Boiling Point- Taiwanese Style Hot Pot

Boiling Point
153 West Garvey Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755
(626) 288-9876

With a long weekend and it being Chinese new year, Boyfriend, Baby Bro, Little Bro and I decided to spend New Year’s Eve eating some yummy Chinese food in LA.  We had quite a few spots on our agenda.  Unfortunately, a lot of places closed early or were closed altogether for New Year’s Eve.  So Qing Dao Bread Food and Mama’s Lu will have to wait for another occasion.

Hot pot is something that is often eaten for Chinese New Year.  So it seemed a perfect time for me to check out Boiling Point.  Boiling Point serves individual Taiwanese style hot pot. In Taiwan, I saw a lot of small restaurants that had these and they were delicious.  Boiling Point is the first restaurant that I’ve heard of that serves the individual Taiwanese hot pot.

Each person gets their own hot pot.  There are different ones to choose from including lamb, beef, house special, seafood.  The most famous one is the House Special because it contains stinky tofu. I first learned of Boiling Point from Gastronomer.  While she didn’t care for the hot pot because she didn’t like the stinky tofu, I love stinky tofu and that just made me really want to check it out, especially since it’s so hard to find places that serve stinky tofu.  Also, usually the stinky tofu that is available is the fried kind.  While I like fried stinky tofu, I also like the non-fried kind which I’ve only had in Taiwan.

For those of you who have not had stinky tofu, it is a bit of an acquired taste. The tofu is fermented and has an odor.  I wouldn’t necessarily say the odor is stinky, but I guess it doesn’t smell great to those who aren’t used to eating it, and that is where the name comes from.  Good stinky tofu has a very strong aroma and fermented taste.

I also read a review from Eileen Likes to Eat, and she really liked the stinky tofu hotpot. So Boiling Point has been on my list for a while.

Each hot pot comes with various ingredients, depending on which one you choose and they all cost $9.99 for dinner.  You can also order additional side items.

The place is pretty small and is run by young college age looking kids.  The service was pretty much nonexistent.  They don’t take reservations, so we got there right when they opened for dinner.

Big containers of dipping sauces are provided on a cart, and can go over and help yourself to some dipping sauces.  They ended up being superfluous for us because the both is quite flavorful and spicy so you don’t really need to dip your food.

I ordered the House Special Hot Pot.  With each pot, you get a choice of rice or noodles.  The noodles are the clear vermicelli noodles which is usually eaten with hot pot, so I ordered the noodles. This is three orders of noodles pictured here. They didn’t give much:

The food arrives already inside your pot.  In mine, there were some big pieces of stinky tofu, pickled radish, kamaboko, fish balls, beef, tomatoes, pork intestines in my pot.  I ordered mine mild spicy but thought it was more like medium.  The spiciness was enhanced by the hot temperature of the food.  There was only a tiny amount of each item in my hot pot.  The amount served was a lot less than I usually would eat when eating hot pot.  I definitely didn’t feel full after, so I was disappointed with the quantity.  Also, while the broth definitely had a taste of the stinky tofu, the tofu itself barely had any taste.  It tasted like regular tofu.  I think whatever “stinky” essence it had all went into the broth.

Baby Bro ordered the lamb hot pot.  The lamb was pretty good, but there were only a few slices in his pot.

Boyfriend ordered the beef hot pot because he doesn’t like stinky tofu.

We also ordered a side of beef and a side of stinky tofu.

I also ordered a lychee slushee.  The menu says they use real fruit, but this was obviously just syrup.  It tasted the same as the ones I get at Tapioca Express.

The servers never refilled our waters and I felt the quantity of food was too little.  You really need to order a few sides in order to be full.