Had the AYCE Menu a couple of days ago, and I have to say for $30, you are absolutely not getting bang for buck. We only had two choices of meats and unlimited veggies. The meat quality and quantity was very skimpy and we could only order a couple at a time, where as other places, even though they limit the amount you order, the plate will contain a substantial portion. The soup choices were small too, knowing that this place is shabby based, the bland soup is nothing new. The ambiance and decor seem outdated and our server was difficult as she didn't know much English (not a knock on her, just stating facts). Overall, if you are looking the the Mecca that we call the SGV area, there are many other options that can satisfy you without coming to this place. To the owner: please get with the times and take a look at your competition, there are many other places with more options than this.
Gregorio Duran
The service was great and friendly. The food was very delicious. I have come to this place often and it is very consistent.
Marcus N.
Had dinner here and generally speaking, the food is good. Broth was flavorful and the meats were good. My only nit picks are that I wish they had more meat and veggie options for the AYCE. The service also was a bit slow due to only one person working the entire restaurant. Overall it's a good value if you're in the mood for hot pot.
ELISHOKAI
The food is fresh and delicious. The service is good.They only have 1-2 server. If you have a big party make a reservation before you come.
David L.
Great food and higher meat quality than usual. Service could be a tad slow if there are multiple tables and only 1 server. The server works pretty hard so cut her some slack (those ppl complaining take a chill pill). Our usual spot for some good local hotpot.
Kevin C.
I hate writing bad reviews, but our experience at Paper Pot was pretty terrible. We arrived on a Saturday night craving something warm and soupy due to the cold weather. Paper Pot caught our eye with their AYCE hot pot on the menu for ~$28 per person. We had read other reviews about the slow service but decided to take our chances. This, unfortunately, turned out to be a huge mistake. When we arrived, there was seemingly only one employee in the entire restaurant, and it took a solid 5-10 minutes before the girl working here would even acknowledge us. This poor person was busting her chops bussing tables, seating customers, refilling water, and ringing up checks all by herself. We had considered leaving right then and there, but we were too hungry and tired to find another hot pot place in the area, so we stubbornly persisted. When we finally got seated, we had to flag the girl down just so we could order two AYCE hot pots with our choice of soup base, veggies, and meat. My wife got the tomato broth (more on this later), and I chose the miso broth. At this point, we mentally took note of the time and wondered how long it'd be before we could actually eat. After all, hot pot is just thinly sliced raw meat and soup. Something like that shouldn't take too long to serve, right? Right? Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. Eventually, we looked at our check-in time on the Yelp app (we checked in the moment we arrived); IT HAD BEEN AN ENTIRE HOUR, and we still hadn't received our food! When our soup bases finally did arrive, my wife tried her tomato broth and it was awful. I honestly saw tears welling up in her eyes when she tasted it. Has tomato soup ever made your wife cry? Paper Pot now owns that distinction in our lives. A mixture of ketchup and Campbell's soup is the best way I could describe the flavor of this ungodly creation: tangy and sweet and not at all the kind of tomato broth we were expecting. We flagged this to the girl asking--no, BEGGING--her if we could simply leave. She apologetically insisted we stay, promising to make things right, and telling us the rest of our meal would soon come. We begrudgingly agreed to stick around and exchanged the tomato broth for a dashi-based broth. The dashi broth tasted like water. Seriously. It was just water. Defeated, we resigned ourselves to our fate, sharing my miso broth in a single pot... which wasn't even made out of paper, by the way. The actual food itself was fine. I liked the cuts of meat they offered, the sauces were OK, and there is quite a bit of variety when it comes to the vegetables (mushrooms are the only hot pot staple they're really missing). Did I mention another table got up and left while we dined? Therefore, we weren't the only ones who were unhappy with the service. That being said, we do not fault the young lady who was working here for our bad experience. We observed she had very little support, and she was working super hard to cover all the tables to the best of her ability. Rather, I feel that management should look into hiring additional staff, because from what I'm reading, this is an ongoing problem with this restaurant, which is a shame because I do enjoy the AYCE aspect of it.
Ria Chrizette P.
