No.9 Alley Hot Pot

Been waiting to try hotpot in Washington and I think this is a great starter place for anyone who has never done hotpot before. With a dual broth pot, lunch time AYCE and the sauce bar, each person paid ~$35. This place is really easy to order from because it's straight off your phone so you don't have to wait for a server to come to you. Overall a nice place. We squeezed a group of 5 into a booth but I think it would've been easier with 4 or less. When you have the sauce and everything on the table, it gets crowded. Spicy bone broth was VERY spicy. Lots of peppers so be careful ! Also, friend with peanut allergy discovered that a lot of the sauces at the bar have peanuts in them (asked server) so *be careful for people with severe nut allergies*

Went on a Saturday afternoon around 4PM and there was no wait. Got the AYCE hot pot option which comes with the bone broth. If you'd like to have a different broth or dual/quad broths, then that is an up charge. The sauce bar is an extra 3.99 which includes all the ingredients to make sauce, some Chinese salads, and sesame balls/fruit for dessert.We decided to upgrade to a dual broth with half bone broth and half spicy. The spicy had good flavor imo! I paid for the sauce bar too and felt like I didn't need the sauce much since the spicy had great flavor. We really enjoyed the beef belly and the shrimp paste. We did not enjoy the lamb, the lamb flavor was way too strong to the point of tasting bad.All in all, I enjoyed this AYCE option! There was great variety on the menu and presentation was beautiful too. As we were heading out around 6PM, there started to be a wait so be sure to join the Yelp waitlist!

We came in on a Tue around 8:10PM. Even though it was very close to their closing at 9PM, the staff was still very friendly and welcoming. We ordered off our cellphone - there was a place where you select the number of heads for all-you-can-eat, and you can order 10 items in the all-you-can-eat category at once. All-you-can-eat came with one soup base only - bone broth. If we wanted to order two soup bases or a more fancy soup base, it would be an additional cost. The sauce bar was an additional charge per person if you wanted to use the sauce bar. The staff's reminder that the last call for the kitchen was 8:30 PM was greatly appreciated. For all-you-can-eat priced at less than $30 per head, I felt it was cost-efficient and the food was delicious!I heard their take-out was also well portioned and priced. Def will try their take-out next time. The restaurant was spacious and clean. Parking was easy as there was a parking lot.

Love this place for inexpensive ayce hot pot! Food is good. The vibe could use improvement but it's not a big deal. I go here for the food not for the ambience. You pay about $30 for ayce plus $4 for the sauce bar on weekends and dinner time. I recommend the tomato base and tom yum base. The service is great too. It's all online. You scan a qr code and order off a website then they just bring the food to your table.

Overall a 4.5! This place was a very solid ayce hotpot place! It wasn't as fancy inside as, say, Liuyishu but it also wasn't as expensive. Very affordable. Not as busy either, which was good cause my friend and I sat there for a while catching up and were able to do so without getting rushed or feeling bad for taking up a table. It was a little hard to find though - we were like do we drive into this elderly home area? Lol. The outside looks a little run down, but the inside is nice and bright. I would say ambiance and setting was more of a 4 - pretty solid but nothing mind blowing.The menu has the hot pot items that come with, and then there are some other items that you can pay extra for (like the noodles). The meat selection was fairly simple but the variety of stuff they had was nice and felt good for the price point. Their sauce bar was also pretty solid. I feel like this is a place I would def go to regularly if I lived here, but I'm not sure I'd come back as an infrequent visitor.

AYCE hot pot with a charming presentation for $28.99. Weekdays from 12 PM - 4 PM are discounted at $25.99 with a free drink. At a glance the price appears reasonable, but adds up easily. Access to the sauce bar, which includes limited appetizers and desserts, costs $3.99. And only the bone broth is complimentary, the rest require an upgrade. We got the combination of two for $12.99: spicy broth and bone broth.All orders are placed on your phone via scanning a QR code. Default selection is decent and even has dishes such as fried rice. Conveniently multiple people can select for the same table and the servers will clear it afterwards for additional orders. Everything was fresh and prepared nicely.We picked two sides to pay extra for:- Kitten Paw-Shaped Shrimp Balls: comes with 6 pieces ($6.99)- Shrimp Balls in Litchi Shape: comes with 5 pieces ($5.99)Service was good and quick. The restaurant is spacious with seating and outside has an open parking lot.

This is a great place for friends/dates but also for families. It's a very social and if you like communal eating, you will love it.You order using your phone via QR code, and the menu is extensive and infinitely customizeable. There is something for everyone, both simple and adventurous.The broth choices are delicious and varied. We chose lots of beef, veggies, tofu and rice cakes. Everything was fresh and nicely presented. Being novices, we didn't try the more exotic proteins but they looked well-received by other tables and the price seems reasonable.The staff is friendly, attentive and helpful but not intrusive.We will def be back and will bring family and friends to share with.

Hot pot with half spicy and half mild is a great way for newcomers to try and see which type they prefer. Fresh vegetables, assorted meats, tofu and noodles are available per your order and preference. This is classic Sichuan-style hotpot which my family and I love. I prefer the mala (numbing) heat and my family prefers the mild broth. But all of us like the wide variety of ingredients we can use to make it different and deliciously interesting every time. Check it out if you want the real deal.

It was our first visit here. The ordering system is thru a QR code ( I had a little bit of a hard time in the beginning on how to put my order in ). Staff were attentive and helped me to order on my phone. We got 2 broth mushroom and Szechuan ( loved the mushroom broth but I didn't enjoy the Szechuan ). They have a sauce bar which is nice ( this area can get dirty though real quick but they were always cleaning it). They have a parking lot so it's not hard to find parking.Outside looks sketchy but they have a nice interior.

I've lived in the area ever since I was little and never really thought about coming here till recently. I don't exactly quite remember what it was before it became this restaurant but I would just see the outside and thought it looked a lil sketchy so I never went in until recently.When I went in I saw how nice the interior was and how nice the ambiance was. The whole experience is off a QR code where you can place your order which is a plus for me in AYCE because it makes it easier to keep ordering without feeling like a bother. The food is great, plenty of food to choose from in their AYCE options as well as a nice sauce bar where you can make your own sauce. Besides the food I also want to give a shout-out to the staff. Every single dang time I come here the staff are so so nice and they always check up on you to make sure you're doing well. I feel as if they genuinely want you to have a good experience and that must be commended. Lastly I don't think this is something that is mentioned a lot but I like how far apart the tables are. A lot of other hotpot places *cough swishswish* have tables really close together where you can hear other people's conversations but here it feels very private and it makes it a nice dining experience that I look forward to coming here every week especially when I'm feeling a lil extra hungry from eating a gummy of a certain variety ‍. Overall 5/5 no complaints this is a must try hole in the wall!