Awhile ago I did a video where I went and tried out and reviewed a lot of all you can eat hot pot restaurants in San Francisco

And after that video came out a lot of you guys messaged me asking me to do the same thing for

New York City, so I thought go around New York City, and eat at a lot of all-you-can-eat hot pot buffets

Let's do it

So we're going to go to a lot of the all-you-can-eat hot pot places in the city

and we're going to go try them out and like before we're going to review them based on five things: meat quality,

quantity of ingredients, the sauce bar, the broth and the service and we'll rank each of these five

criterias from one to five, five of course being the best, and because there are so many all-you-can-eat

hot pot places in the city, I don't think one video is going to cover it

So we're going to make it a series. All right guys. Let's go hot potting.

Our first stop is 99 Favors out here in Flushing.

I'm starving. I had a reservation at 8:00. It's 8:16, and there's still a bunch of people ahead of me

I'm about to munch on this bamboo. I mean pandas do it right?

This is actually bigger upstairs than it is downstairs

Thank you. Wow, look at how big that table is

Here, the hot pot is $22.99 you get a dollar off if you are a VIP

I don't know what it takes to be a VIP, but a dollar seems a little low

If you want to get Korean barbecue it's $25.99 you want to get them together is $30.99

And here you can either get a big family-style pot and have three flavors three broth

or you can get a big pot with two broth or you can get your own mini little pot

Here you don't mark anything on a slip of paper you just

Tell your server what you want and she'll put it into the iPad

Now that I pretty much ordered everything on the menu let's check out the sauce situation

This sauce bar it's actually really complete

It has all my favorites: the chive sauce, sesame sauce, Chinese barbecue sauce and hot oil

Sauce number one

and one really simple

three part sesame one part chive sauce

It's soup base testing time and I'm going to start off with the tomato

It tastes like ketchup. I was really anticipating that because in San Francisco

I had a two middle soup base that tasted really good

But this one really just kind of tastes like ketchup

This looks amazing

This is the pork bone broth

so I'm going to take a little bit of meat with my broth

The pork bone broth has a lot of porky and herby flavor to it

but it is kind of bland

Herbal Broth. This is actually really good

This is my favorite broth so far

It's very herbal-ly there's definitely some Chinese medicine in here. I fare it's really good. Finally the spicy broth

It's really spicy. Wow this broth as you can see has a lot of stuff in there, and it does taste pretty good

This is Mike my server here. He's dissecting the shrimp

You must have got an A in science class; all my shrimp has been beheaded and he's deveining the shrimp right now

That's some great tableside service. I of course opted for both the hot pot and barbecue

I can never resist that and this is my favorite fatty beef brisket

And they mixed in some kind of spicy sauce with it as well. Usually I like these with a little bit of salt and vinegar

and sesame oil

That's heavenly

the brisket's nice ratio of lean and fatty meat

It's not sliced as thin as I would typically like but the quality of this meat is undeniable

beautiful char on this brisket and the fat just melts. On this side

this is duck and

whenever I see duck on a BBQ you gotta get it. Duck is marvelous barbecue and look at all that beautiful duck fat

Mmm. I love barbecue duck and my conch is ready. I'm really excited. I love conch so much

I love conch because of its crunch. Okay, that's stupid. I'm sorry I'm sorry.

It's so good; not too much seasoning on that. Short Ribs

It's not the most tender short rib you'll ever have, but hey, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet; it's flavorful enough

Alright guys I feel really bad right now because during this meal time I've been neglecting

Someone and I feel really bad because well, I love that individual and for it to feel neglected by me I feel horrible

I need to make up to it. So let's pay the hot pot some attention like I said really delicious broth

Let's go ahead and add some lamb and add some beef. About ten seconds in and it's done. Let's try the meat

You are able to tell that it's all you can eat hot pot buffet meat

I mean, it's not the most tender beef or lamb

But the meat is sliced really thin and its able to soak up a lot of the soup

And that's soup really adds a lot of heat to the meat. My favorite thing to do is go tell the fried dough

-- that soak up some delicious soup

That's a beautiful bite. This is the cow tongue. A lot of people might not like this.

But I love it. It's really lean, really delicious meat. Dip that in my sesame oil and salt

Guys for the first time in a hot pot buffet

I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed because look at this I have a stack of BBQ meat here

I have the plate of barbecue meat I'm working on here. I have my hot pot meat here

I have more barbecue meat here, and I got these delicious sea food items sitting on the grill

I really don't even know what to do with myself right now. I don't know what they eat. I'm feeling a little flustered

I'm going to take a deep breath

Let's start eating

I have so much meat

I feel like if I don't need these vegetables something bad's gonna happen. A couple of dessert soups and this one looks like uh

a little bit of icy rice soup with peanuts and some sort of red jelly

That's a perfect little

post hot pot desert drink thingy. What I thought was red jelly is actually watermelon

and this thing is so

refreshing. And my tongue was kind of burning because of all the spice and heat and this thing just perfectly cooled everything down

This looks like milk tea with some grass jelly in here

And it tastes like milk tea with some grass jelly. Both desserts really refreshing especially after spicy, hot pot. Oh, I just had a thought

guys

When you come here, you don't need to order any drinks, you don't. Ask for a glass of water

Don't ask for an empty cup because that's a little suspicious and fill it up with a milk tea and jelly

This is a perfect drink with your hot pot. Now I feel kind of stupid. Alright

Let's talk about this place. 99 Favors for those of you

who don't know is probably the most recognizable name in all-you-can-eat hot pot in New York City

I believe they have four locations already

I think two in Manhattan, one of Brooklyn and one in Queens

And it's funny the reason they called this

96 Flavors as you saw on the front that's because every time they register a company

They have to call it something different

So there's just kind of counting down from 99 and if ever if you sound to one favor

They would have already dominated the world. Let's talk about the sauce bar. They have all the sauces

I really love, so solid 4.5. When it comes to variety although the ingredients were presented in a beautiful looking menu with pictures

They don't offer as many items as you would think for example no potatoes,

no egg,

they only have one type of a lamb, one type of beef and really no dumplings at all. So for variety I'm going to give it a 3.

