Reviews for H.O.T. Spicy Kitchen in Monterey Park, CA
[Originally posted on yelp on 3/14/2019] This place serves ma ra tang (= small individual hot pot but no fire and with... everything already cooked). For the soup base, we ordered the spicy bone and the Beijing Ma Ra Tang. Both were good but theBeijing one was definitely more unique - it wasn't as soupy as the other options. It's more similar to dry pot and the food weredipped in flavorful peanut sauce. 6~7 items would probably be enough for one person. Seems a bit understaffed tho - we waitedfor half an hour for the food, and there's only one server while there were 6 groups of customers. Yet she's friendly andpatiently explained the difference in each soup base to us. Parking was easy to find in the plaza. Read more
Food is good, but they will charge you extra for using credit card unless you meet their $25 minimum purchase. From what I... recall, credit card companies allow merchants to require a $10 minimum purchase. $25 is just too much. This is the major reasonthat I don't go there as often. They could be losing some business for that 2-3% credit card fee Read more
I think the quality of the food is just okay. The soup based hot pot wasn't impressive. Everything is precooked and then just... dumped into the soup. So the meat was tasteless. We also had a dry pot of frog. There was only a little frog meat. For thatprice, it was not worth it. The bottom of the pot was all bean sprouts. After figured out those two pots were not enough for us,we had a beef stir fried dish. It was a lot meat, but it was overly sweet. Too much soy sauce and sugar. Didn't really likeit. The only good one was the spicy and sour vermicelli. The taste of the spicy oil was very good and the glass noodles werewell done. I would not recommend to come for any of the dishes except for the noodles. Read more
Best service best food.
Great soup flavor and variety of choices. You pick your soup based and then chose meat and vegetables. They are famous for their... spicy flavors. Service was fast and quick, our food came out in less than 10 minutes. Also order the Fried Bun with CondenseMilk, this is a favorite among customers and very yummy! Read more
I liked the gizzard a lot. In general, the dishes here are very authentic Szechuan food. You'll definitely enjoy the tingling... feeling on your tongue! Read more
The flavor was a little off. Came here when it first opened. Hopefully they've improved the quality, otherwise, there are better... ones around the area. Read more
Love the option to choose my ingredients, broth, and spice level. I keep coming back. They have many options even for those not... ready for very spicy. Read more