It’s hard to beat The Red Pot, but I thought I’d see what other hot pot‘s are out there. Friends rave about Boiling Point and it got me curious. Then a friend of mine reminded me that I had indeed eaten at Boiling Point with her in Rowland Heights many many years ago. D’oh! 😀
But since it’s been so long I had forgotten the taste. So we came here to the Irvine location and lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait long like everyone complains about, maybe because it was a Sunday night. We were seated within 5 or 10 minutes.
My seafood pot was quite good. It came with beef, shrimp, squid ball, calamari rings, egg, and lettuce. For $13.99 they could’ve given more meat. The big difference between The Red Pot and Boiling Point is that at Boiling Point you get your own pot on a mini fire-lit oven. The other difference is the soup base. At Red Pot the soup is spicy herbal (which I love) whereas Boiling Point has just regular spicy meat soup. Also, Red Pot is all-you-can-eat (only $20/person, large menu of items) and you cook everything in a shared pot but at Boiling Point, there’s a set price for each pot and everything has already been cooked for you which, I think, takes some of the fun out of it. You can also order extra add-on’s for extra moola. No thanks.
It’s hard to eat over the pot because of the smoke and the possibility that the fire will send sparks to your face. So it might be a good idea to eat with your bowl instead. You have the options of a rice or a vermicelli bowl.
Delicious? Yes, but I’m not sure if I’d want to wait over an hour for it. Plus, the service here is quite slow. We were well into our meals without our waters. And it would take forever for someone to come around when we needed stuff. At times I even felt like they were ignoring us on purpose!
Boiling Point
14140 Culver Dr.
Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 733-2211
