New Chong Qing

Meat is not fresh. Environment is not good. Taste ok. $ 19.99 per person, not cheap.

This place has been on a decline for a while. Both the non-​spicy broth and the spicy broth are not as flavorful, they got rid of the cold appetizer bar that I enjoyed, and the restaurant has gotten steadily dirtier. For some reason they also decided to put the meat slicer — which they use to slice the raw meat for hot pot — right next to the self-​serve food bar. As I noted before, the service has never been stellar.
For a while, I put up with the dirtiest and slow decline of flavor because I didn’t know where else I could get Sichuan hot pot. But, now there’s a wealth of hot pot restaurants in Monterey Park, where you don’t have to bring your own beer and the tables are clean.
I would not be unhappy if I had to eat here again. But with all the other options of tasty hot pot in the area, I do not think I will be back.

I passed by this place so many times and heard great things but something always tell me to go somewhere else. So when Jazz Cat was busy as usual, my growling stomach won so we stopped here, but regretted it immediately. Not only was there a language barrier, food here was below mediocre. For ayce at $ 20, everything was blah blah blah. Their sauces were inedible and unpleasantly salty. I asked for lemon wedges, but they said they didn’t have any???
We left unsatisfied. Not even a large mixed fruit boba from Phoenix Bakery salvaged my night. eh

IF I HAD THE OPTION THIS WOULD BE NEGATIVE STARS!
fail fail fail! horrible service, dirty, over priced and food was not good. If the waitress were nice or actually served I’d consider going back. They have the worst service ever! Never ever will return!
I was eating there with my best friend for her birthday during lunch, there were 3 waitresses and about 2 other tables of 3 – 4 people besides us. There was a total of less then 10 customers inside the restaurant. Had to ask for ice water more then 4 times, food took forever to come out even though they’re not cooking it! Tried to call a waitress for refill on water but 2 of them ignored us a few times. When we were ready to leave we had to wait another 10 minutes for the bill because the girl who rung us up went over to the front got our change and was standing there talking to the other two waitresses. I had to walk up myself to get my change. Oh yea they also charged us for soup base for hot pot while we got the all you can eat… all the other places I’ve ever been to never charges extra for soup base for all you can eat. Then when we get our change OBVIOUSLY not leaving a good tip but I was nice enough to leave some tips. Bill was $ 55.00 so I had 4 singles in my wallet and I put down $ 4 then a girl chased me out and told me I had to leave 15% tips! WT****??! no I am not leaving 15% tips they had such horrible service! I was so mad I took my $ 4 back! I am a big believer on leaving very good tips for people who deserve it and 15−18% for all other times that I’m at the least served. Anyway, I will never come back here. I suggest you save yourself a trip here unless you would like to deal with rude people, horrible service, bad food and chased out the door for not leaving good tips for horrible service!

Oh man… this place is so ghetto.
Food: New Chong Qing is a hot pot restaurant with an all you can eat option. For those unfamiliar with the hot pot concept, it’s exactly like shabu shabu. You have a boiling broth right at the table and order uncooked veggies, meats, and noodles. You basically just dump the stuff into the broth and let it cook, then fish it out and eat to your heart’s content. While their food is ok, the restaurant itself is overpriced and a bit dirty. We decided to go for the non AYCE meal which came with two broths, spicy and non spicy (
). All in all, the broth was pretty tasty, but the sides were lacking. We ordered the bok choy (
), cabbage, «special» meat (
), pork (
), and beef (
). Ok, first off, there wasn’t nearly enough of the veggies between the two of us. Secondly, the «special» meat was spam and they only gave us 3 measly slices cut in half. Total rip off. The other meats were ok, but I was really afraid I’d get food poisoning because the soup bar that seems to come with the AYCE option was super dirty. Also, the burners were not clean.
Atmosphere: This place used to be a bank and the layout reflects this. The first thing I noticed was a big fish pot in the entrance. Classy, I thought. Then, curious to see if there were actually fish inside, I looked in and saw nothing but trash and cigarette butts. EW. This is gonna sound bad, but some of the other customers were also pretty gross. There was a couple with a baby at the table next to us. The woman had her shirt rolled up with her stomach bulging out. She kept rubbing it and had her leg lifted on a chair next to her. Not appetizing in the least.
Service: Super slow. I think we were here for more than 2 hours and it wasn’t because we were cooking our own food. Took awhile to figure out how to pay as well. Just walk up to the counter.
Synopsis: You’re better off paying more and going to Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot. It’s way cleaner, you get more food for what you pay, and their service is top notch.

