Two Birds One Stone

I really enjoyed my experience at Two Birds One Stone. The last time I had hot pot was in south China circa 2014. This restaurant brought me back to my favorite memories. Don’t be intimidated if you have never tried it! Come here and have a great, approachable meal with a delicious menu!
As soon as we were seated the service was very attentive, almost too attentive. We had some hot pot virgins in our party so we needed a bit more time to get comfortable with the menu. The menu has a lot of options and if you have never had hot pot it can be intimidating but our sever was very helpful talking us through the routine. While we made our choices we were served a free portion of lamb skewers. The meat was cooked well and the spicing was smokey and just the right amount of salt.
At this restaurant each person choose an individual pot rather than a community pot. I really prefer the individual pot so this is definitely a positive. The spicy broth is spicy. Lots of red chilies floating in that broth. I loved the barbecue broth the best.
For four hungry adults we picked three meats, two fish balls (OMG, get the fish balls!), four veg plates and a fried tofu order. All of the meat and veg are served raw, except the fish balls, then you put the food into your pot and cook it to your desire. This was the perfect amount. We were all comfortably full with nothing left over.
A previous reviewer noted that some ingredients were previously frozen. The meat comes out sliced very thin so that you can cook it quickly in your boiling broth. If you have ever tried to slice meat very thinly, it is much easier if you pop it in a freezer to firm it up before slicing. It’s a pretty typical move so the meat being slightly frozen wasn’t odd or a turn off.
The sauce bar had a good amount of options and you could go up as often as you like. If you have never had hot pot, the restaurants typically have sauce stations were you create a concoction for dipping your meat or veg after cooking in your soup.
Really no complaints and I highly recommend it.

Great atmosphere, delicious food, and great service! I’m positive that the several bad reviews on here are from when they first opened, because I did hear that it took a while for them to get going. But now they have figured it out, and I would recommend this restaurant 100% of the time.

Two stars, one restaurant.
I don’t mind traveling to Chinatown for a good hot pot. And if we didn’t have Chinatown, I would probably get on a plane and kill off a weekend traveling to the nearest spot. So when I walked past what used to be Bar Forza, you can imagine my delight when I saw a hot pot place packed to the brim with Chinese people enjoying it. Things looked positive.
The next day, we tried to come for lunch. They were supposed to be open, but there wasn’t a light on or soul in sight.
A few nights later, my girlfriend and I decided to try it out. This time, it was practically empty — totally empty by the time we finished our meal — and it wasn’t what we were expecting. The pots were somewhat small, and the size of the things we ordered were odd and disproportionate to (a) the number of people and (b) the size of our pots. Also unfortunate that pots are individual, rather than there being one big communal pot. That’s forgivable, though. The real strike was in the quality; the ingredients had all clearly been frozen prior to being brought out, and they just didn’t have the fresh flavor and authentic experience you would get in Chinatown.
Thus far, we’re at 3 stars. But then it got really weird.
Someone associated with Bar Forza showed up — big Italian guy. Spoke with who I’m assuming is the owner of 2B1S. He tells him «Mario» said a jukebox was left on the property that belonged to them and it was not included in the contract as the new owners’, so he was wondering where it had run off to. They got in an incredibly heated debacle about it, where the owner of 2B1S went back and forth on his story and the Bar Forza guy or someone called the police. It was pretty intense and awkward to experience while eating dinner, and we were not offered the slightest apology or remote suggestion of a discount for having to witness it. Honestly, give Bar Forza back their jukebox — it’s probably all they have left after essentially being empty of anyone over the age of 21 for so many years. And try to handle those matters privately; not in front of customers.
Finally, there was a pretty strange odor upon entering the restaurant. Jury is still out on what, exactly, it smelled like, but it wasn’t appetizing in the least bit.

Made a reservation for this place at 12pm. When we got there… guess what? They weren’t even open! Waited until ten past 12, still no one. So we left and went straight to Chinatown for all you can eat Hotpot at Sweet Station.
Was really looking forward to trying this place, since I live around the area and am a big fan of hotpot.
Also, I tried calling their number at least 3 times to make the reservation, and no one ever picked up. I finally got through to someone (Dian) via email. He said maybe I was calling the fax number. No, I was calling the phone number (taken directly from this Unilocal page and also reconfirmed on their website) and no one picked up.

