Hot Spot

Food is good… our server is a guy very friendly n entertaining…2 thumbs up! Oh, try the no. 7 if you love curry…

Pretty good spot for hot pot. only a small menu selection for pots but nothing wrong with that because food is good. Great for lunch and dinner equally and their lamb pot is my go to choice.

I came to Hot Spot a while ago for their stinky tofu hotpot as part of my boyfriend and mine 626 stinky tofu adventures. The stinky tofu in the hotpot was not the fried kind like one would expect of stinky tofu, since well, obviously, it’s in a hotpot… but, nonetheless, it satisfied the need. If you are in the area and want stinky tofu hotpot, I highly recommend this place!
As for those that don’t like it… perhaps it’s a good idea to stay away…

I’ve been here several times already and every time the food is excellent. I usually order the curry seafood or kimchee pork hot pot. We recently found out that management has changed and were pretty bummed that they were leaving. Hopefully nothing changes and if so we will continue to keep coming back here weekly. Compared to boiling point near by this place is hands down better. New management if you are reading this don’t change a thing. Its all good!

When your looking for comfort food, to hit the spot this is the place to go.
The only down side is if u happened to walk in and someone orders the stinky tofu… oh boy… they don’t mess around. Your stomach should be ready for the smell.
Otherwise, this place is great! Our favorite spot after a long drive from the bay area.
Excellent soup and great service…

When this place first opened I didn’t like it at all. The broth was still figuring itself out and the sauce bar was weak. It just felt too much like a boiling point copy cat.
However I tried it again after a few months later and it was very good!
It has a good broth flavor. All similar to boiling point without the wait. Another good substitution.
I’ve had the lamb and the stinky tofu house specials. The seafood is the most bland and I would skip. The tomato soup is just ok.
The sauce bar has cilantro and garlic sauce. It’s perfected it’s taste and a good addition to the stinky tofu!

Decent enough individual hot pot with a pretty wide selection, but the flavor just doesn’t seem up to the best of their competitors. Wasn’t as obvious with the spicier hot pots, but the original flavor hot pot (#1) definitely seemed a bit bland.
Hot pots don’t look that big, but they’re reasonably filling– only the gluttons will need an extra side of stinky tofu and of vermicelli.

Way better than boiling point and jazz cat!
If you want a new hot pot joint to try, check this place out.
The hot pot is the right amount of flavor with the right amount of goodies.
I got the super spicy kimchi pot (from what I hear their spicy is spicy but I eat lava, so… For me it was all flavor) that was filled with so much derricious cabbage and kimchi! It also came with this giant ball that has meat (or meat paste thing?) inside (surprise for your mouth – yum!).
This place also has golden fish balls which I’m addicted to. And bomb popcorn chicken.
Service is exceptional and very friendly.

The sauce was just oyster hoisin sauce and green onions because they were limited. I did not use it at all.
Spicy Taiwanese with curry and veggies hotpot: I chose mild. There was a tiny hint of curry taste and the broth was okay. There was a lot of cabbage, too much. I felt like the entire hotpot had more veggies than meat. Love the foochow fish ball with meat inside, my favorite. There was clam, imitation crab, prom blood, pork intestine, enoki mushrooms, choice of noodle or rice and Japanese fish cake that I did not enjoy because it tasted like a fake texture of different meats combined. I substituted pork for beef and they allowed it so that’s a good thing about this place because boiling point does not let you do that.
Spicy Taiwanese hotpot: my guest chose spicy with 2 chili signs and it seemed more spicy than boiling point. It tasted like Szechuan spice.
I ordered green tea kumquat and it was good, but it tasted much like a lemonade. I probably would not come back, I have had better. Service was good though.

It’s been a year since I’ve come back and I don’t know why I don’t come more often! Service stepped up a notch, in my opinion. If your bowl if «off balance,» they’ll make sure it’s level so that none of that delicious broth spills out.
I ordered the Taiwan spicy vegetable bowl (even though I’m a meat eater) and even though I got the medium spicy, it was quite spicy! Almost. just almost too spicy to eat. But I ended up eating the whole bowl so no problem.
To get some protein in, I ordered the minced pork meat to my bowl of rice (add a $ 1.25). I typically don’t like getting these extraneous items but this was necessary. Always delicious!
I like how they now give complimentary iced tea with your combo. Not sure if it’s unlimited though. Anyone know?
We ordered two bowls and added minced pork to both our rices and the total came out to $ 27. If you’re looking for a relatively inexpensive, filling meal, Hot Spot it is!
They sometimes have coupons on LivingSocial/​Groupon. Too bad if you do use one, you can’t take advantage of their stamp card.

If you’re looking to avoid the line of Boiling Point, Hot Spot is a great place to go in place of it. There are a variety of preset individual hot pots that you can order (including vegan options). You get to choose from mild to super spicy. They claim to use no MSG or artificial ingredients, so yay for healthy options!
I’ve tried the Seafood and Tomato/​Veggie hot pots, which I think had a similar broth. The broth tastes great for both of them – pretty similar to BP but I think on the lighter side (and definitely healthier tasting). The broth is crave-​worthy for sure! I personally enjoyed the seafood pot more simply because I felt like I was getting more bang for my buck. I think the soup bases are all pretty good though, so just check the ingredients out and decide which one is your favorite.
Aside from the pots themselves, you have choices of Garlic Soy Sauce and Hot Garlic Soy Sauce, which are really what make the pots amazing. What I love doing is dipping the items in my pot into them and then picking up soup with my spoon, eating it as a whole. Think it really gives a kick of flavor, especially for you garlic lovers!
The pots themselves are slightly smaller than BP, but they’ll definitely make you full. When I was here, if you had $ 40+ you could get a free snow with a check-​in. The service was great too and the restaurant was clean. BEWARE: parking can be a bit hectic, but it’s worth the wait!

It’s inevitable that when you serve «hot pot» like Boiling Point, you get compared thusly. Hot Spot is no stranger to this. They were nevertheless inundated by the popularity when we went with a Groupon on a weekday. The place is small. Very small, actually. So the wait is to be expected.
Inside, staff was alright– one knew exactly what she was doing, and the other not so much. The pots took a while to come out and were just alright.
You get your own sauces and there are 2 locations in the restaurant. The sauces are alright as well and offer a different taste to BP.
I got the Stinky Tofu & Pig Intestine while my friend got the Seafood. The tofu wasn’t that stinky in mine or maybe I had become accustomed to the smell. Pig intestine was cut into little vertical circles, unlike the long diagonals you usually see elsewhere, so that was weird. Maybe it cooks faster this way, but it also lost the integrity of the intestine, in my opinion.
It was alright overall tastewise and for the service. I wouldn’t want to wait that long in line for this place, but I also don’t like waiting in line for that long for BP either.

Warning: If you can’t handle the smell of stinky tofu, do not bother coming here because there is a consistent stinky tofu stench throughout the restaurant. I can handle the smell so I was ok.
Basically this is a Boiling Point copycat. We ordered the #1 House Special and the #4 Seafood Soup both mild ($ 11.99 each, lunch is $ 1 cheaper and comes with black tea). The mild is honestly more like a medium. My friend who got the #1 House Special in mild said if he got medium, he probably wouldn’t have been able to handle the spice level and he has a pretty high spice tolerance. So their spicy level is significantly higher than BP since I didn’t think a mild hot pot at BP was spicy at all. You get a choice between rice and vermicelli with your hot pot. There is a sauce bar on the side that has a soybean sauce and a garlic soy sauce. The soybean sauce has a slight kick to it so if you don’t want any spice get the garlic soy one. Overall taste was similar to BP just spicier and they give you a little bit more meat than BP.
However, the one thing that BP trumps this is service. Service here was absolutely terrible. We came on a Saturday around 7pm. There were 3 servers, but they could honestly hire more since basically if you sat in the back of the restaurant, you were ignored. After we were seated (no wait), we had to wait over 15 minutes for them to take our order after flagging one of them down. They didn’t bring our water out until our hot pots came out. Also, they forgot to give us rice. The sauce bar was depleted and I had to ask them to refill it.
Parking is in a plaza shared by many other restaurants off the 60 freeway. It can get tight during peak hours like weekend dinner time.
I probably won’t come back since service was terrible and the food wasn’t that amazing for me to tolerate the bad service.

Hot Spot hit the spot! Tired of waiting in line at Boiling Point? Just drive down the street to Hot Spot and you’ll be sure to satisfy your hot pot cravings here. Packed with plenty of ingredients inside each pot, the main draw is that the soup base isn’t all oil like it is at Boiling Point. Usually, at Boiling Point, if you ask for spicy, all they do is dump chili oil into the pot, making it really oily… At Hot Spot, the broth isn’t oily, but is deceptively spicy (if you ask for it).
There’s a deal on Livingsocial that gets you a free $ 5. You pay $ 15 to get $ 20 which saves you some cash. The prices here are pretty similar to Boiling Point too…$ 11-​$ 13 depending on what you get. Lunch is cheaper by a dollar. For sauces, there are 2 sauce stations located in the restaurant, one in the front and one towards the back. They have the soybean sauce, garlic soy sauce, vinegar, cilantro, green onions, etc… Feel free to help yourself!
I got #2, stinky tofu and pork intestine soup. Deliciousssss! Like I said before, the soup base isn’t oily even though I ordered medium spiciness. Super flavorful and tasty if you ask me. There is a ton of things inside the pot and it comes with a bowl of rice too. Mix in some sauces from the sauce station and it’s on par with Boiling Point for sure. Perfect for a cold winter day!
I’d definitely come back! No waiting folks!

