Yin Tang

Buffet style ingredients - $12.99/lb You get to choose veggies, tofu, lots of different fish balls, noodles, beef & lamb slices as protein. After filling up your bowl with all your toppings, the bowl gets weighed before they cook your food. There is 4 levels of spice. I choose 3 & it was mild but the spice is Schezwan so it has a numbing effect. There are chili oil, cilantro, green onions, vinegar, & soy sauce on the table for you to make a dipping sauce. There was TOFU WITH MOCHI in it & a fish ball that had creamy fish eggs. Those were my two favorite toppings. I've never had it at any other hot pot place & would definitely get those again. The black SQUID INK balls were pretty tasty too. Portion wise I was able to make it into 2 meals. Their to go bags were very cute & reusable! I still use mine as a lunch bag

Decided to check this place out bc of the good reviews.Not sure I like this concept of weighing your food. Also you don't know who was sneezing over the food when they have it out in the open for people to grab. I got a few veggies and ramen noodles and it came out to the same price I usually pay when I go to tasty point. You get way more food at tasty point so I think in the future I'll pick tasty point over this place.

This restaurant 隱燙 Yin Tang Spicy Hot Pot is a branch from Southern California. Description from the rest of Chinese characters, 黑輪 as Oden and 燙食 as Hot Food. (Can't combine too many Chinese characters because Yelp will place this review in the foreign language page.)Eating at Yin Tang is very different from hot pot. You don't have a boiling water on your table to dip meats and vegetables. I think the phrase spicy hotpot should be spicy-hot pot. But they serve the food in a bowl not a pot. Not to be too critical, it is what it is. Yin Tang has more Oden aka fish ball variety than any other hotpot restaurants. My favorite is black ink squid balls. It tastes unique and matches the color of dinnerware, especially dipped in soy sauce.On the receipt, it says 麻辣烫 malatang. It is technically malatang, but different. The soup base tastes similar to Taiwanese beef stew 牛肉湯. There's a tomato flavored soup, but still use the beef soup. Therefore, there is no vegan or vegetarian options here. The soup base has slight kick to it. Just to say spicy hot is real.Why do we suddenly have so many malatang restaurants opened up in Houston? Especially, there is a similar restaurant at the same mall. Zhang Liang MaLaTang has smaller footprint and feels crowded. I suspect they're owned by the same entity.Houston is humid and hot. If you know the traditional soup to get rid of humidity, you'll be searching for a decent malatang with spicy numbing soup. It is not hard to find at Metropole Center. There are Mala Sichuan, Northern China, Nice to Meet You, Zhang Liang and Sichuan Restaurant.

This has turned into the place I recommend to all my friends and coworkers when they ask for Chinese food. No bad reviews from them. I love the variety of dishes I get to choose from AND the quality in their soup. However, I have not had the stir fry. Need to try soon. Bowl size and tables are good for groups of 4. Utensils and service makes me feel like I am at a dine-in restaurant, even though you choose the food buffet style. No other hotpot style food in Houston is better IMO

Good food, affordable, big portions I do wish they had a sauce bar and different broths to choose from though

I enjoyed this place! I liked the concept of being able to choose the amount of meat & veggies I wanted in my bowl. You get charged about $12 per pound of food and my bowl was about 1.65 pounds. I personally put way too much food into my bowl so next time I would probably avoid the fish cakes and focus more on the meat & veggies. There's four levels of spice and I decided to go with level 3 which was just right for me. I think this place is a good alternative to hot pot if you're craving it but don't want to spend big $$$!

A restaurant i'm excited to introduce on this platform. Especially they serve fully customizable spicy hot pot that you can order from their website.Spicy hot pot cooked in their secret spicy-numb and beef bone hot broth.Perfect for days when you want something soup!! You can order by pound choose your spice level. the medium always hits the spot perfectly! Recently dined at their indoor,tried their beef tendon ball & shark fin ball！which I highly recommend!!!

Food: Normally, I opt for their spicy broth, but this time I decided to try the tomato broth, and surprisingly, I enjoyed it even more! I really appreciate the concept of being able to select my own ingredients and having them cooked for me. It's reminiscent of eating hot pot, so if you enjoy that, this place offers a similar yet different experience. 9/10Service: Typically, the cashier has been somewhat rude in the past, but this time I had one of the best experiences with their service. I was pleasantly surprised by the attentive and friendly service I received. 9/10

The restaurant is located in the back of a plaza with a shared parking lot with a bunch of restaurants. It has an unassuming air, but the overall environment felt pretty clean and neat. It was pretty quiet on a Friday night, apart from my group, there were only 3-4 customers initially around the 7:30-8 PM time frame.Upon entering, a customer will be able to select hot pot ingredients (e.g. fish balls, ramen, veggies, thinly sliced meats, etc.). The staff at the front will likely ask whether you are eating in person or taking the items to-go. The ingredients are arranged in a salad-bar style with tongs and metal bowls for customers to use to make their selections. Regardless of what is selected, the overall price is based on weight. As of the time of this writing, the price is $13.99/lbs. I'm not sure if the weight of the bowl is removed from the weighting process (I hope so!!!) Once the food is selected, you'll be able to take the food up to the counter for kitchen to cook your ingredients. The ingredients are cooked together in a broth (with mild, medium, and hot levels) and the final product will be a bowl of hot soup/broth with the selected items. When folks are making their ingredient selections, the staff will select a table and provide water at one of the tables (not sure if they do this for everyone or if they just do this when things aren't too busy). There are approximately 10-13 tables that can seat 4 people each arranged on one side of the restaurant. After the first time they provide water, it seems like it is just counter-service and folks will need to refill their own water. Once the food is ready, the server will bring out the food. The food was pretty good; I had the medium spice-level broth. The main reason I didn't give this spot 5 stars is simply the price-point. Compared to hot pot places in the area, it seemed a bit pricy. I felt like I could probably have gone somewhere else in the area and just paid a bit more and had a lot more food. Overall, if I need somewhere on the quieter side and was craving hot pot with a twist, I'd come to this spot. This isn't super likely at this price-point, but these days, sometimes less crowded spots have more of an appeal for me, so who knows?

More protein options would be great, specially a chicken option. It was cooked well, tasted great, it was more expensive than what I expected. With the all you can eat options in the area (more food and more variety), it's difficult to justify coming here.