I came here when this new restaurant just opened, that time was quite impressive but honestly, there were a few aspects to be improved. On Unilocal, A few quick but impatient feed-​backs with 1 or 2 star ratings should be understandable back then. However, with some brief chats with the managers and waiters, I could feel the passions of them and how eagerly they wanted to satisfy customers in a variety of interests and tastes, so I opted to hold back without any quick comments until my following visit.
Now I just gave it one more try during Christmas, this time all negatives have been inverted without compromising the positives! Remarkably, two co-​owners of this site are professional instrumental musicians in a live band. They perform live music inside restaurant every night around 8 during weekends. Me and my friends were so fortunate to have a chance to enjoy their great performance for about half an hour. (And it’s totally complimentary, tips if you wish to add on bill LOL) Overall, as a direct result, the integrated quality of service, food and entertainment excited me intensely. My immediate feels in details as below:
1) Waiters/​Waitresses became more experienced and service was super quick. Even not upon requests, they filled ice water and the delicious pot broth frequently.
2) Their introduction to traditional Chinese hot pot was very explicit for first time customers. They speak both Mandarin Chinese and English pretty well. Asians/​Caucasians roughly half/​half as I observed.
3) Most importantly, the lag time for broths come to boil is shortened significantly since powerful fuel container is used. Now it only takes 3 min to boil and the thermal power is able to extend to 2 hours or even longer.
4) Mutton, beef, seafood etc. are all fresh constantly. Sauces can be self-​made with mixing a bunch of ingredients. They are accommodated on a table and clearly labelled in English.
5) Live music is awesome. They invite some well-​known singers and treat the live performance extremely seriously. Earnest rehearsal for every single song!
6) Reasonable price at this upscale location. $ 20 – 30 per person. They give like 10 or 20% off entire bill sometimes. Ask them for it.
On the whole, it’s a wonderful place for family/​friends gatherings and hang-​outs. It’s also an ideal place for casual date. Typically quiet for whispering. It deserves people’s regular visits currently.

The food is very tasty but the portion is small. Overall, it’s on the expensive side. The location is very convenient and it’s nice to have a hot pot place outside of Chinatown. It’s great to have your individual hotpot. Since this place is new, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement. The service is nice but quite clueless. For example, they served us hot tea in a pint glass. Also, we had to wave them down a couple of times to take our order. I will give it another chance but I am not a fan of it yet.

Two stars for the food, one for the service.
No water given, no water refilled. One glass was warm and the others were cold. Straight out from the tap.
Given attitude when asked for ice in the water.
Place not professionally run.
Food is not cheap. We spent $ 230 for 6 people and left hungry.
We sat in the bar area and was not told that we had to help ourselves to the sauces in the other room.
Food was okay but not worth coming back.
Northern China attitude does not work in Lincoln park. Good luck to you.

Don’t care what others say, this is a special intention runs a restaurant and have distinguishing feature, good service, don’t go to don’t know, go to have a surprise！

Went to this hot pot place after seeing Million Dollar Quartet at the Apollo last weekend. Like the other reviews, it is newer and you can tell they haven’t quite figured it out yet. The space is in an old bar so it was confusing to even walk in because the place has two sides. We ordered hot tea and they served it in soda glasses which was odd. All the waiters were really young and they tried their best to help us, as this was only our second hot pot experience, but I think a little bit of a language barrier hindered the process and had I not been to hot pot before they may not have told us where the sauces were. They were kinda strangely laid out off to the side and I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t ask as you need to blend different ingredients together.
Although there are kinks, the food itself was very good and it was a decent experience. I would go again to see if there are improvements.

So far so good for the newly opened hot pot place. The environment is nice! As a hot pot lover, the food is just fine, but the stone is so so so slow. I will come back to try bbq next time.

Highly recommend their hot pot broth and sauces. I tried Kanagawa Herbal which is terrific. Meat is fresh and premium quality compared to those hotpot restaurants in Chinatown. Recommend sliced lamb, pork blood, beef tribe. Heard their crab is good too, but I was too full to even try that. They will start to offer full menu include cold appetizer. Definitely try their special «Dark Night Century Egg and Tofu».

I would like to say if a restaurant have bad food I won’t go back anymore. The food is really food. I do love the chill oil with spicy broth. I saw another reviews said that they have bad service. Let’s just give them several times, they just short of waiters. For food, I put 5 stars.

Happy that we finally have a hot pot place in Lincoln Park area, yummy! The food is so delicious, and highly recommend seafood here, very fresh!
I guess I will visit here many times, to survive from Chicago’s winter lol

Great place to hang out with friends in the cold winter days. Cozy bar for hotpot! Love the idea and the food. Must try their beef, lamb and yam!!!

Seriously! We wait for almost an hour, they only gave us water, and they never come refill it. I asked them where is my food, and they said they are busy. Wtf really? I never write review in Unilocal,but I have to it this time, it’s just so bad.
I don’t recommend to come here for hotpot. Poor service, unless they improve their service

Terrible service. We waited for 40+mins and didn’t get served with water, not to mention food ordered. Not recommend to come unless they hire more staff.

Great place for hot pot. Very unique style! I love the lamb and seafood! The mushroom was good as well!

great food, sweet atmosphere. Love the seafood. Really authentic Chinese food especially the sauce! Hope the bar open soon!

It’s so delicious! The food was so good! Waitress was really nice and warm! I love the lamb and beef were so great!

needed to be more organized. It’s very slow… might need more waiters/​waitresses cause no one had time to refill our waster or made sure what we need.
Food was okay. It took time to fully cook the food.
But the waiters and waitresses were very nice.