Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot

i haven’t been to Little Sheep in a long time so came here for lunch when i noticed this location. I love the one in San Mateo. Got the lunch special for $ 10 which was super reasonable. I also got the mixed seafood platter because I’m an oinker. Meat, veggies, and seafood were really fresh so no complaints there. My server was also friendly.
What I don’t like is the fact that the lunch special doesn’t come with rice. I get it’s only $ 10 but you are getting smaller portions, and really, how much does it really cost to throw in a bowl of rice? They also charge 50 cents for sauces. I HATE places that charge for sauces. It just makes you look petty.
Now, my biggest complaint. Their broth is SUPER salty. I eat very salty so for me to complain about the salt level on anything is just crazy. I am a soup person. I love soups and broths. I was unable to drink any of the broth because I couldn’t deal with the saltiness. that sucks because I was looking forward to a bowl of hot flavorful broth at the end of my meal. Total disappointment. I want to like this location but for the love of god, ease up on the salt.

Not sure what the hype is with this place, the only good thing is the spicy soup base (if you can handle it). The lunch special is reasonable priced, but not a lot of food. You have to pay extra for sauce and rice. The lunch portion does not come with a lot of meat either. The only good thing is the spicy soup base is pretty tasty, but beware it is super spicy!
I much prefer shabuway a few restaurants down, they give more veggies and meat, plus you get sides and sauce at no extra charge!

Veryyyy happy with this location. I met my friend here to discuss business over lunch and while I waited (30 minutes, Matt. THIRTY WHOLE MINUTES you effing monkey), the staff was extremely courteous as they had no trouble sitting me despite the fact that my friend was not there.
First time to this location and while I’ve been to other locations numerous times, this was one of my favorite experiences. The cozy atmosphere and the graciousness of the staff made for a very pleasant lunch break.
Quick shoutout to our server AMY who was extremely sweet and was even nice enough to listen to us ramble on about quinoa, wild rice, chia, and more quinoa. I’m ashamed to have only tipped 20% so if you read this Amy, I hope that the samples made up for the small tip. :D

This place is like the Cupertino one, but the meat is less both in terms of quantity and quality. I wish I had taken photos of the Cupertino hot pot two months ago, but the plates even come out looking differently. For example the lamb slices at the Cupertino location are larger by probably 2x. We ended up ordering a lot more than expected, and that had never been a problem at any other location.
It’s definitely not good for a party of more than 5. In fact, we had a party of 7 and called 30 minutes ahead to put our names on the list and arrived less than 30 minutes later. Then shortly after we arrived, they gave away the booth to a party of 3! We waited an HOUR for another table and was crammed at a booth normally big enough for 4 people.
My guess is that things may have been better when they first opened, but just several months later, they’ve had to adjust their portions for the expensive prime real estate in Mountain View. Additionally, if I’m going in a big group, I think waiting an hour for a table would be more worth it at the Cupertino location.

Love this style of hot pot. My neighbor from Beijing introduced me to the Cupertino location & I was immediately a fan. We were both so happy to see a branch open here on Castro Street. The day we went we had great service by Guojin & the food was just wonderful. I got to take the leftover soup (& contents) home, which I froze for later. And let me tell you, I do not wait much beyond a week to get back into defrosting the soup & adding more goodies to it.
On this day, we had the seafood plate, the lamb, & tofu platters. The sesame paste is a must. The spicy broth is… spicy! Love it! Busy, busy location & on these El Nino days; way to warm up.
Wonderful!

The food is pretty similar to little sheep at other locations, which is expected.
Not good for large groups. They have larger booths and smaller booths, and the larger booths ‘fit’ a party of 8, but there is only one burner. So there will only be one pot for everyone to share, which makes the whole hotpot experience a little bit worse since everyone is kind of crowding towards the pot. To provide perspective on the size of these booths, I was sitting in this booth with 7 other people, and the booth right behind us (which is the same size) had two people seated, one on each side.
Even their circular table/​booth which is supposed to be for larger parties is quite small and looks squished. There is also only one burner which means only one pot.
I really appreciated the hostess, though. Our party was waiting for a really long time (since we had a bigger party) and she asked us if we were okay with sitting 9 people at the 8 person booth so that we would be able to be seated faster.

