Coriya Hot Pot City

Coriya Hot Pot City
852 Clement St
San Francisco, CA
(415) 387-7888

There was one restaurant I was really craving to have when I went home to see my parents.  I wanted to go to Hot Pot City!  My mom thought it would be a good place to eat on New Year's Day. 

On New Year's Eve, we had plans to try the grand opening of this new buffet, Kome.  While a lot of my family members have gotten sick of chinese buffets, this one advertised to be different.  It was supposed to have different desserts, a Hong Kong noodle station, and some other interesting features not found at other buffets.  For the grand opening, they have 20% for the month.  Kome is pretty far from my house.  About 40 minutes.  But we decided to make the drive.  However, once we got there, we realized everyone else had the same idea! The line was so ridiculously long, at first when we approached I thought people were lined up to see a movie premier.  But no, they were lined up outside Kome! The wait was 2 hours!!  We might have waited, except we were afraid there would be no food left by the time we got in.  Afterwards, I found out that almost every day of the last few weeks the line has been out the door with 1.5 to 2 hours wait.  I've never seen a buffet so popular..

Since we didn't have a backup plan, we had to think fast.  My mom remembered that there is Hot Pot City in San Francisco, and we were about 10 minutes away.  So we went there.

The Coriya Hot Pot City used to be related the Hot Pot City in Milpitas that I had wanted to go to, but they are no longer affiliated. They both have a similar concept, except the Hot Pot City Milpitas has a much bigger selection of food items.  So if you are to go to a Hot Pot City, i recommend the Milpitas one.

For a set price (around $15), you have a buffet set-up of raw food for hot pot or for a grill.  Each table comes with a pot and grill surrounding the pot. 

They have a selection of marinated meat to put on the grill.  The Hot Pot City in SF had the basics: marinated pork, chicken, lamb, beef, pork chops, and a few other items.  They also had your standard hot pot items like beef, lamb, chicken, pork slices; fish balls, tofu, chinese cabbage, vermicelli, mussels.  However the selection is very basic.  Whereas in the Hot Pot City Milpitas has a lot of different kinds of fishballs, tofu, a big selection of vegetables, etc.  For $15, the Hot Pot City Milpitas is a great deal because you have so much food to choose from to put in your pot.  Hot Pot City Milpitas also has a sushi selection and some cold appetizers, which Hot Pot City SF does not.

The food at Hot Pot City SF tasted fine, I just wish they had more items like Hot Pot City Milpitas.  SF is also a lot smaller location, though I think the staff was friendlier. 

Here are some pictures of the food we got:

They also have a section of different things to make your own dipping sauce: garlic, soy sauce, sugar, satay sauce, onions, etc.

Both locations have a soda fountain of free drinks and milk tea with pearls.  For dessert, there is also shaved ice and various toppings like red bean, green bean, peanuts, jellies, tapioca balls.

Now they need to open a buffet-style hot pot place in San Diego! I know several chinese restaurant in SD offer hot pot and all-you-can-eat, but the waiters bring you each plate of food as opposed to you getting your own.  Service always seems to be so bad when you are asking them to bring you more food at these places.

Coconut Mochi cake

I’ve been wanting to use my new Nordic Ware Chrysanthemum Bundt Pan for a while now.  I was trying to find the perfect cake to make it with.  Then I came across this coconut mochi cake recipe by Une-Deux Senses, that I actually found a while back, and forgot about.  I’ve never made a mochi bundt cake before, but I wanted to try it out.

At first, I was a bit worried with the recipe I saw.  It was very similar to the base recipe I have used to create my mochi cakes, but it also added an additional can of coconut milk and some water, without removing the evaporated milk that is usually in the base.  It seemed like too many liquids!

I followed the recipe as is, and it was very, very liquidy.  But I hoped for the best, and an hour later, my cake came out.  I love my nordic ware bundt.  I remember the old days, when it would take me forever to get a cake out of a bundt.  A lot of banging, coaxing, knifing around the edges.  But since discovering Nordic Ware, baking bundts has become so much easier.  My cake slid right out like water.  And all the beautiful little petal designs came out perfectly.

I think the cake didn’t have much of a coconut taste.  It was super chewy. It was definitely more mochi than cake, whereas the past ones I’ve baked are more of a mix of a cake and mochi.  I liked it, but thought it was a bit weird to be eating the mochi like a slice of cake, and it took a while to chew and finish.  My favorite part was the top layer that got brown from the pan.  It was harder and chewier, kind like the edge of brownies. Boyfriend liked that part the best too.

Ingredients

1 stick butter, melted
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 tsp. baking powder
16 oz. box Mochiko flour
12 oz. can evaporated milk
1/2 cup water
13.5 oz. can coconut milk

Directions

1. Beat eggs and sugar together.  Add vanilla, butter, evaporated milk, coconut milk and water.  Add in mochiko flour and baking powder.

2. Pour mixture into bundt pan

3. Put in a 350 F oven for an hour, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

4. Cool completely before serving.

I know that you don’t usually see powdered sugar on mochi, but the cake was begging for a dusting of powdered sugar, so I put it on anyway.

Mitsuwa Marketplace- Mochi store

Mitsuwa Marketplace
675 Saratoga Avenue
San Jose, CA 95129
(408) 255-6699
www.mitsuwa.com/

When I was at my parents, my friend told me that the Mitsuwa in San Jose now has a mochi store inside.  A mochi store?? Of course I had to check it out.  Right inside Mitsuwa is a section selling elegant mochi, manju and some other Japanese desserts.  They were so pretty, but oh so expensive!

After visiting Hogetsu, with their pretty manju and mochi priced at only $1, it was really hard to justify spending $4+ for a piece of mochi.  (There were some that were around $2, but all the ones I wanted to try were more.) Another interesting thing I noticed was how much they charge for the box!  Buying the mochi individually is cheaper than buying a box of the same mochi. 

They did allow my brother to snap pictures of everything though.  I was there for quite a while wondering if I should buy some.  In the end, I didn't end up buying any though.

These ones were probably the cheapest:

These ones were some of the most expensive. It looked pretty cool.  The outside is a dried persimmon and the inside is stuffed with white bean paste.

There were quite a few that had multiple layers, which I really liked.  I don't think my brother got photos of those.  Here are some more pictures he took: