Smelly Pot

I saw them using a same spoon while boxing up customer’s hotpot. Hotpot, I had better for cheaper price.

Beware: place does carry an odor; due to the foods.
So I am not really a huge fan of hot pot but going here I liked it. Unlike the traditional way of doing a family style hot pot, you get your individual hot pot.
Went during dinner service and I ordered the Japanese Miso Hot pot, as is. It was light and delicious. There is a little flame going for you at the bottom of this box the hot pot sits on. At one point my hot pot became so hot to eat I had to wait for it to die out. Dinner portion was really big so come very hungry!

My friend brought me here for the first time for me to try Thai/​Chinese hot pot. Each person gets their individual portion of hotpot with several flavors to choose from on the menu. Vermicelli noodles, glass noodles, ramen noodles, rice or udon noodles are choices to go along with your hot pot. It was fun and tasty. Yogurt teas and milk teas are also offered here. The service was great. The prices were affordable. The noise level was quiet during lunchtime on a weekday. Not to mention, it’s great for big groups or even a first time date. This restaurant is to be entered with an open mind and adventurous in trying new foods!

There will be a piece of potato they said…
Just didn’t mention how big it is though…
Anyways get the sampler it’s decent, especially the Taiwanese sausage!
Taiwanese spicy pot: (⁴⁄₅) it’s good. Definitely get a mild if you can only eat a little bit spicy. We got mild Taiwanese pot and it was spicier than medium curry pot!
Curry pot: (⁴⁄₅) tried it for first time and it was amazing!
House special: (²⁄₅) pretty bland
Over all it’s good enough to fill my tummy but some ppl think they don’t give enough meat.

This place is very nice, and they have kungfu tea inside. The hotpot is very delicious. I was tried the Taiwanese hotpot, so good, i love the med lv spicy. The servers are nice and friendly.

Located in a new/​empty plaza. This place is the only business in this plaza so parking was easy to find. It is next to the plaza where House of Bowls is at. We came here around late 8pm with a party of 8. We were not greeted immediately so we had to stand at the entrance until a waiter came. It was a rainy Friday night and the place had a lot more customers than I expected. Usually, I don’t eat hot pots in the summer but oh wells since it was raining.
They have a Kungfu Tea so we ordered drinks. Not a lot of selection of drinks, mostly the popular drinks. The standard long boba cup and it was about $ 3 – 4 for each drink. However, my mango tea tasted bitter, too much tea, not enough mango.
Dinner is more expensive than lunch so most of the hot pots were $ 15.99 or $ 11.99 and it’s individual hot pot. Not your standard hot pot. There are add ons but when we saw how much they gave us, it was not worth the price. 3 dollars for enoki mushrooms on this small plate. 4 dollars for sliced beef which had like 2 pieces. Uhhh. 1 dollar for 5 quail eggs. Hmm. We ordered 5 sukiyakis, 1 taiwanese, 1 curry fish. For the sukiyakis, you can get it mild spicy or extra spicy. Apparently, they charged you 3 dollars for each person that does not get a hot pot. We had 8 people but only ordered 7 hot pots. Each hot pot come with a side of rice or noodles. The noodles we got were clear vermicelli. I suggest if you get beef then have them put it on a separate plate.
Cook your meat on your hot pot and then blow out the fire. I recommend not blowing out the fire yourself because the fire is pretty strong and you could scare the person sitting near you. The person in front of me was trying to blow their fire and it scared the crap out of me. You can call the waiter to do it for you. They have some appetizers so we also ordered popcorn chicken which was probably better than the hot pots. It had a sweet taste to it and it arrived a lot faster.
Overall, the hot pot for that price was not worth it. I would eat here one time for the experience but would not come back as a regular. The hot pot itself tasted «okay». My sukiyaki had a sweet taste. It wasn’t spicy even though I got mild but it was hot. However, too much cabbages in all of the hot pots and didn’t leave me satisfied or my friend’s. None of us finish our hot pots completely. I gave up on it. I did not get to see the bill but I know our bill must have been at least $ 150 dollars. I gave it an extra star because our waiter was friendly. Good thing they did not kick us out at 10p because that’s when they close and at 9:15p…our food wasn’t even ready.
P. S. It’s called Smelly Pot for a reason so beware.