We came to New Chong Quing because it was a fairly new establishment in Alhambra for AYCE hot pot, which we are fans of… not till we got seated that we pulled up the reviews on Unilocal to find out that there were a lot of recent 1 star reviews…
anyhow, I didn’t let that change my way of thought… I still went in with a clean slate… *innocent till proven guilty kinda thought process.
First off… it took a while for us to even order… the waitress kept walking back ‘n forth serving other customers and we’re trying to wave her down just to order. The re-​order took almost just as long (which allows the food to settle so you can’t eat as much, but I don’t think this was the case here though). We came here on a friday night around dinner time, so the place was packed, but they only had 2 servers on the floor! Can’t really blame the servers… but you’d think they’d staff up for a busy night.
Another thing is being understaffed is one thing, but being lazy is another. After the place cleared out… all the dirty dishes from the guests were still on the table! We had outdoor seating and all the other guests had left already, but their dirty dishes were still there. The place was pretty empty at this time but I guess they figure that «hey, it’s only a table left, we’ll clean em all up when they leave» That’s laziness folks.
The food wasn’t bad, but the service horrible. Little things such as long waits for food and not clearing plates brings it down to less than average. I wouldn’t say to not come here, but you do have other choices around Alhambra.

Been here twice and both times the broth was unbearably salty. There are better options nearby for AYCE hot pot. We only come here when other places had a long line and someone in the group REALLY wants AYCE hotpot. Be sure to drink plenty of water if you eat here.
Pros:
— Usually very little or no wait
Cons:
— Dirty
— Salty broth

Yesterday we decided to get some hot pot for dinner… instead of going to Jazz Cat which we imagined would be pretty packed on a Friday night, we came here instead.
Well I’m not a big fan of hot pot or shabu shabu… mainly because it never satisfies me… and even with a flavorful soup base and dipping sauce, I never really liked eating hot pot… that being said… I’ll try my best not to be bias against this place.
The restaurant is located right across from this Chinese market called 168… it’s the one with very slanted roof… and has a pretty small parking in the front… but I think there’s more parking in the back. We got a seat right away since we were only a party of 3 and their tables seems to service more small groups than big parties…
We decided on the all-​you-​can-​eat for 18 bucks plus 5 dollars for the soup base… which I think should be included in the 18 bucks…-__-” All-​you-​can-​eat seemed reasonable because each plate ranged from $ 3.99-$ 5.99 and well if u order 3 plates of the 5.99 it’s already 18 bucks… so why not do all you can eat right? and not to mention it’s very very small plates… so try not to order individual plates because you might not get full…
We also ordered half and half soup base… half spicy and half just the regular herbal. The spicy soup was really spicy but good. One thing I really liked was the beef balls! They were the best… the other stuff was good too… like beef slice, lamb slice, pig intestine, snow pea veggie and a few other veggies.
Overall it was pretty good but they only gave us one scoop… not that I would have used it but it didn’t make since to give a party of 3 only one scoop. –_​-​«
I’ll possibly do hot pot again here but like I said it never really satisfy me… I get full and I was pretty full but eh it always lacked something to me.

