Gyu Jin - All You Can Eat Beef Hot Pot with Dreyer's Ice Cream

I wanna share my new favorite hangout.
Perfect for this cool weather.
Perfect for meat lovers.
Perfect for big eaters.
Perfect for me.
It's this all you can eat Japanese hotpot chain called Gyu Jin.

SC discovered this place through his friend, who visits this place a least a few times a week, a few days in a row, who even gave the restaurant his favorite CD, so that he could listen to his favorite songs when he enjoys his hotpot dinners. Madness!


We've tried the sweet soy sauce and soy milk soup base. The sweet soy sauce is a bit too sweet for me, but many people love it. I love the idea of soy milk soup base, but it's a bit too subtle for me, I didn't get much of the soy scent, it curdles after being boiled for too long...but somehow I still find myself liking it...weird me.


We've also tried SC's friend's recommendation, just a plain soup base, and added lots of onions in it. It's lovely, but maybe we went a bit too far with the onions, we almost emptied the whole onion tray into our pot. LOL. The plain soup is not exactly plain, it's a flavorful (MSG?) broth and it showcases the beef and other ingredients better.

We've tried two different grades of beef.

The Australian beef. It may look a little lean, but since it's so thinly sliced, it didn't go chewy and it's really beefy. I love! It flavored our soup base nicely too! I We have finished four plates of this within the 60 minutes allowance, and we I felt like I didn't have enough. Please note that you can order your next plate of meat even before you finish your current plate, but just order what you can finish, there's a per-pound penalty for wastage ^_*


The second time, we tried their best beef, the wagyu. It's melt in your mouth delicious! But after we I finished the fifth plate, our broth has gone fattier than my hips! It's a bit too much, next time I'll stick with leaner cuts of beef. It's good enough.


Thinly sliced pork were also served, but seriously, we, the beef lovers, didn't really need this. We just focused on our plates of beef ^_*

There are some more all-you-can eat hot pot items from the buffet line...

Fish, which was nice to flavor the broth, and various balls, which I wouldn't waste my calories on....remember, we wanted to focus on this:

Hello, delicious!

But, you'd still need something to balance the richness of the beef...

...so we still grabbed a lot of mushrooms, pumpkins (which tasted heavenly after it gets tender and soaked all the flavors of the broth), tofu...

...and some veggies. I personally love Napa cabbage and the emperor veggie.


They serve some sauces which you can mix yourself, but you don't really need it, especially if you picked the sweet soy sauce soup base. It's flavorful enough.

Here's something you don't see a lot in a hot pot joint...

..beef fried rice! LOL. Don't bother.

Some came for the beef (i.e. me, myself and I)...but many came for this:

The all-you-can-eat Dreyer's Ice cream!
They literally went to get ice cream as soon as they were seated and ate ice cream throughout the meal while dipping meat into their hot pot.

You like?

Oh, and Prince Edward's branch serves free flowing soft drinks too. But as much as I love soft drinks, I love my beef more, so I didn't bother.

I've tried the Prince Edward and Mongkok branch, click here to check out more branches.
The price starts from HK$98 to HK$270 per person (this was the pricing for the wagyu beef) plus service charge.

Instant Korean Hot Pot & Fried Noodles - for Short Cut Freaks

I know we roll our eyes every time we overheard such a conversation:

A: What do you want for dinner?
B: Anything...(whatever/up to you/etc)
A: How about chicken?
B: No...I don't feel like chicken tonight...
A: How about fried rice?
B: Nah...I just had fried rice last night.
A: OK, steak then?
B: Hmmm...too much protein for today...

...and we're thinking, oh gosh, B is such a bitch (even if B's a he).

But sometimes, we couldn't help but having a B moment.
Happened to me last weekend.

Every suggestion sous chef threw me was answered by the word "EW!" in my brain.
Until we got to "hot pot"...and my brain went "OH YEAH~"

So, hot pot it was.
We've been talking about doing a Korean-ish hot pot for quite a while, but obviously didn't prepare enough to have it done last minute.

I needed instant gratification and got it from...

2 packs of Kimchi Shin Ramyun...(3 packs if you like it SUPER hot)


plus a pack of kimchi, plus Korean chilli paste.
Tongue-on-fire.
Prepare non carbonated sweet drinks just in case you can't handle the heat.

Heat up a pot of chicken/beef/vegetable stock, throw dried kimchi and vegetables in, then the seasoning powder...


Add more kimchi and chilli paste if you don't mind the heat (perfect for cold days)


Throw in your favorite hot pot goodies...ours?

My favorite hot pot veggie of all time, tong ho!
My super fragrant flavor absorbent, and they photograph like heaven!


SC's favorite...various balls, mini cheese dogs and dumplings.
How cute are those in the shape of lil fish?


...and fresh beef.
Not American fat cow (sorry about the name, direct translation from Chinese, courtesy of SC), not marinated beef, just good ol' plain fresh beef from our butcher downstairs. We also had some mushrooms and silky smooth tofu. Yum!

Dump stuff into boiling soup base...

Pick em up when they're cooked, and enjoy.
The above may not seem much, but get us totally stuffed and we had plenty of leftovers, including the noodles.
What to do with them?

Make...
Korean Spicy Fried Noodles

Boil noodles until half done in the hot pot soup base, drain, set aside.


Saute leftovers in a bit of hot olive oil...season with a bit of soy sauce.


Add noodles...


Add chilli paste...
...and this should've been added in the beginning to caramelise a little, but I forgot, so I added them last...