Definitely my favorite restaurant. Rey one of the workers is really nice, understanding and industrious. D
Shanon Y.
SLOW service and terrible options for broth! It took an hour to get our food once we were seated. This is completely unacceptable considering when you eat at shabu restaurants they only need to give you the soup and raw ingredients which you cook yourself. We witnessed another table with two kids straight up walk out after they waited over an hour with no one taking their orders. After reading reviews, my husband and I knew service would be slow but not only was the service slow, the broth options tasted horrible. The tomato broth tasted like watered down ketchup and there was a bunch of oregano sprinkled on top. This is quite strange since I've never tasted anything like this at any other shabu restaurants when I've ordered tomato based broth. I honestly don't understand why they tried to make an Italian style broth for a shabu menu. When I complained, they allow me to switch the broth so I picked the kombu broth and that one wasn't any better. It had no umami taste to it, in fact it had no taste to it at all so I might as well have ordered water to boil my food in. We just ended up using my husband's miso broth to cook our food in since it at least tasted savory. At one point we also wanted to walk out, however the server convinced us to stay since our food was being prepared. We also felt horribly for her since she was the only person working when there were 30+ customers in the restaurant. They are severely understaffed. Tables were left unclean for a long time, and the server was rushing back and forth by herself. Many customers who walked in couldn't even get seated because nobody was clearing the tables. Management needs to do something about the service or I foresee this place closing down very soon. Additionally, this place is called "Paper Pot" because you are supposed to be given a paper pot as your hot pot, however we had our hot pot served in regular metal pots because they likely have ran out of the paper pots. Sadly, I had Paper Pot at the Diamond Bar location and it was nothing close to the experience I had here. I definitely won't be returning and would not recommend this place to anyone. For $28+tax AYCE, you are wasting your time and the quality of food by coming here.
Hawkeye H.
Serviced sucked a**** 70% of the order did not come and the server showed attitude when trying to reason with him. First all you can eat where i was hungry afterwards. $35 is way too pricey! Absolute disappointment :(
Jade W.
You get one plate of meat every 30 minutes even if you get all-you-can-eat! 80% of your order won't come and the asian guy server with the fade will have an attitude if you try to reason with him. He was a friendly person but he had terrible customer service. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY HERE! $29.99 for broken burners, extremely little meat, no udon, no rice, and a kitchen that closes EARLY WITHOUT WARNING!
My group of 4 only got 3 orders of 3 meats in a span an hour and a half. Half the time I was drinking the soup or eating the plain rice. Funniest thing is only half of our group got rice because they ran out. I thought I was going to walk out full since it's an all you can eat place, instead I found myself looking for a fast food place nearby. Never going to this place ever again.
Mas L.
When I came with my family, we waited two and a half hours just to be told that they are not seating anyone anymore. The worker walked out and asked if "we were waiting to be seated" after we stood outside the door for a whole 2 hours. The worst part was that they seated someone early in our wait so they had the chance to tell us they are not seated anymore. Service was not good at all and the worker just tried to blame management and not take any responsibility for his negligence.
Yu Chang Lin
A little bit salty....but overall quality is good.
Ken Lee
Service was good but there was only 1 person working the front on a Saturday night.The AYCE menu on the other hand… don’t let the Yelp pictures fool you. You get realistically 3 cuts of meat and they all looked horrible either no marbling or too much fat.The soup needs some work too. The house spicy was mediocre for extra $$. There is also only 2 types of sauces and no sauce bar or anything.All in all. I don’t think I’ll be back.
Kennedy L.
When I came to paper hot pot I was excited my hotpot would be in the paper. I've had it in Vegas and was stoked to hear there was one here too. Turns out, when you order ayce, it's not in a paper hot pot. Should probably change the name or make a note of that when everyone opts for that. Every table basically ordered ayce. In addition, we had a party of 5, and ordering 3x per round as you can see everyone gets 3 pieces. As staffing times are hard, the one waitress did her best but if we had such a large party, why not let us order more or give us more at once. The props goes to the girl for just bringing us a veggie tray. My down outside of slow slow service and bringing of food out in a snail pace is also is how in the world is MUSHROOMS not part of ayce?? That's a first! Choices are limited overall for the hotpot. Only note is the bulgogi meat was really yum!
