There’s nothing quite like hovering over an insanely hot bowl of boiling soup on a remarkably hot summer day. At least that was the idea when we decided to try Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot for lunch last week. Located across the street from Metrotown in Burnaby, Little Sheep is perhaps better known as an all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurant. We weren’t quite as hungry, so we opted for a couple of mini individual combos instead.
It’s important to note here that the type of hot pot offered at Little Sheep is not like the individual Taiwanese hot pots at Jo Ju Tofu or the individual Korean hot pots at House of Tofu Soup. Instead, every table gets a communal bowl of boiling soup in which customers cook their own food.
Even though Little Sheep is listed as a “Mongolian” restaurant, it is practically indistinguishable from the hot pot restaurants of my youth. Those are the kinds of restaurants popular in cities like Hong Kong too. You choose your plates of mostly raw meat and seafood, dunk it into the boiling soup, and enjoy with your choice of dipping sauces.
Mongolian Skewers ($1.50 Each): Mutton, Beef and Cuttlefish
In addition to the hot pot, we decided to order a few skewers. They arrived only slightly warm, rather than piping hot, and reminded me of the kinds of skewers you might find at night market.
Meat Eater Mini Hot Pot ($12.99): Fatty Beef, Lamb Shoulder, Veggie & Pork Dumpling, Yam, Vegetable, White Noodle
Tradition Mini Hot Pot ($12.99): Lamb Shoulder, Beef Omasum, Meat Balls, Yam, Vegetable, White Noodle
Both of the mini hot pot combinations shown above were served with a plate of vegetables (napa cabbage and romaine lettuce), plus a bowl of noodles. These all need to be cooked in the soup as well. If you were to opt for the all-you-can-eat menu, it’d be about $20 per person, plus $10 for the soup base. For lunch, these $13 combos represent a good value.
The fish balls were very loosely packed, so they remained quite soft even after cooking. As expected, the beef and lamb were both sliced very thinly and cooked in a matter of seconds. Everything tasted reasonably fresh, though I imagine a good amount may have been previously frozen. At Little Sheep, they really crank up the power on the hot pot. The soup was almost roaring out of control, as you can see in the video below.
Both mini combinations were accompanied by complimentary plum juice (with free refills, though the server didn’t come by to offer said refills). We also got a glass of icy sweet soy bean milk ($2.00) to help counter some of that heat.
While I am certain there are better hot pot restaurants around town — our family used to go to Landmark on Cambie Street all the time and Fatty Cow on Victoria Drive is a good choice too — Little Sheep can be pretty decent too. Our total bill came to under $30 after a couple of $5 off coupons, taxes and gratuity.
The ZTE Grand X 2 was used to shoot all the photos and video in this post.
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