But it's ok, it's not something that concerns national security, so no biggie.

Add a bit of greens if you had some, I added spring onion...add seasoning if necessary...cook them until the noodles are a bit dry. This does need quite a bit of oil. Remember not to overcook the noodles.

...we packed this for next day's lunch.
Nothing's wasted, everybody's happy.

PS. Happy Christmas eve yo~!

Maxim's Fast Food Shabu Shabu

When the mercury drops below 20C...as always...
- 2009 version of the 80s shoulder padded jackets dominated the streets
- boots sightings everywhere
- air con gets turned off, windows are opened wide...
- and eateries all around Hong Kong promote the heck outta their hot pot/steam boat/shabu-shabu menu

...and we all rushed to dip our chopsticks into various MSG laden hot pot broth and stuff ourselves with delicious morsels.

I am no exception.

It all started with an adorable little pot....

The menu offers a selection of food (vegetables, mushrooms, udon noodles, fish and prawn cakes with crab roe, a soup base), dipping sauces, a drink and a few selection of main protein: beef, pork or chicken.
Select one main for HK$42, two for HK$51 (USD6.5)...and sous chef and I, naturally, chose two mains, and still add an extra serving of dumplings (HK$15).
So much for dietary intentions and just sharing one pot...:p

The beef slices were not too fatty, but still tender, and the sliced pork was surprisingly tender, even after a few minutes of cooking.

The dumplings were a pleasant surprise! They stuffed the wonderfully chewy skin with pork and preserved meat. Tasty tasty tasty! Totally worth the HK$15 extra charge ^_^

We had the pork bone soup base, which turned sweeter and more delicious after it's infused with all the flavors from the meat and vegetables. Now, dip...


...and consume.

I go for fast food hot pot when...
- I had no mood to prepare my own at home
- I can't be bothered to book/queue for a table in proper hotpot restaurants
- Sous chef's mom isn't available to make a hotpot dinner
- sous chef insisted to

Visit Maxim's website for more info

Little Sheep Hot Pot - Eating Unseasonally

Eating unseasonally has its own benefits.
The biggest benefit I enjoyed was...not having to queue for hours to get a seat.
It's summer and hotpot is...well...hot. So, since not many people were crazy enough to sweat, cry and gasp while dealing with hot food, boiling on a hot stove, in a super hot soup, getting a table was a breeze.
In winter, good luck! Even with a reservation, you'd still have to wait (for quite a long time) to get seated.

Of course, it's not all rainbows and flowers...
Due to one too many hot and spicy food in hot weather....

Arrrgghhhhhh...the joy of eating unseasonally is taking its toll on my skin.

My body was telling me to stop, but my brain, heart and soul, in unison, told me to continue.
Oh well, big hairy deal. My skin will heal, the show must go on.

First thing's first. Let's start with the cutenesses...

Everything in the place has cute little sheep icon on, including the stove! How adorable! I want one of these...


Is it just me, or the server lady's top is totally cute? Can I get a part time job there to get this top?

Now, the usual dilemma...ala carte or all you can eat?

We were damn hungry, so we went with the "all you can eat" option. Plus, if you can't read Chinese, it's good being able to tick whatever boxes on this page, without the risk of having to remortgage the flat.

Another plus, I saw a table of little buffet and I couldn't resist not having an access to ransack it.

During my previous visits to Little Sheep, I haven't seen any "all you can eat" or buffet option once. Is the economy that bad? Or it is just their new brilliant concept to lure buffet suckers like me? The buffet spread boasts a couple of cooked dishes, a couple of hotpot items, desserts and fruits.

The stars of the buffet spread were...

This super tender and juicy chicken with spicy bits, double delish! I blurred the chicken head so that you won't get too freaked out.

...and these babies below?

Crispy fried beancurd sheets and chinese doughnuts topped with fishcake and roe...when dipped into hot soup base, they absorb the flavors like there's no tomorrow. Abso-bloody-lutely yummy. Handle with care, guys ^_^

Check out our yin-yang soup, herbal non spicy on one side, hot and spicy on the other side.

Look at how fiery the spicy side was.
At first, you won't feel a thing, just yumminess. The real heat will only hit you half way through your meal. Soon after that, you may not be able to feel your tongue. Hehe.

I learnt a little trick to make the spicy soup enjoyable a little longer...

Scoop out most of the dry chilli pieces, place them in a clean bowl, add bit by bit back later when you felt that the soup isn't spicy enough. If you accidentally scooped out some other spices, throw them back in.

Did we order a lot of yumminess?

You bet your ass we did. I'd like to highlight the tasty lamb dumplings (lamb xiao long bao) and their lamb juice squirting goodness!


Another hot soup absorbing champion, the frozen tofu. We threw these babies into the non spicy soup once the hot soup got too hot to handle.

...and is there anything more beautiful than these meat "petals"?


Some meat dishes cost additional $10 per order, even under the "all you can eat" scheme. However, the portion is huge, it's totally worth it.


Classic hotpot pose....

Food in front of faces!

Did we bite more than we could chew? Just like what people do under most "all you can eat" situations?

We didn't.

and having something cold, sweet and refreshing after a spicy meal...

...just like this flower jelly....
perfection.


Enjoy now, suffer later :p

All you can eat hotpot + a few meat $10 meat dishes + bottles of SKOL beer = HK$184 per person

Little Sheep Hot Pot
1/F, 26 Kimberley Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Tel: + 852 2722 7633
http://www.littlesheephotpot.com/