Zhang Liang Spicy Hotpot

My friend decided to take me here during my visit to Houston. It's located in Chinatown in a small plaza. So this is a Chinese establishment and doesn't really have a menu to my understanding. I'm sure you can ask the employee if you have questions.You walk in and you grab these huge bowls which you would select toppings that you want for your soup or dry pot. Soup reminds me of hot pot but they cook it for you and bring to the table.Toppings are labeled with both English and Chinese. Price is by weight of these toppings! So depending on your party and how much you want , you'll grab more or less.Some toppings I recommend that goes well with both soups: enoki mushrooms, black ear fungus, black rice cake, pork intestine ( if you're good with organ meats). We decided to get both the dry pot and soup to share for 3 which was plenty! You can pick the spice level for both. The soup you can pick the soup base. We ended up with just so the Original with medium spice. I liked the base, and medium wasn't too spicy for me personally. There's also Mala soup base if you enjoy more of the numbing spice. They also asked if we wanted a sesame sauce in the soup which we included! You can order rice on the side! The rice comes in a small bowl! We ended up getting 2 rice bowls! There's also condiments on the side if you prefer to dip your toppings! Inside is pretty small but has lots of tables! Definitely would come again!!!

Posting a review after going 3 times in one week Ingredients are self-serve; it ranges from fish cakes, veggies, seafood, meat, and everything in between. My favorites are the fish balls with meat filling inside, rice cakes, and sweet potato noodles. After choosing your bowl of ingredients, the cashier weighs your food, you choose your base (broth vs dry), you pay, choose your seat, and the cashier brings your bowl to you. You can also ask for rice if you want it (I wasn't charged the 2 times I asked for it).Vibes are clean, quick, and delicious. I always get the dry hot pot with level 2 spicy (level 3 is the automatic level if you don't say anything).

The pros of franchising is the success of its formula, from ingredients, to recipes, to service. A change of ownership is fine as long as you don't mess with what you already have. But alas... the need for instant revenue makes new owners cut costs, and corners, and in this case, all of the corners.New owner: Let's not order and use packing boxes from the franchise corner cut. Let's dilute the soup base, the condiments, the sauces, no one will know corners cut. Let's change up the condiments, and offer say pepper power instead of crushed peppercorn corner cut. Tip:Maybe stop paying for the franchise fee too, that'll save y'all plenty of cost. Everything else is going away already, one more corner wouldn't hurt. Right?

Grab a bowl and tongs, pick what you want, and let them do the rest!Spicy, flavorful, Sichuan-style soup. They do a stir fry version too.Staff is polite but does not always seem to know English. They will give you white rice with your soup if you ask (no charge the last couple times I went!)Pretty pricey! I would go much more often if the price was lower. This is part of a restaurant chain that I used to love going to when I taught abroad in China. Even the decor is the same as what I remember. I immediately felt at home.

So we're all familiar with typical hotpot: where you choose your ingredients and broth, get the cooking done right at the table, and then dip it in your own creation of sauce to enjoy. Of course, as a hotpot lover, I've had my fair share of hotpot and can go for it whenever..when it's cold, hot, or cloudy with a chance of meatballs without a doubt, and getting introduced to malatang is like a nice alternative concept to hotpot.So upon entering, you are greeted with a wall of different ingredients. There are bowls and tongs for you to start choosing your proteins, veggies, and carbs. But when you've been spoiled with all-you-can-eat hotpot options for a while, you'll need to start clearing that mentality a little and try refraining yourself from that mindset, cause we know hunger will cause ones eyes to grow bigger than the stomach (especially when you gotta pay for your choices by weight). I think taking a step back and giving the vast selection of ingredients offer a look first, before picking and choosing, is the way to go. After finalizing your selection, bring it up to the counter to get it weighted (it's currently $12.99/lb and spicy dry pot option at $14.99/lb). I went for the soup option, which you get your choice of soup base, and I selected the original medium spicy. After payment, your bowl is brought back into the kitchen where they cook it up for you. There's also a small sauce station to make your own dipping sauce while waiting. Food came out fairly quick and was brought out in a big bowl (not pot), but with half the work already done, what's left is to dig in. So flavor of the original bone broth was okay, the spice level was right on, and well, you can't complain about your own choices of ingredients here, so it definitely had to be good. Besides the malatang, I got some fried buns on the side (shaobing) and they were a nice touch to the meal. Also complimentary white rice is available, so just ask. Eventhough, this concept is different from the hotpot we're used to, I definitely enjoyed it, especially when you wanna take a break from hotpot steam clinging onto you and splashes from boiling soup once in a while, this is a great alternative to try. The restaurant is nice and clean, with good amount of seating, and nice service. Only small downside is I wish they can translate some menu items they have into English for non-Chinese speakers like myself, but besides that, I hope for more malatang places to be open so the interesting concept can be recognized.