The taste alone I would give it a 4 star. Service was also good. But in terms of value, I would give it 1 star. My pot had 5 slices of meat — and they are thinly sliced meat.
To fill up on the food, it would take triple portion on meat. In that case, i might as well eat at other places.
To summarize, food is good, but pricey — unjustifiable.

I want to give this place 3.5 stars. You step in and can already smell the ‘Smelly Pots’. Place is in an odd area.
We got there around 630pm and there was only one other couple sitting down eating. There was no hostess and when we poked our head into the dining area there were no servers. Odd! So, we sat down in the front and waited and we waited and we waited. Finally after about 15 minutes of catching up with my friend I stood up to poke my head in the dining area again. Surprise! There was someone there in the back. She finally sat us and at this point people started filling in. So obviously service is kind of slow. Even when nobody was there.
We all ordered our own separate pots. Taiwanese, Seafood and Sukiyaki. I’ll say that the broth for all of them were all flavorful and delicious. The soup comes out for individual servings per pot and comes out REALLY hot so BE CAREFUL! A part of me felt like it was super unsafe. lol. Anyways, the pots come filled with everything from tofu, cabbage, beef, etc. You can choose your level of spicy or keep it at mild and ask for spice on the side to mix it in yourself.
They also serve Kung Fu tea! Not all the flavors but a couple milk tea options and regular tea options.

Smelly Pot indeed lives up to its name of being smelly. If you’re not the adventurous type when it comes to food, then you should turn back. The rest of you brave souls, especially those who enjoy hotpot, be prepared to be amazed.
The smell of the restaurant comes from the fact that they serve stinky tofu in their signature hotpot flavor. I’m not really a fan of stinky tofu myself, so I don’t particularly enjoy the smell. And it could get really strong especially when someone next to you orders it. With the smell being the only drawback of this establishment, everything else was amazing.
Smelly Pot serves hotpot in individual sizes, rather than your traditional family style where your entire family gathers around and share the same pot. The Beef Satay flavor hotpot I ordered came out boiling hot in a giant metal bowl/​pot, and was placed on top of a wooden box with a small can of flame gel fuel inside. The fire from the fuel can keeps your hotpot boiling hot throughout your entire meal, and eventually dies off. Most of your food comes cooked, with the exception of the beef, which they place raw on top (love this since I don’t like my meat to be overcooked).
The flavor of the Beef Satay hotpot was just amazing. So much that no extra sauces were needed. Had a taste of the Sukiyaki pot that my gf ordered as well, and it was equally flavorful. The pot itself was pretty packed with food, but most of it was just white cabbage. Every hotpot comes with either a complimentary small bowl of rice or clear noodles. There is also a long list of extra items you can order to add into your pot, such as extra meat, fish cake, or instant noodles, etc. The extra meat however, is served completely cooked.
Last but not least, you can’t forget about the Kung Fu Tea that is built in to this restaurant. It seems like the owner of Smelly Pot is the same owner as Kung Fu Tea, and he decided to incorporate the popular drink place into his new business, so we can finish off our meal with a sweet kick.

