Liuyishou Chinese Hot Pot – Rice Bucket Recipes

Location: 4690 Convoy St Physical Sciences Prep, San Diego, CA 92111

For the uninitiated, Chinese hot pot dinners can be thought of as the Asian version of fondue…but WAY more fun to eat and tastier in my opinion! My family and I have always made hot pot at home and it’s a really great way to have a deluxe interactive meal with minimal prep work.

Across Asia, there are many types of hot pot ranging from shabu-shabu in Japan to charcoal steamboat in Malaysia…there is a HUGE variety of how you can enjoy this type of meal. In San Diego, this new place called Liuyishou recently opened up in Convoy and I knew I had to give this place a try!

This is the kind of meal you want to enjoy with as many friends and family as possible to maximize the experience and be able to order as much food as possible! So for my birthday my husband decided to celebrate it here with a couple of our close friends.

Liuyishou is a famous and popular authentic hot pot chain restaurant from mainland China that specializes in Chongqing-style spicy hot pot with several locations now across Canada and the US. Each table comes with its own built-in hot pot contraption, some are large for family-style and some individual ones for those who prefer to have their own.

This place offers different types of soup bases and we decided on two that evening: Liu’s House Special Soup Base (with Premium Beef Oil) and Wild Mixed Mushroom Soup Base (with Chinese Herbs). Next we ordered an array of raw meat and vegetables to cook in the broth including LIU’S LAMB RING PLATTER which is the most eye catching thing here and is a must order just because!!!

The House Special soup broth comes with a cute little figurine of their cow logo, which is actually made from the premium beef oil. It’s fun to watch the little guy melt away as the soup comes to a rolling boil. Now as you wait for your items to come and your soup to boil they also have a nice little appetizer and sauce bar you can help yourself to. They have fresh fruits (watermelon and oranges), some snack items (edamame, fried peanuts, seaweed salad, marinated cucumbers), and a heck of a lot of sauce varieties you can customize to your heart’s content!

When your food arrives and your soup has now come to a rolling boil, start adding in your ingredients and enjoy! The meat at this place is a lot fresher than some of the other hot pot chains I have been to and the soup bases especially the House Special soup base is really great. If you haven’t had this type of soup base before it does have a spicy kick but also has subtle notes of Chinese peppercorn, chilies, garlic, and other mysterious herbs that give it a spicy delicious meaty tonic-like taste. It’s so tasty you really don’t even need the sauce since the beef oil helps coat each of your morsels with the fragrant soup flavor as you fish them out to eat. The wild mushroom soup base was also very tasty with a strong deep salty mushroom flavor that’s full of umami and has a subtle herbaceous note.

Next time you come across a Luiyishou in your local area invite some friends and have an outing of food and fun!