Element Hot Pot

Heard about this place form a friend so the boyfriend and I decided to check this place out on a cold night. The pot was divided in two so we ordered the Thai and Miso option. For dinner, it was 23.95 for AYCE. On our first round, the waiters were attentive. We ordered beef, lamb, mushroom, cabbage, fish balls, tendon… all were really good. I’m not a fan of the tendon — it was too heavy. For our second round, we thought we were still hungry so we ordered another plate of lamb, liver (adventurous right), pumpkin, more mushroom… We had a hard time finishing… The liver came out on a separate small dish and it was gooey red blob. I thought I liked liver, but omg, it just tasted WEIRD. Service was super slow after our first round.
So my advice is: order whatever you want on your first round. Except tendon. It will probably fill you up for the rest of the meal. Don’t over order because they charge for leftover food and you’ll be stuck like us trying to finish our food. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back. Maybe if I was super craving hotpot. Sorry guys.

No thanks! Kind of overpriced for the quality they serve. Great selection but everything tasted subpar including the soup bases.

I’m a big hot pot fan, this place is somewhat decent, fresh meat, price is reasonable, not as good as hai di lao, but good for the price.

I know there are a lot of low reviews for their service. That is the undeniable truth.
My review will be a bit biased as I came early on a weekday, with only a few tables occupied. The nonexistent service was not too apparent because my first round came quickly and lasted us into the second round wait.
I came with a friend and my parents. The friend having been here before, advised that regardless of the quantity we specify, portions will be up to the waiters’ discretion in terms of how many are in our party. As odd as that sounds to me, we just took her word for it.
First and foremost, please order the beef shank. If you are a regular hot potter like me, you will have a set a somewhat high standard that must be met for hotpot restaurants and their meat quality. Trust me. I don’t know how to explain in words how phenomenal this beef shank will taste. JUST GET IT! (and when you do, don’t boil it for too long. Just enough that the pink is gone. Overcooking will take away from the awesomeness)
As for everything else, from their hand made beef rolls to their fried fish skin, they get an A for beef shank and a brownie points for the variety. (If your idea of hotpot is beyond Boiling Point and Jazzcat, then you will know how to appreciate variety)
However, I will point out that the regular beef is below mediocre quality. Become is very tough when even slightly overcooked. Pork belly is average.
All in all, Yes the service is quite unsettling to say the least. But for the beef shank, the variety and the cleanliness. 23.99 ain’t too bad. I’d pay them another visit. (On a slow weekday of course!)
Check out my pics :)

$ 24 for all-​you-​can-​eat hotpot is very reasonable. This is one of the better hotpot places in the area.
We came here on a Friday night. There were a lot of food items to choose from. Food quality was not the best but acceptable for that price.
There was almost always a line during peak dinner hours, especially when the weather is cold. Service can be very slow, depending on how busy they are.

Terrible service, very disappointed with the nice location Restaurant «low Quality food «but nice presentation. !!!
I was spend $ 165.00 for 4 people
SUCK

I’ve read a lot of bad reviews before coming here. So did not have great expectations. However, it turned out better than i expected.
+1 star for variety. Nice selection of meats, seafood, and veggies. Everything came out nice and looked like good quality and very clean. Did not get shellfish since my mom can’t eat much of it.
+1 star for service. I saw a lot of bad reviews for service, but we had pretty prompt response and everything came out quite fast. Restaurant was a little over half filled at this time.
+1 star for cleanliness. Clean tables, chairs, food, utensils, sauce holders, restroom. Normally all you can eat places have at least one dirty spot. But this place was clean.
+1 star for reasonable price. The price is pretty good considering what you can order and good quality too.
Would have 5 stars if the broth wasn’t too light/​bland. Got the tomato pork bone soup and was not impressed. Lacked a lot of flavor that i expected from it. Could be biased cause I’ve had pork bone soup elsewhere that is crazy good. If i come here again, I’d bring my own seasonings or something to add to the broth.

Why does it take 25 minutes to bring out AYCE dishes?! Service is also horrible — I’m all about Chinese-​style, but staff is so out of it and they don’t even see you trying to wave them down for 10 minutes. The meat quality is average and there are some super chewy cuts that shouldn’t be on the menu.
The wait is also ridiculously long. Don’t come here.

New hot pot place in the 626. It’s an AYCE concept which is good. Service can be slow at times, based on the amount of people there. Downside is the table is a bit small if you have a party of 4. Sauce selection is pretty limited to just a Chinese style barbecue sauce. Otherwise this place is what you pretty much expect it to be.