Definitely A-​OK. Prices are reasonable (around $ 11-​$ 15), and you leave feeling full. FYI, for those of you wanting crawfish, Smelly Pot is «testing the waters» by serving crawfish for $ 5.50/lb. this season. The table next to us ordered a few pounds and it looked good, but we were only in the mood for hot pot tonight so we didn’t order any. Since the crawfish were so cheap, we may come back to try it eventually.
Back to the hot pot:
Presentation– Check! Love the individual pots and of course the charcoal fire which keeps the pot bubbling hot. All of the ingredients were placed on top of the broth/​noodles so the hot pot looked very colorful and appetizing.
Taste– I ordered the sukiyaki and it was extremely flavorful. It was rich in bone broth flavor and incredibly savory. There was also a slight sweetness to the broth (which I loved). If you have tolerance for spicy foods, I would definitely opt for the spicy option; I chose medium spicy and it was just right (this coming from a girl who likes to eat jalapeños in her banh mi).
Nutritional value: I had to sneak this section in here just because I feel that hot pot CAN be a healthy meal, it all depends on what you put in your pot. Since Smelly Pot takes the guess work out of eating hot pot and lists the foods that come with each pot, I’d say that it’s both a pro and a con. The con being you don’t have any control over what is in your pot. The pro, being you don’t have to worry about overcooking anything since it’s all prepared for you! The only thing that I would consider nutritious in the entire pot were the thin slices of «phở-​like» beef and the veggies/​mushrooms. Everything else was pretty much flour and flavoring mixed into a ball/​stick (I.e., fish ball, crab stick, cuttlefish ball, pork ball, etc…). Don’t get me wrong, a good hot pot MUST have these spongy Asian fillers, but for those of you looking for something more nutritious, I’d definitely recommend a hot pot place where you can pick your own ingredients to cook.
Cleanliness– Fair; the restrooms appeared clean and the restaurant booths/​tables also looked pretty clean.
Service– Poor. :(I’m pretty sure we only saw our waiter once (when he came to take our order). After our order was taken, our food arrived by a different waiter and the host even ended up getting things for us at one point. I’m pretty sure we had a different server each time we needed something (since our main server never appeared again throughout our meal). I guess they think by giving each table their own individual pitcher of water, the servers won’t need to service the tables…*shrugs* The hot pots were supposed to come with a side of noodles, but our noodles never came… We waited and waited very patiently for them but finally, a little over halfway through our meal we decided we would just have to flag down a waiter. It took about 10 extra minutes just to capture the attention of a waiter and flag her down to let her know our order of noodles was missing. The noodles arrived after another 10 minutes and by then the flames for the hot pot had already burned out. :(When we were finished with our meal it took a while for them to give us the bill too.
Ambiance– this place looks like a restaurant/​lounge. Neat change of «scenery» in Chinatown.
Drinks: Last but not least, they proudly serve Kung Fu Tea here. I’ve seen the infamous «flamboyant Asian guy» here (you Kung Fu regulars should know exactly who I’m talking about). He’s definitely equally «no nonsense» at Smelly Pot as he is at all of the other Kung Fu Tea places.
I’d come back again for the food, but the service really bummed me out.

I definitely smell something stinky! The first and last time I had stinky tofu was in Queens over 6 years ago. Since most of the reviews said that the stinky tofu was mild, my husband dared me to try it. It was not my favorite. It tasted better with sauce though.
We ordered the Taiwanese hot pot and popcorn chicken. We ordered the spicy one. We are so glad we didn’t order the extra spicy. There were assorted fish balls, Taiwanese cabage, ramen, fish cake, one clam, one quail egg, raw egg, and a choice of rice or vermicelli noodles. The flavor of the broth really popped and was delicious! We shared and ordered a side to wave the sharing fee ($ 3). The portion was enough for the two of us to share, but if you are extremely hungry, you may want to get your own.
They also serve kung fu tea. I applaud them for the marketing strategy.
The price ranges from $ 11 – 15. It just a little more expensive for dinner for the same size. The appetizers are about $ 6, which is pretty expensive for a small portion.
Customer services is ok. It is what you would expect in Chinatown.

My initial reaction to walking in: «Okay, the name of this restaurant is not at all deceiving…»
… But you will surely get past the smell after a few minutes and dive into the aesthetically pleasing hot pot that you can call your own!
Each pot comes with your choice of clear noodles or rice. Since I was sharing one pot (+$ 3 convenience fee to share), we were able to get one of each.
My friend and I split the Taiwanese Hot Pot and we were taken by so much surprise as to how glorious this was! The level of spice = perfect. The warmth and comfort brought on from this hot pot in this cold, unfamiliar Houston weather = overwhelming. The clear noodles, rice, eggs, beef, crab sticks, fish cakes, vegetables, tofu, brown rice cake, and ramen noodles were more than plenty for one stomach. I’m glad we split this because even half of the pot made me feel beyond full.
The KFT they serve here will come in handy if you order something spicy! What a great business tactic, as I was craving for some milk tea after downing so much of this acidic, spicy dish. Mmm!
Our service was actually awesome, contrary to some other experiences I’ve read on here. They continually came up to us to make sure our pots remained hot and refilled our waters persistently.