Less crowded as the Cupertino one! Maybe it’s because it’s new and no one knows it’s here yet? But great location right on Castro St. Much brighter and a few more tables than the Cupertino one.
Taste is just as great! The house special noodles here are a little different than the Cupertino location, they’re much thicker and wider but same texture! I prefer the ones at this location. Everything else here seems to be the same.
Service was super quick here and everyone was friendly. Messed up our check (added beer we didn’t order) but was very nice about it!

It is always the best choice to eat hot pot in winter. I like lamb meat so much. The soup here is my favorite!
Even though I waited 20 minutes to get the table, it is worth to waited. The food is awesome! Definitely come again.

I hate to do this because they did comp our meal. And I LOVE this place. I really do. But they have HUGE problems in their kitchen. Let me explain…
Get our order. Eating fine, tastes great. Have the mixed veggie bowl on the side. Find something interesting in it. I call the waiter over. It’s apparently, according to the waiter, a raw PIG KIDNEY. In my veggies. They take the veggies away, and with lots of yelling in the kitchen, bring out a new bowl of veggies. I pull out the lettuce. COVERED IN MUD (seriously, covered, no way someone could not have noticed). I have to call the waiter over again. He’s super sweet, and takes it away. More yelling from the kitchen. The waiter and manager are both incredibly sweet. New veggies are brought out again, but this time a much more limited selection, just three different kinds (of very clean veggies, this time).
I would love to change this review, and might at a future date. They seriously need to get their kitchen in order, because these are major health violations.

Fun, fast, and filling food guaranteed to please.
Little Sheep offers variety from the typical hot pot experience. Each meal is shared with the entire table and is fully custamizable from the broth and meats to the noodles and veggies. No two meals are the same making Little Sheep great for adventurous eaters and large groups.
My hot pot included the meat and veggie sampler with shitake mushrooms and the small meatball sampler. The broth was sweet and helped settled my stomach as I indulged on seasoned meats. Try the Lamb if possible, as their preparation of the meat gives it a fresh taste perfect with the hot broth.
I also enjoyed the Mongolion meat pie, best described as a scallion pancake folded onto a thin layer of ground meat, giving it an almost quesadilla appearance but the taste is both crunchy and rich.
Little Sheep is great for groups as a call to get together, spend some extra money, and treat yourself to something hot and tasty.

Ok so this place isn’t that big and is reaalllly popular. I showed up with a group of 5 around 7:30 and we waited a little over an hour for a table. The waiting area is cramped and it was freezing outside so that was fun.
Also since it was so busy service was… spotty. We actually got our food about 15 minutes before we got our drinks. which was a little painful for those of us eating the spicy broth.
That being said this place is really really good. This was my first time having Mongolian style hotpot and it is definitely unique. We split the pot with half regular broth and half spicy. The spicy broth wasn’t overly spicy but is filled with aromatic spices. It wasn’t until towards the end of the meal we discovered it had szechuan peppercorns in there! They aren’t for the faint of heart, these peppercorns are much more potent than what you can get at a Chinese grocery store here, much closer to what you actually get in China! If you don’t know, these peppercorns aren’t spicy but eating one will make your mouth go numb/​tingly in a really unique and awesome sort of way. It temporarily changes how you experience the rest of your food and my BF and I are kind of addicted.
Otherwise, if you are waiting forever, you can grab the menu and start choosing items. The entire table generally shares each item and we got maybe half a dozen or so different things. I haven’t tried barely even a third of the menu but from what I did try:
Dishes I recommend:
— Fatty Supreme Beef — fatty and delicious, can’t go wrong here
— Beef Tendon — these take a while to cook but are really really good
— Daikon — let these babies cook for a good while and you get a soft and broth-​filled bite
— For dessert you should most definitely get the egg yolk buns, great scott these are delicious.
We gave the waitress the menu when she said we were next in line and our food was delivered barely a minute after we sat down. The only downside to this is we didn’t then have a menu at the table and didn’t know to order dipping sauces (many places just provide these at the table for free) and service was so spotty we ended up not ordering any.
While this isn’t their first location, this location is still fairly new and is crazy popular so for now the service gets a pass as they go through growing pains — but this is probably one of our top large group hot pot destinations.