Had the AYCE Menu a couple of days ago, and I have to say for $30, you are absolutely not getting bang for buck. We only had two choices of meats and unlimited veggies. The meat quality and quantity was very skimpy and we could only order a couple at a time, where as other places, even though they limit the amount you order, the plate will contain a substantial portion. The soup choices were small too, knowing that this place is shabby based, the bland soup is nothing new. The ambiance and decor seem outdated and our server was difficult as she didn't know much English (not a knock on her, just stating facts). Overall, if you are looking the the Mecca that we call the SGV area, there are many other options that can satisfy you without coming to this place. To the owner: please get with the times and take a look at your competition, there are many other places with more options than this.
The service was great and friendly. The food was very delicious. I have come to this place often and it is very consistent.
Had dinner here and generally speaking, the food is good. Broth was flavorful and the meats were good. My only nit picks are that I wish they had more meat and veggie options for the AYCE. The service also was a bit slow due to only one person working the entire restaurant. Overall it's a good value if you're in the mood for hot pot.
The food is fresh and delicious. The service is good.They only have 1-2 server. If you have a big party make a reservation before you come.
Great food and higher meat quality than usual. Service could be a tad slow if there are multiple tables and only 1 server. The server works pretty hard so cut her some slack (those ppl complaining take a chill pill). Our usual spot for some good local hotpot.
I hate writing bad reviews, but our experience at Paper Pot was pretty terrible. We arrived on a Saturday night craving something warm and soupy due to the cold weather. Paper Pot caught our eye with their AYCE hot pot on the menu for ~$28 per person. We had read other reviews about the slow service but decided to take our chances. This, unfortunately, turned out to be a huge mistake. When we arrived, there was seemingly only one employee in the entire restaurant, and it took a solid 5-10 minutes before the girl working here would even acknowledge us. This poor person was busting her chops bussing tables, seating customers, refilling water, and ringing up checks all by herself. We had considered leaving right then and there, but we were too hungry and tired to find another hot pot place in the area, so we stubbornly persisted. When we finally got seated, we had to flag the girl down just so we could order two AYCE hot pots with our choice of soup base, veggies, and meat. My wife got the tomato broth (more on this later), and I chose the miso broth. At this point, we mentally took note of the time and wondered how long it'd be before we could actually eat. After all, hot pot is just thinly sliced raw meat and soup. Something like that shouldn't take too long to serve, right? Right? Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. Eventually, we looked at our check-in time on the Yelp app (we checked in the moment we arrived); IT HAD BEEN AN ENTIRE HOUR, and we still hadn't received our food! When our soup bases finally did arrive, my wife tried her tomato broth and it was awful. I honestly saw tears welling up in her eyes when she tasted it. Has tomato soup ever made your wife cry? Paper Pot now owns that distinction in our lives. A mixture of ketchup and Campbell's soup is the best way I could describe the flavor of this ungodly creation: tangy and sweet and not at all the kind of tomato broth we were expecting. We flagged this to the girl asking--no, BEGGING--her if we could simply leave. She apologetically insisted we stay, promising to make things right, and telling us the rest of our meal would soon come. We begrudgingly agreed to stick around and exchanged the tomato broth for a dashi-based broth. The dashi broth tasted like water. Seriously. It was just water. Defeated, we resigned ourselves to our fate, sharing my miso broth in a single pot... which wasn't even made out of paper, by the way. The actual food itself was fine. I liked the cuts of meat they offered, the sauces were OK, and there is quite a bit of variety when it comes to the vegetables (mushrooms are the only hot pot staple they're really missing). Did I mention another table got up and left while we dined? Therefore, we weren't the only ones who were unhappy with the service. That being said, we do not fault the young lady who was working here for our bad experience. We observed she had very little support, and she was working super hard to cover all the tables to the best of her ability. Rather, I feel that management should look into hiring additional staff, because from what I'm reading, this is an ongoing problem with this restaurant, which is a shame because I do enjoy the AYCE aspect of it.