Fast, convenient and delicious, a little bit pricey but it's worth it given you can choose what you want to include for your bowl. We picked our ingredients and had everything cooked as a spicy dry pot, and our order was ready in 10 minutes. Our bowl was a little over 3lbs, it was about $46, just enough for two of us. I wish they would provide you some white rice, especially given the price. The ingredients are all fresh and there's a a variety of vegetables and meat (beef, lamb, fish, squid, sausages, seafood balls, crab sticks etc.). We will be back!

Went with a group of friends. One who is from Beijing, and another who has travelled to China often. The general consensus was that this place is authentic, and the flavour profile does not disappoint.You can pick as many toppings, and different types of noodles to be cooked into either the spicy or regular broth pot. Price is measured by weight, and doesn't have you breaking the bank. We ended up trying almost everything on the menu between the four of us.We ordered spicy broth as well regular. Loved the mala, and creaminess of the broth. The lamb char came on metal skewers and was generous. Yutiao bread was crisp, fluffy, and warm - great for dipping into the broth to soak up some of the flavours. The fried chicken cartilage/knuckle were a wonderful snack as well as the sesame honey bun. Highly recommend going here!

Just to be fair, I came back to taste 張亮麻辣烫 Zhang Liang MaLaTang. Come to find out the Chinese actor Zhang Liang went to court sued this franchise few years ago. Not sure the outcome but here I am. Sampling what the world is raving about.So this franchise is one large restaurant chain in China and over 3000 restaurants worldwide. Wow, we must be lucky to have one in Houston. Slogan is "you can drink up the soup" because all malatang soup is super salty, super greasy and can be really numbing hot. The bowl I received had tiny bit of soup. I paid $14 for tiny bowl is not fair compared with the other reviewer's bowl.I was there really for a snack before grocery shopping. I wanted to try Yin Tang next door. But they weren't open until Monday. Fine. I'll give this one a try since the restaurant was completely empty.Cashier didn't tell me about the soup base. I ordered medium hot. I didn't want to ruin my taste buds because I want to taste the numbing affect. Then, she didn't tell me there's a minimum one pound of ingredients. I went back 3 times to get more food from the ingredients cooler.The food came out really quick. Skipping to the end, I did finish the soup and paying for it later. Back to my food... Eating halfway through to find out black mold on both chopsticks. I had to make sure it's not from my hand. So I picked out a fresh pack from the counter. Sure enough, it was on the bamboo chopsticks, too. I alerted the staff. She didn't know what to do. I could only hear mumbling through her mask. So I posted it on Google. Someone apologized and said will exchange them with suppliers. Okay. I'll try them again in few months.

I tried malatang for the first time at Yin Tang last year and have come to really enjoy it, so when I saw Zhangliang located in the same lot but a dollar cheaper I decided to try it out. I came in for lunch on a Sunday and it was quite busy. Since it was my first time, I was a bit confused when I came in because the bowls and tongs were located at the register counter instead of near the ingredient wall. I realize now it was probably because it was too busy and they were behind on cleaning the tongs/bowls. The waitress ended up handing them to my partner and I and we got to picking our ingredients.I liked that they have a wide selection of ingredient and meat options. For my broth, I chose the classic bone soup with level 3 spice. The food came out quickly and I appreciated that the meat did not taste overly chewy or overcooked, since I tend to have this issue with Yin Tang. I think the service could have been better but overall, I really enjoyed my food and would come back again!

I loved this make your own Chinese soup spot in Houston! It has an assortment of vegetables and meats that taste so good with your broth of choice! They make it so quick and fresh that I didn't even feel like I had to wait long for my order. The soups give comfort food feels which I love, especially in the winter time!