I was hoping the warm sunny weather we were experiencing would be here to stay. But of course it didn’t last. The last few rainy days had me craving warm soups and noodles.
So we found ourselves at E & Drink. This place always seems to have a good crowd whenever we stop by, more so than the other food spots located inside Ranch 99.
They are always adding new desserts to the menu such as shaved ice, red bean soup, egg waffles, etc, but the base hot pot menu remains the same.
Seafood Hot Pot
Out of all the hot pots, my favorite is probably the seafood one. There are a good amount of vegetables and seafood. The broth itself has a mild seafood taste to it as well.
Lamb Hot Pot
I actually hadn’t tried this one before and my brother opted to be the guinea pig. We weren’t really a fan of this one as it was very heavy on the sour pickled vegetables and that’s all I could taste in the broth as well.
Spicy beef
This one is DH’s favorite and my second favorite one. The spice is very mild but it adds a little something extra to the hot pot, which is full of thin slices of beef, beef balls and vegetables.
With each hot pot you have the choice of rice or rice noodles. There’s already rice noodles in the bottom of your hot pot but I always end up choosing the rice noodles so I have double the amount.
We haven’t really enjoyed the various appetizers or desserts so we skipped those.
During lunch, your meal also includes a free sweetened black or green tea drink which are served in oversized beer mugs.
DH made the comment that we’ve actually been here an unusual amount of times compared to most places we frequent. It’s not so much that we love it. It’s more that it’s fast and convenient. This place has pretty much stayed the same since it first opened. We haven’t noticed much of an improvement or fall in quality of food or service. I do wish they would actually try a little harder to improve the menu, but since they are the only place offering individual hot pot, they don’t have much competition as incentive. Since this place always seems to be relatively busy, there definitely seems to be a market for individual Taiwanese style hot pots. Hopefully another one will open, perhaps one from the Boiling Point chain in LA.
My previous E & Drink posts can be found here and here.
E & Drink (inside Ranch 99)
7330 Clairemont Mesa Blvd #112
San Diego, CA 92111
I saw your post today and went here for lunch today based on it ! I ordered the Hong Kong curry hot pot. It was really good. I wonder if you can make your own version w/ the Japanese curry blocks (and just add more water?).
I didn’t like the free apps they gave before but today was great – pickled cabbage and garlic seaweed. They had free samples of their egg waffle thing – man was it good.
Yes you can definitely make your own curry version. I like the curry one too. I’m actually not a fan of their egg waffle but it’s nice you got to sample it.
Now I really need to go try this place out. I love Boiling Point, so this should at least get my fix when I’m in SD. In terms of hot pot, I have only been to Little Sheep in Clairemont.
I prefer boiling point because they have so many more variations and their hot pots are quite filling. But this is a nice quick fix and the only place in SD that I know of that has individual Taiwanese hot pots.