The service and ambience was excellent. The meat including the sea food was fresh and scrumptious. Pricing was very reasonable (well worth the cost) for «all you can eat», it’s definitely the best bang for your buck. I will absolutely come here again, it’s a great place for a family or friends gathering.

I never come back again.
All you can eat???
No
I ordered addition beef, it’s take 15 mins.
We already tired about this place .
Don’t come here.

I was really happy to see that it was AYCE now, as it used to be a bit on the pricier side, but I was really disappointed to see how they’ve cut corners. Some of the items are fine, such as their fish roe balls and their seafood (some of their surf clam were sandy though), and I was impressed that they offered salmon and seafood that aren’t normally offered elsewhere. Another good trait was that their broths are light and devoid of most sodium; HOWEVER, what kills me is that a good many of their items were «prepared:»
Fish filet: These have clearly been soaked in salt and plumped up as they were much saltier (borderline TOO salty) than the broth was.
Beef flank: These must have been marinated in corn starch to plump up and soften as it was probably bad quality – they were slimy and had a strange texture upon cooking.
Sliced meats: Not horrible, but some slices were almost half fat, which some may actually enjoy.
Veggies: They will give you a ton of herbs (cilantro) and none of the rest (A choy, spinach, etc)
Service-​wise was okay, as it was fairly easy to flag down waiters. Quality, however, is what will keep me from coming back. Sorry, but I’ll take Little Sheep over this any ayce day! :(

I’ve ate here a total of 8 times in the course of a few months. I enjoyed it the first time but every time after that it has become worse and worse.
The soup base is not good anymore and is either tasteless or too salty.
The service is terrible here except for one girl waitress. The waiters who work here look like they hate their jobs.
The food you order is always missing. If you ordered all the seafood they will purposely «forget» to bring out something you ordered until you remind them. This has happened every time I go.
My last visit was on New Year’s Eve and I came at the wrong time because they were about to close. I had to rush eat. Anyways, I won’t be eating here and hope it closes down so something else can take its place… Like the last 10 restaurants before it.

Passed by this restaurant so many times. Finally I decided to try this place with parents. $ 21.99 all you can eat hotpot — very reasonable
Lots of food to choose from different veggies to different meat. They even have lamb and shrimp. Only three rounds.
Order more meats as much as u can. They give little portion of meats but BIG portion of veggies.
Service is really bad especially on a Friday night. They forgot my order for fish fillet TWICE. It also took them forever to bring over the food. I even ordered so much fish but yet they give so little even though I wrote down how much I wanted.
Tip: order meat as much as you can on the first round!

Great quality foods. Big portioned so be sure to eat everything before you order more. Any left overs will result in a $ 20 charge. 2 hour limit. I was never a fan of the 2 hour limit just because it makes me nervous, but I guess I understand.
Big slices of beef and lamb which i appreciate. Lamb was nice and gamy. They also offered salmon and surf calm which was awesome! Surf calm was cleaned unproperly because there was sand particles in my mouth I felt as I chewed.
My favorite was the chive dumplings. They give pretty good amount per order (6 pieces per one order)
We ordered 1 of the vermicelli and I swear… the amount they gave could feed 5 people.
We decided to order just a little bit the second round, but they ended up bringing everything we ordered the first round to us. I was going to freak out thinking I was out of my mind ordering too much, but I realized that I wasn’t crazy.
I tried to talk to the waitress about it and she kept on asking if she could see the paper like she didn’t believe us. It was very uncomfortable for me. She ended up taking some foods away and not others, but I felt bad because we ended up having to discard the things she didn’t take away (which was alot) we ordered only napa, Achoy, and taro and she brought that with an addition of spinach, lettuce, and pumpkin…
It was way too much food and I felt like because we didn’t order it, we shouldn’t have to finish it. But anyways 4 stars for awkward dining experience.
This place is pretty good for $ 23 per person with the quality of food they serve. Thinking about bringing parentals soon.

Pros: good flavor of the miso broth, good quality meats, nice décor
Cons: not very attentive wait staff

Came here with my fam bam. Hot pot is delicious, have lots of variety, and great for its price! That is, if you’re coming for AYCE. Going to be here more often since it’s winter.
The meat and veggies are fresh.
Service is good, slow but probably because they’re really busy.

4 soups sampled (each pot is split, a table of 4 – 6 will have 2 pots):
Szechuan — as mentioned, mostly numb chili and a scattering of roasted chili pods
Tom Yum Kai — quite accurate with lots of lemongrass and galangal
Beef and tomato — strong HK influenced flavors and well-​balanced
White fish stock — mild and goes well with most of the seafood items (except salmon — which needs a stronger flavored base) Played well with the scallops, shrimp and various paste balls and vegetables. Fishcake with roe favorited here, too.
The mushroom soup is the mildest of the selections, and only really develops flavor after adding more of the other vegetables and letting them simmer for 15 – 20 minutes. Otherwise, it’s shabu-​shabu light.
What others haven’t mentioned — all the prime ingredients are still available, just ala carte. You can order your live king crab, Kobe/​Wagyu beef, stone crab, prime filet, whole sweet shrimp, abalone etc. — it’s just not part of the AYCE pricing (priced per portion instead.)
Portions on starches are pretty generous, so order wisely or you end up with way too many noodles and dumplings. Vegetable portions are reasonable, and do make for a good nabe pot by the end of the meal. Mind the $ 20 wasted food fee. No to-​go bags provided.
Service could really use service call buttons installed on the tables — it’s difficult for servers to constantly circulate (and dangerous if they’re carrying the large pots of hot soups.) Be prepared with your best hand-​waving ready to go.
Sauces at table-​side (raw chopped garlic, green onion, soy sauce, XO chili sauce, dried shrimp sauce, and peanut satay.)
Like most similar places, the first few visits will probably have you trying everything combined, which by meals’ end means everything sort of turns out the same taste-​wise. If you can leverage your ability to craft flavors, isolating the combinations works really well to craft quite decent versions of various combinations. Otherwise, the usual mish-​mash occurs and everyone thinks all the flavors are the same (or too bland.)
The implements aren’t differentiated, so everyone’s ladles and such may get mixed up if all in the same pots. Or you could each decide you get to play no-​mixing, and segregate your own pot all to yourself, but that’s half the fun (or the homogeneity, as it happens often, of the experience.)
Full Bar area can cover about 40 or so (no hot pots there), and there are lots of TV’s around.
Easily the cleanest and most upscale decorated of the hot pot places, which is nice for treating business clients, or first dates to the experience.
The reservations list is at the bar top, sign-​in to get your place in-​line.
Parking in the back is about 70% of max. capacity, street-​parking is more plentiful to the East and North of the restaurant.
There is seating for medium-​sized groups of up to about 16 (long-​row table style), but after that, splitting groups occurs.

This place had low rating before but now it’s getting good. They changed it to all you can eat $ 21.95 to survive.
Eat 2 rounds and you have your moneys worth.
Friday night– 40 min wait, not bad for a lot of people in line.
First thing you do when you get in seated: order and then prepare your sauces.
2 soups we tried:
1.szechuan spicy– our group loves spicy but it wasn’t to any of our liking. It had peppercorn/​numb spice and everything we threw in, the whole peppers go in your food and soup. Smelled like armpits. we were stuck with that til the end. It’s not traditional Szechuan.
2. Tomato pork bone– it was alright. Tastes healthy.
Food choices:
” Fish balls with roe” were everyone’s favorite and «usd prime beef»!!
Instant ramen– it was okay, tastes like any instant noodle but we thought it would be a good idea to put that in the hotpot rather than the common vermicelli.
Eggs– Crack it and poach the egg to eat with ramen
Fish tofu– good. Guyfriends and I liked
regular tofu-​good
Shitake mushrooms-​only good if you like mushrooms
scallops– so tiny, fell to the bottom of the soup, forgot about it while waiting for it to cook, it’s good
Wontons– good
Spinach– if you like veggies order it
pork ball– eh it wasn’t great.
shrimp ball– didn’t like it between 4 people
chive and meat dumplings –good, small but tastes good
calamari– it was ok. It’s usually plain
Udon noodles– it was alright, fulfilling and thick
Bean curd– it was alright
Corn– it was alright, normal, average
On our 2^nd round, Can’t believe my guy friends ordered 6 plates of beef and the workers totally ignored that and gave us 1 plate. Lol its a good thing they only came out with 1 more beef plate because our 2^nd round ordering we were all full.
FYI THEY CHARGE $ 20 FOR LEFTOVER FOOD.
We didn’t know lol we had a lot of food left but luckily we hid it under the soup. They looked in real quick and gave us the bill without that leftover charge. *phew*

This is definitely one of the better hot pot spot. Really nice set up, spacious, clean and comfortable. Decent variety of soup base, meat, seafood and vegetable. I like that the sauces are placed on every table and it gets cleaned and refilled regularly.
The $ 21.95 AYCE is a bit pricey but if you can make two rounds you had your money’s worth. A thousand times better than Boiling Point and the likes. You cook at your leisure at the right doneness. You won’t be rushed. Be patience. Staffs here really hustle and bustle so mark everything you want the first round. When the place starts to fill up (just after 8 PM) popular items becomes limited or sold out.
It’s never going to be perfect but I left a happy camper.