Of all the broth options they offered I tried most of them the spicy and the herbal were pretty good, the other ones were either really

Bland or it tasted like ketchup. For broth I give them a 3.5

I'm also going to get them a 3.5 for meat quality meat

The meat was sliced really thin if you cook it really quickly and take it out

It's going to taste pretty good, but you can definitely tell it's all-you-can-eat

hot pot meat and it's a little bit tough. Finally, service and I think service is where the chain really shines

I mean the guy dissected a shrimp next to me. Everybody was uber attentive

I asked a lot of questions, and they answered it very patiently even though they were super busy

We did have to wait for about a half an hour even though we had a reservation so for that

I give them a 4.5

So that will give them at least according to me

19 points and divided by 5 gives them an average of 3.8 and guys I do feel after eating at the Brooklyn, the

Manhattan and now the flushing locations. This is a really solid place for hot pot

or Korean barbecue or a combo of Korean barbecue and hot pot. Alright guys, onto location number two

This is probably one of the more unique all you can eat hot pot restaurant in New York and probably the most economical because

Everything you see behind me all this

Everything here and all this is included in the buffet for about 12 bucks for lunch, and I think 16 dollars for dinner

This is an especially good value if you're a vegetarian because just look at all the stuff behind me we got mushrooms

wood ear, more mushrooms, yucky stuff (broccoli). Something else I really like about this buffet

They have some of the most unique noodles. I've ever seen my life

I mean look at this stuff: fresh pumpkin noodles, spinach noodles, green tea noodles, but this layout here is not just all vegetarians

They do have an assortment of fish balls and fish cakes

But if you are a meataterian like me you're going to want some beef and lamb

And you can order them by the plate for about 4 to 6 dollars each

So I got some fatty beef,

Some non fatty beef, some prime beef, some rib eye beef and of course some lamb. For soup bases

They have dashi, some pork bones, vegetarian or spicy dashi and spicy pork bone

I wanted to try the pork bone, but of course I wanted it to burn a little bit

So I got the spicy pork bone, and I got the regular dashi - just to try that soup base out

This is a Dashi broth something very traditional for Shabu Shabu

There's not a lot of flavor in this broth pretty much tastes like boiling water with a little bit of Dashi

And this is the spicy pork bone. That's actually pretty good the broth is very pork

It doesn't taste very Chinese herby because there really isn't a lot of Chinese herbs in here

It's kind of nice porky flavor the sauce bar is something that you typically will not be at all-you-can-eat

hot pot place. There are a ton of different sauces here including pineapple,

sesame sauce, that sounds interesting, spicy mustard sauce and wasabi

They do have a already mixed spring special sauce that I'm going to try. This is their house sauce. Add some garlic.

Some wasabi. I don't know what I'm doing here, and let's just try this pineapple sesame sauce. Little garnish.

Something I never thought I would ever say on a hot pot buffet; I think there's too much meat on my table

I'm gonna go get some vegetables

By the way this all counts as veggies. I mean the pork dumplings got some leek in there, and the spinach noodles got spinach

Jackpot this is definitely the most expensive item on the dinner menu

You don't just eat for taste; you eat for value

The meat looks like it's really good quality: thinly sliced,

nice marbling. Look how pretty that it is. Gonna try the spicy pork bone broth

That's done. That was the non fatty beef and it was pretty lean but at the same time still pretty tender

And I feel like enough of the soup base got it soaked in there

So that meat tasted pretty good without any sauce.

Now let's try the most expensive cut: the ribeye. That cooked in about five seconds. Dip that in a little of the original house sauce

That is really good quality meat and the sauce is good

It's not as heavy as a typical Mike Chen hot pot sauce; more light more citrusy. I think that goes pretty well with meat.

Now this is my sauce -- put some wasabi in there

How come I never put wasabi

In my hot sauce before?

That's brilliant because it was mixed with sesame sauce the wasabi didn't really burn

It was like more of a subtle wasabi flavor and that was delicious. Now I'm going to show you guys why, in hot pot,

I'm considered a dumper and because I am here by myself

I could stop as much as I want. Fatty beef with a dashi broth

You can't really taste much of the broth but what that does to it, is that it highlights the natural flavor of the ingredient

So if you like something more subtle, something that doesn't mask the flavor of the meats and vegetables

Basically the opposite of what I like to eat, this would be your broth

But my personal opinion is still that this broth is pretty bland. I love oyster mushrooms. This is where I make my money back

After about the fifth bite, the wasabi in the sauce is starting to burn and I'm telling you guys

That's a good burn. Pork dumpling is ready

I like it when I bite into a dumpling and I can chew the meat and the vegetables inside the dumpling

But I feel like this dumpling just kind of blended together with the skin

This is what I'm really excited about the spinach noodles

This counts as a serving of vegetables right?

Ooh, the noodles are good. Here are the green tea noodles it kind of lost a lot of its green luster after being boiled

I just want to try some on its own

It's pretty good. Just a little bit of matcha flavor. And the ramen

I'm going to top that off with a little beef. Come to Papa

I feel like the noodles, that's really a highlight for this place

I mean also it obviously a strategy to fill you up more

But the noodles are really fresh and delicious and if you come here during lunch during the weekdays there's only 12 bucks

So that's like a bowl ramen. This is a big chicken dumpling.