MáLà Project

Málà Project is a highly rated spot for neo-Szechuan mala dry pot, aka a must visit for any spice lover. The space gives a funky and hipster vibe with neon light decors. I highly recommend building your own dry pot for the full experience. I am a sucker for dry mix pot and this one 100% satisfied my craving. They also offer mala dry pot lunch combo for $15-16. ＊Mala Project Dry Pot 麻辣香鍋 $75 ***First, don't be scared by the price--we literally had to split the whole dry pot into 4 servings lol (for small appetite girls). We splurged on the marbled beef ($22) which tasted like premium hot pot cut. The beef tenderloin was a cheaper option ($9) and it was very tender. Glass noodle is the perfect carb to absorb the flavorful sauce. We picked the spiciest soup base and it was really numbing (but yum). They also have soy ginger sauce and less spicy base available. ＊Eggplant with Roasted Garlic 蒜蓉茄子 $12 *My fav starter! They plopped minced garlic on top and vinegar as the sauce base. It was delicious to mix the eggplant into your dry pot and enjoy altogether. ＊Pig Ear in Chili Oil 紅油豬耳朵 $14 *SPICY ALERT. My friend has a high spice tolerance but the dish had her keep chugging water. We both still thought the pig ears were really good in terms of texture and flavor. ＊Hot & Sour Noodle Soup 酸辣粉 $18The glass noodle was chewy and soaked up the vinegar-y broth. I liked the spicy and sour flavors, yet the broth was quite oily. It came with beef belly, lobster balls, tofu pockets, and bok choy. ＊Crispy Ube Mochi 紫薯餅 $9 I don't care how full you are--YOU NEED TO ORDER THIS DESSERT! It was crispy on the crust, chewy on the inside, served warm, and NOT TOO SWEET. ＊Herbal Jelly 燒仙草 $9A cold, sweet dessert to cool down your numbing tongue after indulging in so much spicy food. It was on the sweeter side, and I loved the grass jelly and red bean.

This would be a 4.5 star review, but its 5 bc 4 is too low. This is a fun restaurant where the main thing is the dry hot pot. We had a table of four. I would suggest you order family style with at least one big hot pot for 4 or 2 for 2. You can get more flavors together that way and I think they give you more food than if you order individual bowls. On our trip one person couldn't handle spicy so he got ginger level spice, the other got medium, and me and my friend got the spicy. It is more white person spicy than Asian spicy, which is what I wanted. I would recommend the glass noodles as a necessary add on because they are so good. We got all sorts of things like squid, fish filet, lotus root, bok choy, beef, pork belly, fun size sausage, chicken gizzards, two types of mushrooms, roe filled fish ball, tofu skin and several others. All together the bowl for 2 people came out to $42/person while the bowls with less ingredients for my friends were more expensive. The two of us had WAY more food for some reason, maybe the larger bowls are a better deal is the point I am making.I will go back with people who like spicy food next time. It was truly delicious but I had to take a to go bag because I couldn't finish the whole meal. The servers were really friendly too, noticed I was sweating like crazy and gave me a whole stack of napkins.

The dry pot here is absolutely delicious. You get to customize your bowl and select your spice level and it comes out hot and fresh. Highly recommend sharing!I also tried the husband and wife lung slice, but this was okay. The beef was a little too tough, I enjoyed eating the intestines/tripe more.

Dry pot was pretty good but more soupy/saucy than the ones I'd normally get in Flushing. The add-on's do get pricey for the portion - some items they gave a lot of while others were skimpy. Flavor was good, not too spicy at all and I appreciated not having to pick out peppercorns between every bite haha.Dan Dan noodles had such a good kick and tasty, but the mung bean noodles weren't my favorite, especially as they were diced up into bit sized pieces instead of as noodles.

Excellent food! Especially being vegetarian I really appreciated the wide variety of options I had available. I got the dry pot and it was amazing. I got the little spicy level, mushroom, shiitake mushrooms, baby corn and bok choy. I got the glass noodles and konjac noodles and the glass noodles were a lot tastier. The service was also really good.

Ok I love Chinese dry pot, and normally I'd rate Mala Project much higher, but my most recent visit was pretty disappointing due to a couple reasons. For reference, I ordered the dry pot with spicy sauce and 6 items (beef tripe, shrimp balls, enoki mushroom, bamboo shoots, quail eggs, and bean curd).Pros:- authentic dry pot- mala spicy sauce that is actually spicy- decent serviceCons:- the ratio of ingredients was wayyyyy off. I got maybe two tiny pieces of tripe and a bit enoki strings (no actual pieces) and a TON of bean curd. I mean the entirety of the bowl was basically bean curd with a couple of extra things thrown in there. Super disappointed in this, especially because tripe was one of the more expensive items I ordered.- the wait time was much longer than expected. we were told that we'd have seating within an hour, but ended up having to wait an extra 30 mins on top of that.- it's pretty pricy for what you get. this is not something that's exclusive to my most recent visit, but worth mentioning still.

Good, but pricey for the portion size.We ended up spending like $60 for a spicy pot, and honestly I could've smashed it myself haha.The flavors here are fairly authentic, but nothing special compared to what you could eat at a random food court in Flushing. Alas, we probably pay the East Village surcharge.

An East Village staple for Sichuan eats, best known for their dry pots -- this dish was easily the star of the show and I cannot recommend it enough! They're popular but it isn't too hard to snag a reservation. The waiters are helpful for recommendations and very attentive. They have an outdoor back patio which was lovely in the summertime. IMHO, the appetizers are alright but the dry pot was DELICIOUS. When I come back, I'd probably skip the apps in favor of adding more ingredients to the dry pot -- I love how highly customizable it is, but do think it's easy to get carried away (and kind of pricey) if you're not paying attention. That being said, literally every single bite was fire and worth it to me. Highly recommend the lotus root for crunch, fish filet for protein and glass noodle to soak up the flavor. I'll be back soon!

I've been here for dinner and lunch, and I prefer their lunch as you get more value for money. For dinner, you customize the dry pot with ingredients that you want and I feel like the cost adds up ($9 for beef + $4 to $5 for each veggie). For lunch, you select their pre-set entree that includes a protein and 4-5 veggies. Don't get me wrong, whichever menu you order from, they are both delicious. For lunch, I got:Classic Benben ($16) - I got spicy level and it was just the right amount of heat for me. I love the thin-sliced, fatty eye of round beef here! It also comes with sliced potatoes, cauliflower, five spiced tofu and tofu skin. The veg that I liked the most was the potatoes - they were still crunchy, not overcooked and goes so well with the fatty, tender beef. One tip - after finishing the dry pot, dunk your rice into the bowl to soak up all that good chili oil!

Giving this place a 2 because something definitely gave me food poisoning - my guess was the short ribs in the dry pot. The restaurant is super cute and the food comes pretty fast. For appetizers, we got the Eggplant with Roasted Garlic and Spicy Chicken with Cucumber. The eggplant was ok - very light flavor and I've definitely had better eggplant dishes. The chicken was good though - great flavor!For our mains, we got the Fish with Pickled with Pickled Peppers & Mushrooms and the Mala Dry Pot (spicy). The fish was delicious and super soft. The dry pot while delicious, was very oily and the short ribs tasted very unfresh/almost rotting. Unfortunately, I will not be returning here :(