9700 105 Ave NW #168, Edmonton, AB T5H 4J1

Hotpot! When it’s rainy out, or cold, people often want to eat a nice hot bowl os soup. If you know me, you know that soup isn’t on the top of my favourite things, but hotpot is a great compromise which lends itself to tons of meat and toppings!

Liuyishou Hotpot started in Chongqing, China and has now grown to over 1000 locations worldwide. The location in Edmonton is located in Chinatown, right on 97th street. There is a small parking lot behind the restaurant on the west side of the building, and lots of street parking up and down 97th street.

If you’ve never had hotpot, generally, you choose your broth, make your sauce, and order food. Most of the Hotpot places in Edmonton are All-You-Can-Eat. Liuyishou offer an a-la-carte menu with premium ingredients. For sauces, they have a large array of herbs and sauces to choose from so you can customize it to your palate and liking. If you are unfamiliar with Hotpot, they also have guides to show you classic sauces.

I was invited here for a media preview and we were served several of their most popular options, and choice of broth. I went with a half/half pot with traditional Chongqing style hot pot broth, prepared with special butter. If you order the large one, it comes with the special beef fat that’s in the shape of a cow.

The broth comes with red hot chilis, Sichuan peppercorn, and many other exotic herbs and spices. They recommended that we all get the mild as it is very spicy, which I’m glad I did because the spice definitely built! The other half I got was a basic sweet corn pork rib broth which I often add some of my own condiments. Not too spicy, and easy to eat when I need a break from the spice.

For sauce, I usually go with two different kinds. One that’s most hoisin sauce, XO, cilantro, garlic, sesame paste, peanuts, and another sauce that’s soy sauce, fresh herbs, garlic. I like going between the two depending on the food item. Don’t be afraid to really play around with the sauces to find out what you like.

For food, we got their seafood basket, beef slices, veggies, scallops, and their homemade pastes. I found that the quality of their ingredients to be one of the best I’ve experienced eating hotpot. Everything was really delicious. The beef was highly marbled and really good, the sauces weren’t dilute.

My favourite item of the night would have to be the shrimp paste ‘noodles’. It’s shrimp paste that comes in a pipping bag. You squeeze it into your boiling broth and it quickly cooks shrimp ‘noodles’ that takes on the essence of the broth. Very tender and delicious. I really enjoyed it.

Overall, my experience at Liuyishou Hotpot was really good. The quality of the ingredients was really good. The only thing that would possible by a deterrent for me would be price, and variability. There is no doubt that the ingredients here are better quality than most other Hotpot places, but if you wanted to eat to satiation, you’d be looking at probably $50+ per person. Over time, I have gotten less to the point where I prefer quantity over quality (depending on my mood). I can only eat so much nowadays, so when I eat, I prefer it to be higher quality. Give Liuyishou Hotpot a try for yourself!

Disclosure: The food from this post was gifted to us, however our opinion remains unbiased and based on our own experience.