It’s been years since I last went to little Mongolian sheep for hot pot, and they were as good as I remembered. The two soup bases were delicious, and the spicy not being too spicy. Their variety in meat selection, veggies, mushrooms etc were great, everything is fresh and of good quality.
The restaurant itself isn’t very big, relative to the Newark and San Mateo one. You either come early, or be prepared to wait during lunch. Service was good as well, in that they came often to fill out tea and soup base.
My only complaint is the price; I’m sure I said that in my other review as well. It’s so pricey for hot pot (assuming you order as much as our party did). It’s definitely cheaper to have hot pot at home. They also don’t offer any form of dipping sauces. Though really, that just speaks strongly on how confident they are about their broths flavoring your food. And to be fair, their soup does do a good job, even without dipping sauces. Good job reminding me how good you are, little Mongolian sheep.

This review is exclusively for the lunch menu —
$ 10 for your choice of protein and a bunch of other goodies, including Napa cabbage, bok choy, and cuttlefish balls. You can’t get a better deal than that on Castro st!
Their soup base is probably the best I’ve had of any shabu or hot pot place! Must try.

I don’t write reviews very often, but I got to say the table management at this restaurant is one of the worst I have seen. We showed up at 5:50pm for dinner for 3 and was told the wait is 45 min. Asked again close to 7pm, was told again the wait is 40min. It was very puzzling that the list before us did not seem to move at all, then I notice they been skipping us and at least ten other groups after us because we are all 4 or under per group. 6 groups came an hour or so after us got seated much sooner because they had 5 or 6 people.
We finally seat down after 1.5 hours. I do understand restaurant wants to fill up their tables with bigger groups first so they can make more money, but it is just not right to give away tables to bigger groups that came much later than customers that has already been in line and waiting a long time.

So I love to try every single cuisine, this time I’m here new recently Open LITTLE SHEEP Restaurant.
Omg… I never new Mongolian food will be so goooood.
Excellent in more than one category. .
10 stars food
Service
Prices
Cooking Speed
Variety of spices there’s so many ingredients.
I love it and will highly recommended.

I love me some Little Sheep! I’ve waited almost two hours to have dinner at the Cupertino location. That’s how much I love this place. So the more Little Sheep locations there are, the better!
When I would visit California when I was living in Michigan, this along with In-​N-​Out were the spots I would have to hit up. I have literally come straight here (well not this location since it’s new) from the airport.
And with the cold spell we’ve been having, nothing beats hot pot on a cold day.
So you can tell I’m really happy the Mountain View location is finally up and running! It’s brand spanking new. Looks very nice inside with lots of large roomy comfy booth seats. This place is situated on the corner of Castro street across the street from the Caltrain station.
Not a fan of waiting if I don’t have to, so my fiancé and I opted to come here an hour before closing Sunday night and were rewarded with being seated right away. Lots of empty seats but it was Sunday and I think the word hasn’t spread yet about this location so might be a good option to come here during peak times for less of a wait. Little Sheep in Cupertino has notoriously heinous wait times, San Mateo less so.
As always, we ordered the half and half broth, one side herbalicious and the other spicy. Broths here are super flavorful and you can see it’s chock full of delicious things to flavor it like full garlic cloves, slices of ginger, cardamom pods, and red dates.
The lamb, beef, and pork are all excellent. Since the meat is sliced so thin, once the broth gets boiling, you really only need a few seconds to cook the meat. I love dipping my meat in the sesame sauce but they have other sauce options available so something for everyone.
Assorted veggie platter is always a good option since it’s a nice selection of veggies to help fill you up. This time around it was napa cabbage, spinach, bok choy, and some other greens which all complemented the soup nicely. You have the option of adding whatever you like though so if it’s mushrooms you fancy or dumplings, feel free to select that. They have an impressive variety of noodles, mushrooms, veggies, and/​or tofu to pick from.
Service was great. All the employees seemed super eager to please. Our waitress was excellent (perfect timing with the check and refills on things) and seemed really sweet. I’ve eaten at Little Sheep multiple times and have never been offered a refill on broth except for here which was nice.
Last but not least, get an order of the Phoenix yolk buns. They are amazing!!! They are sweet so they are almost like a dessert but just eat them as soon as they come to your table. Molten golden yolk deliciousness.