Food made up for their service, thus 3 stars.
Be warned: reaks of stinky tofu (not a fan)
2^nd of all, there is a waiting list you need to sign into. If there’s a hoard of people crowding the door, squeeze through to get your name on the list! I was waiting for perhaps 20 min before I finally made my way over, only to find a waiting list that no one else hoarding around the doorway made it towards. What peeved me, is that the emplyees didn’t even come by to tell us there was a waiting list sign in.
Contrary to other reviews, service was HORRIBLE (¹²⁄₂₄). It took at least 45 min for our SOUP that COOKS ON ITS OWN to come. We actually came here to avoid the wait at boiling point… MISTAKE. I just can’t even. Thinking about how horrible the service was makes me sooo mad. The only server who showed the least bit of empathy was the girl without the bandana on. The guy who was at the cashier was the absolute worst. Typically, I wouldn’t call people out, but omg. in my mom’s words: «this is the first and last time I’ll be coming here». She’s usually easy to please, folks. I, on the other hand, actually would consider goving this place another shot bc the food was actually comparable to Boiling Point (my entire family of 4, even my mom, agreed). Extra $ 2.50 for additional meat, for a surprisingly hefty protion– worth it! I shared it with my brother.
Tl;dr service was crappy, but willing to give it another shot due to its comparability to BP. Hoping I could update with a positive review next time.

Back again for lunch, I am happy to say the issue of lacking contents on the pot seems to have improved. I stuck with my favourite skinny tofu pot, and the taste is still good and still the best tasting stinky tofu as compared to the other hot pot restaurants, and the soup base still maintained the good flavor without MSG.
I liked the fresh tofu skin that I ordered extra, it tastes fresh and love it with hot pot .
I am glad this place had done back to 4 stars for me, and I will be visiting more for sure.

Taiwanese style hot pot where your food is kept hot at the table with a burning flame so word of caution for those with long hair!
The pots are wide but pretty shallow so it looks like more food than you think. You can choose between rice or vermicelli noodles for your carb
—Taiwanese spicy hot pot: the waitress said this was at medium spicy but it’s borderline numbingly spicy like Szechuan food, still good though if you can handle it! The beef was my favorite ingredient
—Taiwanese spicy & curry hot pot: not as hot as the Taiwanese spicy since the curry cools it done a bit
—minced pork rice side: pretty tasty!
—chicken wings: all wings no drumsticks! It’s very moist but nothing amazing
DONT forget to visit the sauce cart in the middle of the restaurant for dipping sauces, fresh cilantro and green onions
NOTE: there’s a stamp card for those who decide to become loyal

No MSG?! No artificial flavors?! This is my new go to hot pot place!
As a hot pot lover, I just can’t get over the fact about how much msg goes in the dish and I end up drinking about a whole gallon of water after eating at any hot pot place. I don’t know what Hot Spot’s secret is, but the food here tastes almost as good as boiling point– just Hot Spot’s sauce is not on BC’s level.
BC recently got rid of my favorite hot pot which was the curry one and I was so happy to see that Hot Spot offered the curry one!
There’s a huge selection of different hot pots and the portions are good for what the price is. I would definitely come back!

I used to always come here back when it first opened, but I’ve been coming less since I live farther away from here now. I just recently came back to use my living social coupon and I was super impressed on their new menu.
Their menu got a lot bigger: they added more pots, side dishes, and they now serve shaved ice. The hot pot that really intrigued me was their vegan Taiwanese spicy. Yay! I was so excited because I used to always get the tomato veggie one since that was the only option for me. Their Taiwanese spicy was super spicy for me even tho I said I wanted mild. So if you love spicy, this is forsure the pot for you. There were some things in the pot I didn’t want (tomatoes, squash, zucchini), so the lady said I could substitute those things for something else I would like. So I asked for extra enoki :) yay! Boiling point doesn’t do substitutions which is why I would choose this place over boiling point any day.
Hotspot has a lot more variety in their pots than boiling point does. They also give you a lot more noodles and their portions are bigger. Their soup is a lot more clean, healthy and delicious in my opinion compared to other places.
The only thing that’s lacking is their sauce. I really wanted to like it but both their garlic sauce and their soy bean paste were super salty to me. Their chili oil is also crazy spicy which Isn’t a bad thing, so add a lot if you can handle it.
I forsure want to come back and try their vegetarian minced pork rice. I’m so glad they’re vegetarian/​vegan friendly.

This is one of my favorite hot pot restaurants in the area. My favorite thing about this place, is that when you ask for extra spicy, they deliver! Usually when I order extra spicy or flaming spicy at other hot pot restaurants, it usually comes out a medium spicy at most so I have to pour in a container of hot sauce to match it to my liking.
I always order the seafood and tofu hot pot and I like that there is no pork or other questionable meats added into the pot. I feel that when I eat at other places, I am left super dehydrated from all of the MSG but I don’t feel like that when I eat here. I usually have my meal with a passion fruit green tea and it definitely refreshes your taste buds after eating the soup.
The service is always great here. There is a waitress who I see all of the time working here and shes always friendly and she really knows how to work quickly and efficiently. I see her working alone a lot of the times and she really know how to handle it like a boss! lol
I come here at least once a week or for sure once every two weeks and it has never disappointed me. I try to convert all of my other friends into giving up other hot pot places and coming here instead. :)