Horrible customer service! Went into this restaurant on ¹²⁄₂₇ and asked them if I could use their restroom, but would be happy to order a drink, but they refused to give service and the place was as dead as a doorknob. I would think they would want to make money. They said that I had to order their $ 18.99 AYCE in order to use the restroom. How crazy is that! The young male and female waiter and waitress were both very rude and had a smirk on their face the entire time. Will never go back ever.
The place also didn’t look that clean…

Came here with a friend to try out the hot pot place. Expect to spend $ 25 per person after tax and tips for the AYCE.
Broth is actually very good, much better than A&J. I definitely liked it. The spicy side is classic southwest China, which means it’s all spice and red oil (but, thankfully, very little Szechuan peppercorns, if any). I’d recommend drinking the plain broth side and tossing in a dash of the red if you like to drink soup. Once the soup starts getting to the bottom, it will be bitter (lotsa herbs, undiluted). So make sure to get someone to top off the broth.
Meat — unlike some other reviews, our meat came out pretty decent. Yes, it was not as fresh/​good meat as at the other hot pot places, but it wasn’t brown or gross either.
Corn — forget it. They precooked it, and it’s all mushy and nasty. Much better if they just gave us the raw thing instead.
Cold dishes — They have an appetizer bar where you can get some side cold dishes (pickled cucumber dish, egg roll with sweet and sour sauce, pre-​cooked corn, dried tofu, rice, and a few other things). I liked the egg roll. Corn was blegh. Cucumber dish was ok, but would be better if they didn’t slice it so finely. Didn’t try the other things.
Seafood — this is where they shine. They offer a lot more variety options than the other seafood places. Fish was good (they gave us the fish head). Oysters were good, but frozen. Clams were good, also previously frozen, but flavor was good. Shrimp was good.
Portion sizes — like the more successful hot pot places, the portions are small, which is great. That means you can order more types of things.
Service — not the best. We ordered corn and waited and waited, but it didn’t arrive. When we finally flagged someone down, they said, «you’re supposed to get it yourself from the sides bar!» — would’ve been nice if the server had mentioned that… They were ok with removing the garbage plates from the table.
Tables — We sat at a table for 4 people, but the table is small, so there’s really only room for 2 people after you put all the hot pot dishes on the table.
A Cash only establishment.

It smelled like curry when we walked in…
This place was super dirty. We came here few weeks ago when it rained and they used newspapers as floor mats! Wet, torn newspapers were all over the place.
Go outside and you see cigarette butts all over the place. Look at the stove and it’s very dirty and sticky. Look up the exhaust system and you’ll see how dirty this place is.
AYCE for $ 18.99 but we opted for regular menu. The worker thought we wanted AYCE and another worker asked why we only ordered 2 items for AYCE. We told her because we wanted to order from regular menu, not AYCE. She said ok but looked confused. The third worker came after the soup came and said that they sent her there because the other workers didn’t understand English. I asked for a straw 3 times.
The lamb was super fatty and the beef was hard to chew. Quality of the meat was pretty bad. The soup was tasteless. The 4 sauces were probably the worst hot pot sauces I tried.
1 star!
New Chong Qing is not yummylicious!

GROSS GROSS GROSS!!!
Really this place is a joke. As soon as I put the meat in the water it instantly turned into a purplish black! NOT FRESH. The stoves were EXTREMELY dirty– Obviously management does not care about there place. I give this place another mmm 5 months until they get shut down.

Got a coupon for this place, which is why I decided to try it. It was half off AYCE Hot Pot for 2, which makes it $ 20 for two people.
Came here for lunch and it was pretty empty. There was only 1 person working in the front and thats it. We were the only 2 people in the whole restaurant during a Friday afternoon, which seemed odd, but i guess some people just dont feel like eating Ayce for lunch.
We ordered what we want on a piece of paper and they brought out the pot with soup for us. The portions here are really small, but I guess its fine since it‘s AYCE you can always order more. The veges and fishballs seemed really clean and fresh. The soup base reminded me of the soup base from Little Fat Sheep, which has a lot of healthy chinese herbs in it.
He gave us a little basket filled with a couple of different sauces. The GREEN sauce was my favorite. I have no idea what it was, but it‘s super super yummy! kinda salty, but kinda not… haha Not sure how to describe the taste, you‘ll just have to trust me on this and try it for yourself if you ever get the chance to come here.
However, when our fire went off, we tried waving to the guy who worked in front and had a hard time getting his attention. He was eating hot pot with one of the other chefs? geez.