I am really excited that Little Sheep opened another Bay Area location. They are located on the end of Castro near Evelyn in a generally more quiet spot of downtown. I am sure it will be more busy now with Little Sheep located here.
The service at Little Sheep is usually very efficient but I am assuming the new workers here are getting up to speed. They came out at 1130AM and apologized they were not ready to open and said it would be about a ten minute delay. We were the first in line but somehow after ordering quickly, we were the last to receive our pot of broth. We asked for it several times and also had some issues with them either giving us the wrong items or not giving us some of the ones ordered. The waitress was very apologetic but it made for an unimpressive first experience at this location. The food quality was the same as the other location.

Happy to finally see a branch of Little Sheep come to the popular downtown Mountain View area. Although there are already locations in San Mateo and Cupertino, Little Sheep brings another option for hot pot fans to compete with the nearby, but different, Shabuway.
The interior is modern and clean and while not as spacious as their other two locations has nice seating for larger groups as well as smaller tables for couples or individuals. Service was plentiful and friendly. They checked on us multiple times, refilled broth/​tea/​water, and were happy to answer questions. Our order:
Half and Half Broth — their signature original herbal and flavorful broth paired with a potent spicy broth with plentiful dry chilies. I love how they have two hot pots for large groups and supply plentiful soup and strainer ladles for each pot.
5 Meatball Sampler — a great variety and fresh. Take a bit longer to cook but great protein.
Fatty Supreme Beef — nicely marbled and absent any false specifications like Kobe or Wagyu. It’s just fresh, thinly sliced beef with nice marbling. Cooks quickly and matches well with their dipping sauces ($ 0.50 extra).
Supreme Sliced Lamb Shoulder — $ 7.95. Little Sheep is based on Mongolian hot pot so their lamb is a signature meat not found at all hotpots. Slightly gamey but solid quality.
Cuttlefish Paste — $ 7.95. Excellent flavor and DIY meatballs were a hit.
Napa Cabbage, Enoki Mushrooms, Tripe, Wide Noodles, and Spinach — one of the best parts of Little Sheep is the variety of ingredients you can order and a good variety of vegetables. While the broth is savory and flavorful, I always feel somewhat healthy by all the vegetables we order.
Pork Dumplings — $ 7.95. Little Sheep also offers a good variety of cooked dishes and they’re solid for a change of pace from all the boiled foods.
Overall, we had a great meal at Little Sheep. I’ve always been a huge fan of Little Sheep and their consistency and execution is one of the best in the industry (like Din Tai Fung). With the weather getting colder, I’m sure I’ll be visiting again.
Little Sheep accepts credit cards including American Express.

So excited that they opened in downtown MV! A good addition besides Shabuway. Place is big but not as big as the one in Cupertino or San Mateo. So expect wait time during rush hour.
The only bad thing about this place is that they don’t serve the pork rib soup!!! Sad face :(So instead I got their pickled cabbage soup and it was soooooo salty! Definitely get the original instead.
Is it just me but I always feel super dehydrated after eating here, like I need to drink a gallon of water to balance out all the sodium lol so just don’t be surprised if you feel dehydrated after :)
Anyway, I hope they have the $ 10 lunch special on weekdays like the other locations!!!

Ive been waiting for this place to open for a while since Hunan Chili went under. The corner spot at the edge of castro and the railroad tracks is silent no more. Ive been going to the San Mateo and Cupertino locales for some time now so I’ve been a fan for years. They seem to keep adding a few new items each time I go back but the pork bone broth in concert with the wine marinated lamb is my favorite go to. But since this is place has only been open a couple days, they were missing some things. Spring lamb and 5 assorted meatballs is the way I went. I also think that some of their non hot pot items are under rated. The egg noodles, beef/​lamb skewers, and mongolian meat pies are also solid. Now I dont have to drive so far since I dont work near the other two locales anymore.