So we ordered:
Combo appetizers: taiwan style popcorn chicken were good, sausage was okay, sweet potato fries were delicious, and a big ‘NO’ to stinky tofu. One bite i wanted to throw up.
Taiwanese hotpot: don’t like it, too spicy even we asked for mild. The taste was normal.
Thai style hotpot: it was alright, but better than taiwanese hotpot.
Sukiyaki hotpot: the best out of all!!!
While I like their customer service, I may not come back. I don’t mind pricey if the food was delicious, unfortunately, these weren’t satisfied my tastebuds.

Let’s take away all the great things about hotpot; the joy of cooking your own food in a nice flavorful broth family style & sharing a meal with your friends/​family. What’s left?
Smelly Pot.
I really wanted to like Smelly Pot, but aside from good service this place was lacking in every other department. We had the spicy stinky tofu appetizer, two hot golden oolong teas & Taiwanese hotpot which I ordered to share with my friend thinking it was enough. Well it’s hotpot, it should be enough to share right? Not really. Portions are a bit off here & hotpots are more for individual portions.
Unlike traditional hotpot most of your food is already tossed into the hotpot & cooked for you. So most of the time you are awkwardly staring at the pot, or whoever you are eating with. Let’s just hope you came with someone you can enjoy comfortable silence with because you’re going to be staring at the pot together for about 15 minutes. (Quality time)
With that said, I tried to stay positive the entire time as I watched my hotpot slowly heat up with the fire power of a candle…
Kid me not, I waited a good 20 minutes for my raw egg to cook in my hotpot. Then after 20 minutes the fire went out. Cool. My egg never really cooked either.
I flagged down a waiter to get another fire going, this time the fire was much better. There wasn’t enough food to share from one hotpot so we ordered an extra plate of sliced beef. In shock & disgust my server brought out a plate of cooked sliced beef to put into my hotpot. Yup. The sliced beef was already cooked instead of letting me cook it myself in the hotpot. Now I have to put this flavorless precooked sliced beef into the broth to get some flavor. I toss my precooked sliced beef despairingly into the hotpot as I watch it shrivel up from the heat & fade away into boiling abyss of my broth. Good bye beef, this is where we must part ways.
Smelly Pot overall as a concept is great, the different broth flavors, the ingredients & even the stinky tofu sounds great. But when it comes to execution Smelly Pot is lacking a lot. I’d come back if someone wanted to go there, but not my personal choice when it comes to hotpot.
Smelly Pot has taken away all essential elements of what really makes hotpot enjoyable & has left you with a more awkward disappointing contemporary western hotpot restaurant. Not exactly my cup of oolong tea.

Woweeeeee what’s the smell? Stepping out of your car. You can tell… Something was off.
Nevertheless! Continue to venture on into this restaurant for a new experience! Once you get past the smell (which you will). You see a trendy hot pot place. Music blasting, sports playing, and lots of people!
We had a large group. About nine of us. It took a little while for us to get seated but not too bad for a Sunday night.
Now let’s look at the menu. Should we split a hot pot? Have an individual? What about appetizers?
Someone in the group mentioned something about how you are up charged $ 3 for sharing a hot pot (sounds soooooo Kung Fu Tea… Always about that $$$$). (If you didn’t know… It’s owned by the same ppl of Kung Fu).
I didn’t specifically see anywhere where it said that you were charged more for sharing. But after scanning the room… We saw that the hot pot wasn’t TOO big and could be done individually. So we each ordered our own.
Also of course… An order of smelly tofu. We wanted to decide whether to get spicy or regular. We just wanted to try it for taste. The spicy one is EXACTLY the regular one but just has the spicy sauce added on the side. I’ve never had smelly tofu before. To me, it was regular tofu with a bite. My friends tell me this is no where near how smelly tofu is. So… Probably the toned down version
Most of us got the Taiwanese Hot Pot. It was pretty filling. Comes with a small bowl of clear noodles AND ramen noodles in the hot pot. Everything looked and tasted great! Be weary of the spice though! Mild was spicy. Spicy was SPICY. Add the heat from the fire and your mouth is burning. And I like spicy food too. So just be careful.
So overall… Food was great!
Now about that service… Awful awful awful. We were basically ignored the entire time. Fortunately for my group, I am not afraid of being THAT person. I kept raising my hand to flag the sever down for EVERYTHING. Need to order? Flag down. Missing something? Flag down. Need more water? Flag down. Need check? Flag down. Someone’s check was messed up? Flag down.
Yes all those things happened. Good luck.

I came here with another girl friend who we both Unilocal and had this place bookmarked. So we were both pretty excited about coming here to experience it together.
They are tucked away in a corner alone on corporate drive and they offer a pretty good size for parking. You can’t miss the cartoon lady as part of their sign. They also offer outdoor seating but I only see one set of tables and chairs which to me looks like a waiting area instead.
My friend and I walked in and was greeted right away by the hostess. We were seated right away and there was a good amount of people there. The ambience is a bit low light setting and they offer all types of seating for different parties/​groups. My seat was comfy :)
The menu offers a variety of different kinds of hot pot broths, which was something I wasn’t use to. It was different but I like it! It was hard for me to decide because they all sound yummy (not smelly lol). I opted for the Japanese Miso hot pot and my friend got the Taiwanese style spicy hot pot. They partner with Kung Fu Tea as well so you can order tapioca drinks here! My friend ordered sunshine pineapple tea and said it was her favorite. While we were waiting for our meal, we got the chance to smell a whiff of that smelly tofu since our neighboring tables ordered it. Pretty much smelled like feet to me (I am sure it is delicious). I didn’t try it though.
Okay so the hotpot came out and I like the set up. It was huge (to me) and the fire eventually dies out later. My pot was filled with all that it said it came with. You get a choice of rice or noodles with it. I opted for the rice. The only thing is they are not quite generous with the seafood part. I remember eating only one mussel… come on. at least put two! They have different prices for lunch and dinner and I am not sure if it is because lunch is smaller in size or not. I will have to find out when I come back for lunch. However for tonight I really enjoyed the buy one hotpot get second hotpot half off! That was a pleasant surprise to us and we both enjoyed our hotpots. Service was good, no complaints there. Everyone was friendly and attentive.
I be back to try the other hotpots most def!

I was in the mood for hot pot and suggested this place to one of my girlfriends for a dinner date and she was down!
I like the location is further away from the hustle and bustle of Bellaire. Plus they serve kung fu tea!!! I think I died and went to heaven.
I ordered the spicy taiwanese hot pot and my friend ordered the miso hot pot. There’s so many different things that come with each style of hot pot. I didn’t try to substitute since that seemed to be complicated and some reviews are stating they won’t even let you do it. I was surprised how flavorful my broth was. I was scared it was going to be too spicy but the waiter confirmed with me while ordering it was going to be at a medium level of spiciness and I could alter it if I wanted. But medium level was just perfect. You get a choice of clear noodles or rice with your meal. It’s definitely a lot of food and you shouldn’t leave hungry. Your hot pot comes on an individual burner that keeps your soup hot for at least the next 20 minutes. Not sure if this is really hot pot since there is no cooking involved. It’s really just a big bowl of «expensive» soup.
Service was pretty good. Our waiter was really nice and checked up on us frequently.
Not sure how long this will be going on for but they currently have a promotion of buy one hot pot, get one half off.