Ugh. This meal was one of the most disappointing meals of my life. Maybe it was because two different groups of friends had recommended us to come here, or maybe we were just expecting too much, but this place sucked. Here’s some high (low)lights:
— Price was ~ 20 per person for all you can eat. Not a bad deal, but read further to see why I considered this NOT worth the money.
— Soup base had no flavor. It was just really spicy. Maybe they used too much spicy oil and not enough herbs, but the soup didn’t have much flavor and it was pretty spicy.
— Meat was disgusting. We ordered 4 plate of meat, 2 beef 2 lamb. They came on two plates, and when they got to our table the beef (or lamb I can’t remember which now) was brown. It wasn’t the color of fresh meat, and what’s worse it was all messy and folded up. It literally looked like they took somebody else’s unfinished meat and brought it out to us, without even changing the plate. Some of the tables around us had meat that looked fresh, and some of them had meat that looked almost as bad as ours. The other parts of our order didn’t look so fresh either, but that’s kinda what we come to expect for an AYCE place.
— Service was bad. The servers didn’t seem very friendly or didn’t seem like whether they cared if we were satisfied or not. When we asked them for sauce this is the conversation we had:
Us: Can we have some sauce please?
Them: What kind of sauce do you want?
Us: Uhh what kind of sauce do you have?
Them: What kind of sauce do you want? Tell me what kind of sauce you want and I’ll get it for you.
Also, when we asked for the tray of sauce (which all the other tables had except for us), they gave us an empty one. When we asked for a new one, they gave us one that was also practically empty. Not only that, the sauce sucked.
Overall, I can’t unrecommend this meal anymore. Other people seem to have had better experiences, so maybe we just caught them on an off day. But we’re not giving them another chance, that’s for sure.

I’m only giving this place 2 stars due to the free pitcher of coolaid this place sucks !
Service is horrable and don’t go late night they don’t even have lettuce and they still charge you for all you can eat!
I orderd a bunch of stuff off menu but they only brought out beef and some saugy tomatoes and I should have been charged for technically 2 items like 10 $ instead my bill was 50 $ rip off status I tell you !
Next I asked for mild and they gave me some scorching hotter then hot broth and when I said I could not eat this the waitress laughed and did not make any changes also never came back to check on me
When I got home had the worst cramps and it’s 7am next morning and I’m still sick stuck in bed. WARNING stay away this place is no BUENO folks !

Bleh!
This place is for the kiddies… Everyone seemed to be 21 and under when we came. Decently priced, but the menu selection is limited. Meat is not that good, either. (No pig blood rice cake??)
The stuff at the buffet is also… gross. MSG!
The hot pot itself was pretty damn spicy — but I swear I was scooping out nothing but chilis after losing my meat and veggies to the bottom of the pot. Not well balanced… Especially since I’ve had the real deal in China before.
Cash only.

Good, but not great.
CASH ONLY.
When my boyfriend and I first arrived this past Saturday night, I immediately thought the décor of the business was modern, and the facility seemed clean. 5 Stars for the environment
I noticed the «grand opening» sign and our waiter confirmed that a new owner has just taken over, so despite the fact that they have a bar inside that can make coffee & tea that you must order al la carte as something extra (not part of the AYCE menu), they told me they could only provide soda and some kind of mint tea. Minus 1 star
Another thing that I must take 1 star away from is their portion. Now, I understand that since this place is AYCE you can always get more… but it really annoyed me when I ordered tofu and got literally only 5 pieces of tofu with my order. I felt bad that I had to keep ordering but come on, I honestly think this is their tactic so that you won’t keep on ordering because you’ll either 1) get annoyed that you have to keep ordering 2) make yourself appear to be like a pig
Other than the above 2 minor flaws, my experience dining here was positive. I will be back again if I ever want to pig out and eat all I can eat.

