Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot Crazy Tuesdays
For a limited time every year, Little Sheep offers an All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) special on Tuesdays for $19.99/person.
People familiar with hot pot in the San Diego area, and with hot pot at Little Sheep know what a good deal this is. Dubbed “Crazy Tuesdays,” you can imagine the crowd on Tuesdays as people try to get in on the deal.
Most hot pot offerings in San Diego cost about $20-25 for AYCE, and the food options are quite limited and the quality of ingredients is not very good. Little Sheep, a popular chain from China, has gained a lot of popularity because of their high quality cuts of meat (the meats practically melt in your mouth) and wide variety of hot pot ingredients. Unfortunately, they usually charge per plate, and the plates add up rather quickly and can end up being a pricey meal.
I’ve always been tempted to try the Crazy Tuesday special, but didn’t want to deal with the wait and crowds. Recently I had several conversations with a frequent commenter on my blog, Faye, and she really got me interested in checking it out. She even left me a helpful tip that Little Sheep allows reservations for parties of 6 or more.
So I gathered the troops, and we made a reservation for a Tuesday night. When we arrived, there was a huge crowd waiting. I’ve always found that the management is a little disorganized at Little Sheep, and it was even more apparent on this Tuesday. Having a reservation turned out not to do much good. They only allow reservations for 5:30 and 7:30, so we were one of many groups waiting for a 7:30 reservation. There were tables available in the back, but it just took the waiters forever to seat everyone. So we ended up being seated 40 minutes after we arrived. Not a good start.
Once seated, no one came to help us or give us a menu. A large group was seated next to us and decided to get up and move to another table. The table next to us was then left empty for the rest of the night despite there being people waiting for a table.
Finally we flagged down a waiter and was given a menu to order from. Almost everything on the menu is available except for the dishes crossed out and the cooked food sections. Each person is allowed to order three items at a time. This may be an issue for a small group, but since we had eight people, that meant we could order 24 plates at once.
Once we put in our order, I was surprised at how fast everything came together. Within five minutes, we had our pot on the stove, and almost all of our 24 plates. We were given a small serving table to hold most of our plates of food.
Little Sheep’s broths are flavored with lots of herbs. You can choose from original, spicy, half and half and a vegetarian broth. None of us particularly enjoy the spicy one so we decided to just have the original one.
I only snapped a few pictures of some of the plates we ordered. I realize raw food isn’t very appetizing to look at, but shriveled up piles of food after being cooked in broth isn’t so appetizing to look at either. Plus I had to stop taking pictures and fight for my share of food. The standout food items are their supreme cuts of lamb and beef which practically melt in your mouth and only need a quick dip in the hot broth. Their house made fish balls, shrimps balls and fish paste are also pretty good and items that you won’t find at other hot pot places.
The waiters were quick to come around and collect plates as soon as they were empty. And we were able to order more food quite easily, though they did forget some of our orders. Despite the restaurant closing at 9pm, last call for food wasn’t until 9:30pm, so we were able to eat to our heart’s content.
So while the initial service was disorganized and frustrating, once we started ordering, the food flowed fast and freely. I had worried that it would take us a long time to get our food, but this wasn’t the case. We never had to wait around for our plates, and we were able to enjoy our meal.
There was an announcement on yelp announcing Crazy Tuesdays, but I no longer see the announcement and I’m not sure when the special runs until. I remember there was a sign inside the store as well. I think it runs through most of the summer, ending some time in September.
Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot
4718 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92117
(858) 274-2040
I’ve been wanting to try this place forever! I think it would be a fun place to take kids. Although, maybe not on a crazy Tuesday…maybe we’ll just save up for it 🙂
I think it does sound like a fun place to take your kids. I would recommend going during weekday lunch (except tues). They have a special for $9.95 per person and they give you a plate with a variety of stuff including vegetables, tofu, meat, noodles, etc. And if that isn’t enough you can order other things off of the menu. It’s a pretty good deal and quite filling.
With this heat, not sure how much I can eat. Who am I kidding? I can probably down 3-4 plates of those lamb wontons. MMMMMmmmmmm, lamb wontons….
Luckily it cools down considerably by the evening, and it’s nice and cool inside the restaurant as well.
I’ve always wanted to go here but just haven’t had the chance yet. I’ll have to check it out sometime!
They have a pretty nice lunch special on weekdays (excluding Tuesdays until the Crazy Tuesday special ends). It’s $9.95 for a mixed plate of raw food, and you have a choice of lamb, beef or chicken and it’s paired with vegetables, noodles, basically all your standard hot pot items and it’s pretty filling for lunch.
OMG KIRBIE!! I was JUST there last night for Crazy Tues w/ 6 of my friends!!
We, too, had the 730p rsvp. The sheer CRAZINESS of the front of the ‘house’ was ridiculous. It reminded me of 99 Ranch on a weekend, at the butcher dept, trying to be the first person to be heard so s/he can place an order. The poor host guy looked defeated
We got seated at 8:07. I already had a plan devised so we already knew what we wanted to order so I just tracked down someone and handed her the list. Food also came out FAST.
But then it went downhill from there. Our 2nd order was given to the table next to us and after arguing w/ the waitress about it, who kept saying ‘no that’s not true, it’s their order’ (and the mean table gobbling up our order), we sat there for 30 minutes w/ no food. By that time, our entire party was tired. We eventually had to re-order
Bottom line, the food quality is still good but the quality of the broth, for some reason, just turned out ‘blah’ at the very end. We only had one pot to share b/w the 6 of us so i think the broth just got very very muddled at the end
We left the restaurant at about 10:15p. Just too long. I guess we got our money’s worth, but honestly, we all thought we’d rather come back for their $9.95 lunch special.
Nice post! Oh – how’d this compare to Mr Dumpling AYCE?
Oh that’s so funny that you just went! It looks like you had a similar experience. Seated around the same time, etc. Except we luckily did not have the food mix up. We also only had one pot for 8 people which did end up sucking and muddling the soup. I ate my money’s worth but I don’t think I’ll try it again. I still prefer the food here over Mr. Dumpling. Maybe I need to revisit Mr. Dumpling; it’s been a while.