Where to find the best hotpot restaurants in Melbourne

The restaurant was busy, buzzing and just felt like a fun atmosphere. This is a great place to go for a few people and a sociable dining experience. If you’re feeling a bit strapped for cash, Damiao Panda Fan has your back.
With its wooden panels and faux brick interiors reminiscent of a Chinese tea house, Xiaolongkan ("little dragon" in Mandarin) is a hot pot chain from China with 900 stores worldwide. It has two outposts in Sydney, located in Chinatown and Burwood. The condiment station is not as well stocked as other Chinese hot pot malatang near me, joints, but the complimentary soft serve after your meal is a sweet touch. One Pot also serves hot pot versions of Korean kimchi soup, Thai tom yum and Japanese miso. "We're always trying to bring the true taste of Hong Kong and Hong Kong culture to Sydney ... our chicken pot is perfect in the winter," she says.

Some may baulk at chickens feet and duck's blood, but blood sausages and Polish ducks blood soup and such like has been around for a long time. The good news is, you put what you want in your bowl and the rest is for the intrepid foodie who wants a journey of adventure on their palate. Opening till the early hours of the morning, its the place to get spicy after midnight, and go home satisfied.
It’s by no means the cheapest hot pot in the city, but the depth of the mala broth alone justifies the visit. Plus a five-course Southeast Asian feast ; luxe cheesy picnic hampers to take to the park; braised pork belly with jiggly Vietnamese coffee crème caramel for dessert; and any of 85 ingredients cooked in your pick of flavour-packed broth. Unlike many hot pot restaurants, Xiaolongkan also offers some desserts, including handmade rice cakes coated in brown sugar and mantou dipped in condensed milk. But whether it's called huo guo, jeongol, shabu shabu, suki or lau, what is universal is that hot pot involves gathering around a fragrant bowl of broth simmering over a portable gas stove with your nearest and dearest. It is a big restaurant which is quite popular among the Chinese community in Melbourne.

Dishes like pad Thai, and tom yum soup show off a sweet and sour broth with instant noodles, a range of toppings like prawns and  calamari and a raw egg immersed on top. All imported ingredients are fresh and selected from the origin place in China. We prepare at least a hundred different kinds of strings every day. Think of it as the Asian version of fondue – a bubbling pot of broth sits in the middle of the table surrounded by platters of meat, seafood and vegetables, all ready to be cooked in a cauldron of soup.
Sukiyaki is traditionally cooked in a cast-iron pot with a sweeter soy sauce-based broth. Masuya Suisan's version comes with David Blackmore's full-blood wagyu bolar blade cut that has a marbling score of 9+ and, like the shabu shabu, it's paired with seasonal vegetables . At Hansang, the larger hot pots come with two bowls of black rice designed to be shared.
"Everyone likes to eat differently, but I like to put in the fish and harder vegetables first, as they take longer to cook," he says. The hot pot soup "gives you that kick", predominantly from the sharpness of tamarind but also the sweetness that's found in the Thai tom yum soup. Hong Kong Bing Sutt has been serving classic Hong Kong dishes for seven years, and this winter it's brought a truly local dish to Sydneysiders – chicken hot pot. Invented in Hong Kong about two decades ago, the "Chonqing chicken pot" features bite-sized pieces of chicken braised in a spicy sauce with red onion, shallot, chilli, lotus root and bean sprouts. Beef Rice Noodle is a characteristic meal in Guizhou province of China, the most famous one comes from Huaxi of Guizhou. Superior cattle are selected then use the medullary bone to cook the soup base, with smooth steam rice noodle and fragrance beef, put on appetizer pickled vegetables, dotted with fresh cilantro and specialized minced chili.

Hansang, located in Sydney's Little Korea in Strathfield, is the only Korean restaurant in the country that cooks its beef broth for at least three days, according to head chef Sungjun Kim. Hong Kong Bing Sutt's chicken hot pot comes in half chicken or whole chicken servings – call ahead or slide into the restaurant's DMs to pre-order. The beauty of the chicken hot pot is there's "double the flavour in one bowl", says owner Jessica Chan. If you're having Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese hot pot, bring the broth to the boil before adding any raw ingredients to the pot. And in Japan and South Korea, sometimes the hot pot arrives with all of the ingredients already submerged in the stock. You pick your own soup base and then just take whatever topping you would like from the train.
Love the selection of drinks on the menu, lots of things to try. We teach this hot sauce recipe in our chilli preserving workshops at Cornersmith. It’s a great base recipe for making spicy sauces from excess fruit.

The Hakata Chanko hot pot has a pork soy milk soup base, paired with pork belly, salmon and scallops. The Thai dish is served in a small claypot filled with broth, flavoured by galangal, lemongrass and makrut lime, giving it a slightly sweet as well as savoury flavour. A plate of raw protein, including squid, prawn, liver, beef, chicken and pork, is topped with a house-made sauce and raw egg. In China, where hot pot is believed to have originated, a simmer broth is brought to the table with raw ingredients such as meat and vegetables, which are added to the soup.
The nourishing lamb base is mellow enough to let the quality of the ingredients speak for itself, but the highlight at No 1 is its extensive DIY sauce station, replete with beef paste and a basketball-sized bowl of unadulterated crystal MSG. The restaurant's signature shabu shabu is the Wagyu Snow hot pot, which has a garlic soy milk broth made from dashi and soy milk, giving it a clear white colour and a sweet and creamy taste. The flavours will become more savoury as you dip and submerge the wagyu beef slices, cabbage, vegetable, mushroom, shallots and fish balls. In addition to the over-the-top service, Haidilao is ideal for groups. Its "quad flavour" hot pots are divided into four sections, allowing for four different soup bases – choose from spicy vegetable, tom yum, tomato, chicken and pork stomach and pepper.
The waitress then came back to us quite soon and took a drinks order. The waitress could see we were quite new to this type of food and she was really helpful when ordering. She helped suggest items, helped with quantities and also helped choose our dipping sauce. Her name was Elaine and despite the restaurant being very busy she was always keeping an eye on us and making sure we were ok which we all really appreciated. Personalised service is at the forefront of their business model – you can expect Spice World bibs and complimentary hair ties to be offered, as well as the perfect dipping sauce concoction made from their homemade soy sauce. Choose your base stock, then pick from over 100 fresh ingredients to make your own unique hotpot.