Finally when here with Jenny Y. one late night, no wait because it was around 8:45pm. We ate until we were the last table, and the workers were chowing down on their own dinner.
The spicy is just a bit too spicy, yes I can handle my spice but it slows you down from eating! The boiling temperature of the food already slows you down, I don’t need another factor to keep me from filling my stomach! I am not a massive fan of too much oil, the layer of chili oil was scary it looked like a half centimeter layer. Didn’t even use the dipping sauce because it was just a half bowl of sesame oil, you would think this place owns stock in cooking oil or something. I really wished that they had levels of spiciness that you can order, ramen noodle places have it. All they have to do is just mix more plain broth instead?!
Great selection of items to order, the quality of ingredients stand out. Vegetables are fresh and appeared to be cleaned well, the meat seems to be from better cuts compared to other AYCE hot pot places. I liked the complimentary black currant pitcher of drink they give you in the beginning, wish it was free all night it’s good to have something cool, sweet and fruity to offset the spiciness.
Would come here again ample parking, nicely decorated and CLEAN! Very important to have clean food, other hot pot places have been quite sketchy you wonder if you are gonna make it though the next day without ‘tummy rumbles’ as Jenny Y would say. This place also make boba and smoothie drinks, I didn’t get one because I was too full from hot pot but just letting you know they have it!

I have officially gone to all the hot pot places in san gabriel after this one. and this is definitely pretty decent! so far i’ve gone to lugi, mon hot pot city, little fat sheep, the other former happy sheep, boiling point and jazz cat.
$ 18.99 for AYCE hot pot plus $ 5 for the soup. It’s an alright deal. I definitely got my moneys worth! It’s a little pricier than how much I would eat for hot pot, however, you make up by eating seafood!
The wait on a friday 9pm was horrendous! waited over an hour for 2! Although you should go as a group, you can make reservations above 6 people.
Finally got seated, I thought service would suck but it wasn’t bad. Asked for half and half pot. They gave us the peanut sauce and some green onions. i wish you could mix your sauce tho. I also asked for the tsa cha sauce. I also had to ask for the spoons to scoop up the hot pot goodies.
They also give you one pitcher of grape? juice, pretty good! but apparently you have to pay after you finish that pitcher.
Between 2 ppl, we got 2 beef, 1 pork, 2 lamb, 1 shrimp, 1 clam, 1 imitation crab (not live) 1 enoki mushroom, 1 A choi, 1 bak choy, 1 shitake mushroom, 1 vermicelli, 1 fish head and 1 watercress. This was a very good amount, we were not stuffed but we were full. I do wish we ordered more clams though!
The meat was a little fatty, but the lamb was very tendy. The pork was actually pretty good too. I liked both of the broths quite a lot. The mild spicy was actualy slightly numbing. The clams is delicious in the spicy side, I thought it may be a little bland if it wasn’t cooked there. Although you have to be careful, it gets detached from the shell easily and it took a while to look for it. But i love spicy clams, and this is just perfect!
The fish head was also delicious. I always put the veggie on the non-​spicy side, otherwise it’ll soak up all the spicyness, and you will suffer if you cannot handle it! Everything else was good. Except I believe they messed up on the vermecelli, i wanted the thin one, and the thick one was just too thick. Not appetising.
The crab was not live, but was actually imitation crab.
Pretty good variety. the bill ended up to be $ 50 something including tip. So quite a pricey meal. I may or may not come here again since I still prefer Lu Gi. I miss making my own sauce and drinking the soup!
All in all it’s a great experience and lots of variety.
Tip: Make reservations if you have more than 6 people. Plates are a little small, I ordered everything at once and it came super fast. 2 Plates of meat per person is just enough and you can order another one. Eat more seafood so you get your money’s worth!
Favourites: The spicy clams! mmm! the broth was strong and i didn’t have to dip the sauce much. yummy grape juice
do not want: was not a big fan of the sauce. LONG WAIT!!! kinda pricey.
last words: great hot pot but comes with a price.

I think they read my review =D I came back and the soup base was VERY tasty and no longer too salty =d But I can’t upgrade them to a 5 star =(The service was HORRIBLE this time around. They got pissy at us cuz my cousin’s wife just couldn’t wait anymore, got up and changed our propane can…
The food didn’t look as good as the first time I was here but it was still good =d The beef was fantabulous because the broth flavored it just right =d
Soup queen!!! When we coming here??? =D
ps…Will, if you’re reading this… MWAHAHAHAHAAAA … cash only ;P