It’s also worth noting that House of Delight, apart from being one of the best Sichuan restaurants in Melbourne, also offers Cantonese and Shanghaiese dishes. Brisbane has a great selection of Dumpling restaurants to try. Dainty Sichuan Food isn’t one restaurant, but a whole stable of eateries hotpot Melbourne火锅 dedicated to the wonders of Sichuan cuisine. Panda Hot Pot is a theatrical experience with nightly entertainment and its famous steaming Hot Pot dining. Hot pot is more fun if you can see what you’re cooking. Or if you spot a surprise ingredient that you really want to try, so don’t be shy.
On the menu you'll find cooking timeframes for each of the ingredients you order to cook in your broth. You can order separate ingredients or go for the Chef's Choice signature combination, which is what I had. Chongqing and its adjacent Sichuan Province are hot pot grandmasters. Here, specially designed tables are fitted with a sunken hot pot receptacle that houses an ornate steel pot. Patrons then order plates of raw ingredients off the menu, concoct themselves a custom sauce from the DIY sauce station, and get to business.

For hot pot, frozen seafood is just fine, but being in Australia, we’re spoilt with beautiful seafood, so go for broke if you have a few spare dollars. You want a wide stock pot (no handles, that’s always dangerous in the heat of the moment). That’s deep enough to hold enough soup and ingredients and still have room to cook on the top layer. For a 4-person sized pot, typically aim for a 28cm or 30cm wide pot. As a kid, I learnt more about the ups and downs of life listening to my family and friends around the hot pot than from any class or novel. On the off-chance you’ve already slurped your way through Melbourne’s recent boom of new hot pot restaurants , here’s yet another one to check off your hit-list.
During the day, natural light spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows and shines off patent-leather seats, polished concrete walls and brass finishes. After sunset, new life is breathed into the mammoth 160-seater space – neon signs glow, strobe lights swirl in patterns across every surface and TV.. Make the most of your weekend in Melbourne with these fabulous events. No city does it better than Melbourne, so get out and discover the very best shows, festivals, ..

Then, you’ll get an individual pot filled with the broth of your choice, which means it’s time to grab any of the ingredients on the conveyor belt. With a selection of abalone, black-truffle prawn balls, mushroom parcels and fresh tofu, it’s an all-you-can-cook adventure. If you’re still feeling a bit peckish, there are even ready-to-eat dishes on the train, with options like spicy cold noodles, fresh oysters and plates of sushi and sashimi. This is a signature of Cantonese style hot pot – which is what I grew up with. Pop these in after the first round of meats and leave them in there to cook while you’re still enjoying the rolled wagyu for maximum time management, but again, it’s about building on the flavours of the broth. Paying attention to creating a beautiful homage to the native cuisine, expect the finest ingredients that go into developing their signature 12 hour broths that embraces all aspects of the ancient craft of hot pot.
The latter is a hard-to-find dish with meaty pork spines piled up in tangy broth with loads of makrut lime, lemongrass, and galangal. Sichuan is the most familiar Chinese hotpot in Melbourne. Broths are defined by a punch-in-mouth, numbing flavour from Sichuan chillies, known as mala.
Once the soup in the shallow pot begins to bubble, we’re instructed to hit the veggies first before moving onto the seafood; all magnificently fresh and all the better for the extra minutes spent bathed in the broth. In this exercise, we’ve plucked out six of the city’s most impressive hot pots from across East Asia and indexed them by country and frenzy factor, with five representing frenzy AF. Wrangle a crew – you’ll generally want at least four – and prepare to get a little messy (and smelly – good smelly) at one of Melbourne’s best. If you're still hunting some of Melbourne's bests, try hitting up our favourite Korean BBQ joints or test your spice levels with Melbourne's hottest dishes.

Or Wang Zai milk, the unfortunately translated "want want hot kid milk drink" that has the custardy vibe of evaporated milk. Then January hit, and like Chinese restaurants everywhere, business has been hammered by fear surrounding the COVID-x virus, and travel bans. More than 100,000 Chinese students, who drive Carlton's dining economy (and were certainly Panda's target market), are stuck overseas. LCD panels turn the ceiling to sky, beneath which floats a 1.5 tonne steel dragon. There are carved stone pavers underfoot, gold panels everywhere.
There are pots that come with a divider in the middle that allows you to have two soup bases in one pot. If anyone knows authentic Sichuan cuisine, it’s Chef David Li. Chef David has been experimenting with Sichuan flavours since he was 14 years old. Now the executive chef at his titular restaurant, he creates recipes and trains the talented chefs in the kitchen. Ten Miles Melbourne is the perfect meeting place for food lovers.

The team of chefs also maintain strong links with professionals back in Sichuan and Chongqing. Formerly known as Dracula's theatre restaurant, the site has been transformed into a family-friendly restaurant that features stage shows every night, and an enormous 1.5-tonne floating dragon looking down upon diners. You don’t need too much of these because hot pot is more about the ingredients than carbs. But for those with a bigger appetite, including some noodles will make sure everyone’s full. When it comes to gear, Hot pot does require some equipment and set up. But it’s pretty inexpensive and everything lasts several lifetimes.
Unlike some of the other hot pot places on this list – it involves getting a bowl, picking your own ingredients from the glorious open fridge, and weighing your choices before choosing a broth and spice level. These legends have even created a vegan version of their original malatang soup base so nobody has to miss out – just don’t go in with an empty stomach or you might end up with a bowl made for two. If you came as a party of four, the same amount of broth would suffice for all the ingredients to be cooked in and the soup would be even more delicious with 4 people cooking their individual choices in the broth. I didn't order any carbs like noodles and vermicelli to go with my meats as I knew that would fill me up too much; whereas shared in a party of 4, it would be the perfect base accompaniment. With two different broths just for a table of one, in spite of my best efforts, there was no way I could drink all that beautiful soup.
Take family and friends and check out the new kid on the block. For me the platter was a good option as on the day I didn't have that much time or parking time to afford the time needed to choose every single ingredient. It came in a beautiful box filled with ice, with just one layer of the ingredients sitting on top. It was definitely a lovely experience sitting in the beautiful restaurant, marvelling at the dragon with a projection of the moving sky above it and chowing down on my hot pot. Soi 38 also offers a more traditional Northeastern Thailand-style hot pot, featuring similar ingredients skewed slightly in the porcine direction.
All you can eat buffets, give you an option of dining on limitless hotpot for 2 hours – available from 11.30am, or wait until 5pm for the A La Carte menu to begin. China Chilli has many vegetarian and gluten free options and of course a wide range of spicy food. Just like soup bases, everyone has a favourite brand, but for me, it’s Aussie-made institution Hakka. Their fish cakes are legendary, and for hot pot, they have a whole range of bursting fish balls, “royal” pork balls (pork & mushroom) and more that will set you up for success.