Smelly Pot, Smelly Pot, what are you feeding me?
Smelly Pot, Smelly Pot oh yeah, stinky tofu!
(Sung to the theme song of Smelly Cat)
Anyways, I was really hoping to make this a regular in my rotation of places to hit up in Chinatown but it sadly missed the mark. When you walk in, it does have a pungent smell, so don’t wear or bring anything nice that you will regret smelly like stinky tofu. We were seated quickly but had to flag someone down to take our order, and then wait for almost half an hour to receive our food. If you are in a hurry, you might want to opt for other dining options.
Taiwanese Spicy Hot Pot-​I actually really enjoyed this entrée as it had a nice amount of heat, not overly salty, a bit sweet and filled with a lot of stuff! I know other reviewers didn’t like this aspect but I loved it all-​sliced beef, pork intestine, Taiwanese cabbage, clam, Enoki mushroom, sliced potato, tempura, brown rice cake, tofu, fried bean curd, stuffed fish ball, fish cake, meat ball, imitation crab, instant noodle, egg, and cilantro. Ok, so the meat was a bit on the tough side, but think it is b/​c I let it sit for a bit as I wanted to cook my egg! I didn’t get the stinky tofu, but I really liked the texture/​consistency of the tofu in this dish as it was on the more firm side.
Japanese Miso Hot Pot-​I only had a few bites but that was all I needed since this dish was wayy too salty for my taste, however the seafood was quite tender!
Oh yeah, none of these dishes can be modified but you can add stuff for extra $$$, also if you want, you can order a limited amount of Kung Fu drinks which is conveinent. Lastly, y’all be sure to keep an eye on the bill to make sure you double accidentally double tip (unless you got amazing service)!

What I enjoyed about this place was that it had several hot pot offerings and you can add on additional items to each hot pot. I liked it. It’s not like the ones we are used to. Lighter in my opinion. Not a ton of meat but we did the side add ons of meats and seafood.
The stinky tofu wasn’t good. I’ve had way better. All they did was deep fry it and it was overcooked n dense.
I liked the Japanese miso hot pot the most. The curry fish ball hot pot was also tasty. They have fish balls with the fish roe inside it!
You just pick your hot pot and you can do add ons. Comes with side rice and noodles also.
This place is spacious, clean, and has plenty of seating. We had a bit of a wait due to how crowded it was but it wasn’t too bad. The front AC was blasting hard but you learn to appreciate it once your hot pot arrives as it gets pretty hot quick.

I believe I found something that topped my favorite Hot Pot place off of Westheimer and Fountainview. Enter Smelly Pot where depending on where you are sitting you will get the privilege of having a whiff of something in the sense of somebody having their backside in front of your nose. If you don’t mind that kind of smell or actually love the taste, then you are in the right place.
From the last week of November 2015 the restaurant has the soft opening approximately 6 weeks ago but judging from the reviews and witnessing around 7 pm on weekdays, the place does get a little busy.
There are about 16 different Hot Pot combinations that are on the menu given to you. Each has its own combination effect as in the type of meat, vegetarian, traditional and other combinations that were put together with the consumer in mind in the sense the mainstream of their customers might find delicious.
The service here is team effort and from a standpoint on a weekday evening (they open at 6 pm), they are very attentive in asking what you need, refill on drinks or if you need a to go box.
When your order comes out, it is presented in an approximate 12′ by 12′ hot pot set up with a steel bowl with enough food inside for two people. The fuel underneath (sterno?) will last you about 15 minutes into your fornication so eat up in a brisk manner so you can enjoy all of the warmth comfort of the soup for your enjoyment.
The price of the Hot Pots is very reasonable from the $ 11.99 (yew hap penni?) popcorn chicken Hot Pot to the Seafood/​Beef/​etc others that are $ 14.99, very well worth the price.
The inside is kind of a contemporary setting with probably enough space to fit about 80 people inside, I did not notice the maximum capacity sign anywhere.
The only negative thing besides the smell of passing stinky feet tofu is they will not let you sample even a micro piece just to see if you can handle it and possibly want to order one. I understand it probably is expensive as they say, but not everybody is going to ask for a sample (about the size of a pea I was asking) but it’s ok, it probably was for the better.
I went to another Hot Pot place that Unilocal helped me find and it was just as good but for the most part, I can say I liked it here better… until the tables next to me order «that» stuff. Check please!