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<\/a><\/p>\nAs I’ve been trying to challenge my spicy food tolerance and explore this side of the sensory pleasure spectrum, I want to check out some of those popular spicy hotpot places.\u00a0 Although Little Sheep isn’t known for the spicy soup base, they have put the effort in this option to keep up with the competitors. And they have gone fully All-You-Can-Eat now, which does not excite me at all. I have been staying away fro AYCE for years – unlike spicy food, overeating is the pain that I cannot tolerate.<\/p>\n
My roommate and I arrived at Little Sheep at Lansdowne Mall around 7 pm on Saturday evening, and the wait was 45 minutes. They are very busy on the weekend. I tried to call earlier and their line was busy the whole time.<\/p>\n
Finally, we were seated and we were hungry! It is $23.98 per person for all you can eat and we have to pay $11.99 for hotpot soup base as well. We picked the half and half with both the original one made with lamb and herbs and the hot and spicy one.<\/p>\n
The original herbal lamb broth is white and creamy and smells aromatic with all those Chinese herbs. The spicy broth is red and oily, filled with lots of dried red chili, Sichuan\u00a0peppercorn, and other dried herbs and spices. Visually the spicy one looks intimidating. But I was excited to accept the challenges.<\/p>\n Using\u00a0dipping sauce is pretty important in Cantonese\u00a0style hotpot, but not as much here at Little Sheep. There are only 6 liquid bases for making your own dipping sauce: chili oil, chili paste, soy sauce, shacha\u00a0sauce (written as satay sauce), aged vinegar, and sesame oil.<\/p>\n I just made a simple\u00a0Shacha\u00a0based dipping sauce as I probably don’t need more chili as I’m going through the spicy hotpot. If you decided to go all spicy, mixing Shacha, sesame oil, and garlic makes a good simple dipping sauce to add the aroma to the food.\u00a0 However, minced garlic here is not free and costs $1, and neither is green buy diovan 80 mg <\/a> onion and cilantro.<\/p>\n Okay, so the rest was just a blur…<\/p>\n We ordered a lot, I mean,\u00a0 A LOT!<\/p>\n That’s why I don’t want to do AYCE anymore because over-ordering and overeating are inevitable. But from what I could remember,\u00a0 the meats were good in quality, such as black Iberico pork<\/strong>, marbled beef<\/strong> (called fatty beef here), lamb shoulder<\/strong>, and beef loin<\/strong>.\u00a0 The beef loin might be marinated with some tenderizing starch, but the other 3 were all on their beautiful raw naked glory.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We ordered some seafood as well and choices were just okay. But we were impressed the most is the Fish Roe Balls<\/strong>, or they call it Mentaiko Balls in Chinese. Not sure if it’s really mentaiko but it was delicious.\u00a0 Sorry I didn’t get to take a picture of it. The other one I liked was the shrimp ball, which tastes very fresh and sweet.<\/p>\n I also enjoyed the Fresh Aorta<\/strong> from their specialty food category. Chinese folks like certain fresh and thoroughly cleaned offal dishes in hotpot dinner, such as beef tripe, beef omasum, pork blood, and pork rind. And what is fresh aorta? It’s the artery of a cattle, thinly sliced. It was the crunchy texture that I really liked. Apparently, this was a popular requested item as well. We had to ask our server twice before it was delivered to our table. But if it is short in supply, just let us know, why “delaying” it?\u00a0 It was strange.<\/p>\n Let’s talk about the spicy soup base.<\/p>\n It was not as spicy as I thought and it was good! I guess all the special herbs and spices really balanced out the brutality of the spiciness. I like the amount of numbing effect from Sichuan peppercorn as well, just enough so that you could still feel the temperature and the taste of the cooked food. I wouldn’t’ say I was disappointed, but as I was ready for a spicy challenge, this hot and spicy soup base is rather mild.<\/p>\n I also ordered a beer. I thought\u00a0a 20oz beer for $6.50 is a good deal but then it contributed to the getting too full too quickly in all that AYCE craziness. I should have just ordered a plum juice drink for $2.50 like my roommate.<\/p>\n The food at Little Sheep was good as the hotpot ingredients were pretty fresh and some of them were of good quality. The spicy hotpot soup base is based on their original herbal lamb broth, and it was aromatic but not super spicy, which is good for folks who can’t handle too spicy.\u00a0 But for spicy hot pot lovers, it lacks the pleasurable punch for them.\u00a0 If I come back here, it won’t be all you can eat because I seriously can’t handle all you can eat anymore. But if you can handle the overeating pain, it is actually a pretty decent deal.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: $$ 5300 No 3 Rd #405, Richmond;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nRating:<\/strong>[wp-review id=”13290″]<\/p>\n
\n(604)231-8966, or www.littlesheephotpot.com\/location\/richmond-bc<\/a><\/p>\n