Secret Vessel

Secret vessel is a unique and fun dining experience. I highly recommend this place.

this is truly is as good as it gets… at least in the US. i’ve been waiting 10+ years for columbus to get a proper hot pot restaurant and i was impressed – it is as good if not better than hot pot restaurants in china which isn’t surprising since one of the co-​owners has a family hot pot restaurant in Xi’an, which is known as a culinary capital of china. the broth, the dipping sauces, the meats/​veggies/​noodles are all outstanding.
don’t believe the haters – especially the negative review about «hotspot» since it was clearly written by a chinese person who is probably a competitor even though nothing in columbus compares with or competes against the Secret Vessel – it is one of a kind and we are lucky to have it here. this is true chinese food culture!

Definitely a good place! Highly recommend if u want to try the traditional Chinese hotspot. They also provide the buffer time at weekend noon. I had tried many different kind of Chinese hotpot in US and I never had better experience than this one.

Overall, terrible experience. I’ve seen some positive reviews online but those def are just propaganda and fool people around. Their sauces taste so weird and are not similar to authentic Chinese hotspot sauces at all. I highly recommend that those who has never tried Chinese hotspot do NOT come to this place for it will ruin your expectation.

Our friend from China took us here and it was great! Very very authentic. It is an interesting experience, they bring the broth to your table on a hot plate and then your meats/​veggies raw and you cook them in the broth. Very tasty! Highly recommend if you’re looking for something authentic or different than you’re typical American Chinese meal.

This place is a fun, interesting, delicious dining experience.
The two of us got the 2 person hot pot dinner, it was a ton of food, super fun, with unique asian veggies you don’t often have.
We got the spicy hot pot broth, which was so yum (and has my favorite seasoning prickly ash in it)
Such a great date night place or a great place to go with a group or when fam visits!

Really like this place. I recommend spicy, tomato, and signature broth! Rib eye beef and lamb are fresh and good quality. Tastes really good, and cheaper if you have more people. Besides, really like the pawpaw coconut jelly for dessert!

This was my first time here with my partner. We let the server know immediately that it was our first time having hot spot, but he did not offer us any advice on how to prepare it. The server never came to our table again after food was served, even though our water glasses were completely empty. I sat and watched him check on different tables other than ours. The food was mediocre and meat provided lacked for the price of the experience. Never again.

Most expensive place ever. Full stop that’s all I have to say about this place. It wasn’t even that delicious. Stay away!!!

Love this restaurant! The food there is really high quality and fresh. Because I am from Szechuan, this restaurant is doing the traditional hot pot as the hot pot restaurants in my hometown! Very lucky to have traditional hot pot in Columbus! Highly recommend the shrimp balls!

Secret vessel is a new chinese restaurant that just opened about a month ago. I pass by this restaurant every time I go to work and decided to give it a shot. Plus, hot pot is awesome!
Pros:
***Waitress — super nice, very patient
***Décor — I love the Chinese calligraphy decorations on the wall
***Music — playing Jay Chou
***Table set up — Ceramic stove on every table to heat the pot
Cons:
***Price — I would say this place is easily $$$ if not $$$$. You don’t pay this much money for food you have to cook yourself. The portions are tiny. For example, we got the angus ground beef slices for $ 12 and the plate only came with 7 thin slices. You have to pay for sauces $ 3 per person. Soup base itself costs $ 10. Be prepared to spend $ 40 – 50 per person.
***Service from upper mgmt — struggled to confirm whether or not our credit card actually went through. We waited 10 – 15 mins waiting for them to figure out it out. Not a big deal, but the only apology didn’t even come from the owner.
Overall, I have to say I was sorely disappointed. I have no intentions of going back or would I ever recommend this to a friend.

I love this restaurant so much. Especially the desserts are so good. I recommend strawberry cheesecake, that is the best! Papaya coconut jelly is also very testy. I want to be there again!

I went there at least 3 different times after checking the timings, but it’s always closed!

Secret Vessel joins Blue Top Asian Fusion & Jiu Thai as part of a new cohort of Chinese restaurants in Columbus with young owners and a fair amount of style. At Secret Vessel, the draw is hot pot; while they’re not the first Chinese restaurant in Columbus to offer hot pot (Imperial Garden has been doing so for the last ten years or so), they’re the only one to exclusively serve hot pot, with the exception of a few appetizers.
There are four broth styles you can choose from — a ‘classic’ broth, Sichuan-​style, tomato, and Hong Kong satay-​style — and you have the option of selecting two or even all four for your meal. There’s a range of proteins, mushroom (unfortunately translated as ‘fungus’), tofus, and vegetables as well.
We selected two broths, the Sichuan-​style and the classic; they came out in a pot shaped like a donut, with the classic broth in what would be the donut hole. Unfortunately, the classic broth never really got to boil, even when the Sichuan broth was fiercely boiling. We had the house-​made chicken meatballs for protein, plus a plate of assorted fungus (a mix of button, oyster, enoki, & eringi mushrooms), a plate of assorted vegetables (Napa cabbage, iceberg lettuce, wintermelon cubes, small chunks of corn on the cob, and potato slices), and a plate of Northern-​style wheat noodles.
In general the selections were fresh and good quality; kudos for the housemade chicken meatballs, which were small balls of ground chicken with corn kernels mixed in. The sauce bar had a nice range of things to make your dipping sauce, although some of the bowls were empty by the time we started eating (at 8PM on a Sunday night).
All in all, it was a pretty nice meal. The range of options was good, and the Sichuan-​style broth held up pretty well against my memories of Sichuan hotpot on the streets of Chongqing (minus the heat, humidity, and air pollution). The downside was the price of the meal; for two of us, our bill was $ 70 with tip included, and we’re not big eaters. That’s a pretty hefty price to pay for hot pot, even in the US. That much money would have fed twice as many people at either Blue Top or Jiu Thai, and at Secret Vessel you’re doing most of the cooking yourself!
Hopefully the owners of Secret Vessel will realizing their price point is a little high for their market, because it’s a nice little place and a nice addition to Columbus’ Chinese food scene.

hope it be better. I could give one star based on my experience

We visited Secret Vessel on their first day so they have a few kinks to work out, but this is a great addition to the Chinese dining scene in Columbus. This is the first restaurant in Ohio (if the owners are correct) to specialize in Chinese hot pot. Each table has an induction burner with a pot of broth (or up to 4 different broths) and then you cook meat, fish, vegetables and mushrooms of all types in the broth. There’s a lot of variety.
From our initial taste we’d recommend the tomato broth, the shrimp balls and stuffed meat balls as well as the beef and lamb.
I don’t think this is vegetarian friendly as all of the broths seemed to be made with the same chicken based broth.