese hotpot ( 麻辣火锅). This shop in Tropicana Gardens mall caught our attention. Been to this mall couple of times, passed by this shop, the design of the main entrance is so unique and nice. The tag line of this shop also caught our attention, direct translation would be "Only do this hotpot in a lifetime" "一生只做这一锅“. Not sure whether I translate correctly, in mandarin, I guess it meant this hotpot is good enough to replace any hotpot out there. This hotpot is originated from China Chong Qing (重庆）.
Currently, this shop doesn't allow call in reservations, reservations are only available for members. How to become a member? You need to pay RM10,000 in order to become the member, all your future spending in the shop would be deducted from the RM10,000. My point of view, this is too expensive for normal people like us. I would rather save the money to go hunting for different types of good food instead of having to remind myself that I still have RM10k credit at the shop and I must go back to the same shop. Currently, this is the only shop in Klang valley, soon, the their branch in KL Pavilion Shopping mall will be opened.
I would give a thumbs up for the environment. They really did put in effort in the decorations, furniture.
Let's have a look at what they have to offer.
We ordered the tri combination pot.
On the left is the tomato soup:
Rich flavour, not too salty nor too sweet, just nice, I would give 7 out of 10 points.
On the right is signature spicy soup (麻辣)：
Rich flavour, we started with the medium spiciness, subsequently level up the spiciness twice (we wanted to try how spicy can they do). ShuGuo hotpot （蜀国印象）used to be our favorite for this soup, this time, I would say this shop is slightly better than them, I just think the taste of the soup is slightly more fragrant. I would rate 8 out of 10 points.
On the top is pork broth:
The flavour of the soup is kinda light and flat. Comparing to other hotpot shop, I would say this is just average. I would say for people whom prefer lighter taste, this is the broth to go for. For us, it's a no go in the future. I would rate 5 out of 10.
They have more than 10 types of sauce selections, vinegar, garlic, fried shallots, seafood sauce, chili etc.... Don't worry on which to choose, they have a guide to teach you how to mix your sauce. On top of that, you could also request the friendly staffs to mix it for the, the above photos was the sauce mixed by them, it was so nice, kudos for the staff.
They have wide varieties of choices on the dishes. The above would are the items we ordered to try out, quality of the food is quite decent, fresh, flavourful, no complaint. Portion is smaller than the other hotpot shops we've been to, price wise is at the up side, I would say easily 20-30% more expensive. The only thing I would like to highlight is the dessert. The dessert is super sweet and luckily we only ordered 1 portion to share among 4 of us, we can't even finish the dessert as was too sweet. For people having sweet tooth, this might be the thing for you. The dessert I am referring to is the ice jelly 冰粉.
Last but not least, not forgetting the sake to go together with the food. This is 1.8L which cost RM188, which is quite a standard price. Initially, we wanted to order a chinese wine name Jiang XiaoBai 江小白 which we normally drink, but the price was 60% times more expensive compared to our regular joint, we normally pay RM29 for 100ml bottle, this shop is selling at RM48/ Rm46 bottle (can't remember the exact price).
Below would be my personal rating for this shop:
Food: 7 out of 10 (10 being best and 1 being worst)
Environment: 8 out of 10 (10 being best and 1 being worst)
Price: 3 out of 10 (10 being cheap and 1 being expensive)
Service: 10 out of 10 (staffs were very friendly, proactive and timely to provide service, thumbs up.
By the way, for first time visitor, please remember to download their app, present the app during payment at the counter, you will get RM20 rebate.
You may visit them at the following location:
https://goo.gl/maps/erEuaMH2vzLhJuXj7