Haidilao Hot Pot had me at dancing noodle!

Neighborhood: La Jolla, UTC Mall

Price: $$

Vibe: Lively and welcoming ambience, bustling with diners, dancing noodle dancers and kitty-cat robots zooming up and down the aisles. I suggest you make a reservation if you don’t want to wait – the line can get long in this hip location in the mall. Oh, and if you’re dining alone, they bring a giant stuffed plushie companion to sit in the booth with you, because who wants to eat hot pot alone?

Readers of this blog know that I absolutely LOVE hotpot. It’s spicy, it’s interactive, and you can customize it to your tummy’s delight. So, I was excited to try Haidilao, the new hot pot restaurant situated in the UTC mall in La Jolla, but I was also a little hesitant. Would this place live up to my “go to” hotpot joint, Little Sheep Mongolian HotPot?

Once seated inside, the staff provide a Haidilao-branded apron. Now, I typically wear dark clothing when I dine at hotpot because it’s soup and it drips due to my complete abandonment of decorum with the spicy soup, so the apron was a classy move from my perspective.

The menu is vast with a large variety of ingredients to choose from. Your party must first decide which broth to order. Due to the brilliantly designed vessel within the table, with up to four slots for your desired broths to bubble and froth, you are confronted with the ordeal of choosing between the eight options.

Here’s what we chose starting at the top-left and going clockwise:

• Spicy Pork Bone Soup - this one felt like the most traditional of the soup bases. Similar to other hot pot restaurants in the area, it had a deep and rich pork flavor with a nice level of spice.

• Miso Soup Base – this one had a yummy, deep umami flavor and I really liked how different it was from the other broths.

• Mushroom Soup Base – this one was a pure delight and probably my most-highly recommended broth option. The depth of mushroom flavor is unctuous, and I found myself choosing this one to fill my bowl repeatedly. Try it.

• Regular Mala Spicy Soup Base w/ Vegetable Oil – of the four broth options we tried, this one was the only one not meant to be eaten like a broth. It was a spicy, oil-based broth and I liked cooking the meats, noodles, and veggies in it, but then straining it out a bit before it landed in my personal bowl. It was spicy and delicious!

You must venture to the condiment bar during your visit — so many fun ways to customize your hotpot meal.

Haidilao Hot Pot provides just about any hotpot ingredient one could want from meats to seafood, noodles, vegetables, and the like, but their condiment bar (of which three are located throughout the space!) coaxes Western diners out of their comfort zones with bonito flakes, eggplant, a kaleidoscope of fungi, other pickled items. Though, in addition to the add-ons to the overall meal, one must, and I mean MUST, have the enticing feast for the eyes: The Dancing Noodle. Check out the video of the Dancing Noodle, freshly made and stretched right there at your table.

The meats we chose were the Angus Beef Ribeye, Kobe Beef Belly, Australian Lamb Shoulder (oh my!). Along with the Dancing Noodle, we also got an order of Udon noodles (my fave), Woodear mushrooms, Enoki mushrooms, spinach, Bok choy, Napa cabbage. The tables are designed to easily accommodate all your hotpot ingredients, without spilling out into the aisles or requiring additional tables like other hotpot restaurants. Brilliant!

If you’re lucky, you may get some of your ingredients delivered by the Kitty-cat robot zooming up and down the aisles, which adds to the zaniness of the experience.

You must absolutely try Haidilao Hot Pot. This place blew me away, not only with the wonderful food, but the bustling and lively atmosphere that makes for an incredibly fun meal. And who doesn’t love robot Kitty-cat servers and dancing noodle guys?

Haidilao Hot Pot

4545 La Jolla Village Drive, Suite F9

San Diego, CA 92122