Definitely my favorite restaurant. Rey one of the workers is really nice, understanding and industrious. D
SLOW service and terrible options for broth! It took an hour to get our food once we were seated. This is completely unacceptable considering when you eat at shabu restaurants they only need to give you the soup and raw ingredients which you cook yourself. We witnessed another table with two kids straight up walk out after they waited over an hour with no one taking their orders. After reading reviews, my husband and I knew service would be slow but not only was the service slow, the broth options tasted horrible. The tomato broth tasted like watered down ketchup and there was a bunch of oregano sprinkled on top. This is quite strange since I've never tasted anything like this at any other shabu restaurants when I've ordered tomato based broth. I honestly don't understand why they tried to make an Italian style broth for a shabu menu. When I complained, they allow me to switch the broth so I picked the kombu broth and that one wasn't any better. It had no umami taste to it, in fact it had no taste to it at all so I might as well have ordered water to boil my food in. We just ended up using my husband's miso broth to cook our food in since it at least tasted savory. At one point we also wanted to walk out, however the server convinced us to stay since our food was being prepared. We also felt horribly for her since she was the only person working when there were 30+ customers in the restaurant. They are severely understaffed. Tables were left unclean for a long time, and the server was rushing back and forth by herself. Many customers who walked in couldn't even get seated because nobody was clearing the tables. Management needs to do something about the service or I foresee this place closing down very soon. Additionally, this place is called "Paper Pot" because you are supposed to be given a paper pot as your hot pot, however we had our hot pot served in regular metal pots because they likely have ran out of the paper pots. Sadly, I had Paper Pot at the Diamond Bar location and it was nothing close to the experience I had here. I definitely won't be returning and would not recommend this place to anyone. For $28+tax AYCE, you are wasting your time and the quality of food by coming here.
Serviced sucked a**** 70% of the order did not come and the server showed attitude when trying to reason with him. First all you can eat where i was hungry afterwards. $35 is way too pricey! Absolute disappointment :(
You get one plate of meat every 30 minutes even if you get all-you-can-eat! 80% of your order won't come and the asian guy server with the fade will have an attitude if you try to reason with him. He was a friendly person but he had terrible customer service. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY HERE! $29.99 for broken burners, extremely little meat, no udon, no rice, and a kitchen that closes EARLY WITHOUT WARNING!
Restaurantji Recommends
My group of 4 only got 3 orders of 3 meats in a span an hour and a half. Half the time I was drinking the soup or eating the plain rice. Funniest thing is only half of our group got rice because they ran out. I thought I was going to walk out full since it's an all you can eat place, instead I found myself looking for a fast food place nearby. Never going to this place ever again.
When I came with my family, we waited two and a half hours just to be told that they are not seating anyone anymore. The worker walked out and asked if "we were waiting to be seated" after we stood outside the door for a whole 2 hours. The worst part was that they seated someone early in our wait so they had the chance to tell us they are not seated anymore. Service was not good at all and the worker just tried to blame management and not take any responsibility for his negligence.
A little bit salty....but overall quality is good.
Service was good but there was only 1 person working the front on a Saturday night.The AYCE menu on the other hand… don’t let the Yelp pictures fool you. You get realistically 3 cuts of meat and they all looked horrible either no marbling or too much fat.The soup needs some work too. The house spicy was mediocre for extra $$. There is also only 2 types of sauces and no sauce bar or anything.All in all. I don’t think I’ll be back.
When I came to paper hot pot I was excited my hotpot would be in the paper. I've had it in Vegas and was stoked to hear there was one here too. Turns out, when you order ayce, it's not in a paper hot pot. Should probably change the name or make a note of that when everyone opts for that. Every table basically ordered ayce. In addition, we had a party of 5, and ordering 3x per round as you can see everyone gets 3 pieces. As staffing times are hard, the one waitress did her best but if we had such a large party, why not let us order more or give us more at once. The props goes to the girl for just bringing us a veggie tray. My down outside of slow slow service and bringing of food out in a snail pace is also is how in the world is MUSHROOMS not part of ayce?? That's a first! Choices are limited overall for the hotpot. Only note is the bulgogi meat was really yum!