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Mongolian hot-pot chain looks to open in Chinatown
By adamg on Tue, 04/03/2018 - 3:07pm
Little Sheep Hot Pot, which serves up Mongolian food across the US, hopes to open its first Boston outlet on Washington Street in Chinatown, in the location of a former discount store that was shut in 2015 after its owner and some employees were charged with stocking its shelves with items shoplifted at other Chinatown discount shops.
Although this would be the first specifically Mongolian hot-pot place in Chinatown, Q Restaurant kitty-corner across Washington already serves Mongolian hot pot - along with sushi and Chinese food. Kaze Shabu Shabu on Essex Street serves the Japanese version of hot pot.
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Comments
Hot Pot
I have friends who are big fans of hot pot, and I've tried it couple of times. The first time I burned the roof of my mouth badly, tried it again, was more careful, but it is not my bag. I am lazy and would rather have someone cook the meal for me. I like other dishes at Q and Kaze.
Not really the chain's first foray here. That would be
over in Central Square, under the alternate moniker Happy Lamb Hot Pot, which I reviewed for The Improper a couple of years ago. It's pretty good, though I prefer local indies like Shabu-Zen, Kaze and Q.
A Chinese chain in Chinatown strikes me like
Bertucci's moving into the North End.
That's a good analogy, except that Bertucci's serves
the same middlebrow Italian-American cuisine that 90% of North End restaurants do, which I find mostly mediocre, whereas Little Lamb is doing a decent rendition of a traditional Chinese cuisine, which is also consonant with its neighborhood, but I enjoy more.
I don't object to big chains per se, as long as they're doing a good version of what they do. I have room in my heart for what Denny's does. The issue for me is partly one of preference for the idiom, and I don't much care about that kind of Italian-American food, much of which I feel I can re-create at home without too much trouble. I dream of a North End where one can find a dozen quality renditions of different traditional regional Italian cuisines.
I get why the North End is not that, but the general lack of joy it inspires in me explains why I don't spend many of my dining dollars there, while you can find me in Chinatown a few times a month. As I said, I'm much likelier to support local hot pot joints.
My more urgent concern is with the ongoing invasion of dull national chains here and how they steal talent and dining dollars from much better indies that are pursuing the kind of non-formulaic, chef-driven ideas -- plus places where immigrant chefs are doing their homelands' cuisines but not dumbing down the food for longer-tenured locals -- that make dining in a particular city unique and fascinating. You can get Bertucci's-level food all over the US, but it's harder to find great Vietnamese and a passel of regional Chinese cuisines and the food of brilliant originals like Chuck Draghi and Cassie Piuma and Tracy Chang just anywhere.
The successful incursion into Boston of cookie-cutter chain restaurants that one can find in scores of cities around America is my biggest ongoing worry as a food geek and professional critic about our dining scene. I've said it a thousand times: support your local indie restaurants, I beg you. Let them wither in favor of the soulless, insipid corporate glamour that The Seaport embodies, and we're just Boise with fresher oysters.
Denny's!?!?!
All credibility to your post went out the window with this one statement: "I have room in my heart for what Denny's does."
EWWWWWWW
Long Drives
Whenever I'm on a long drive and it's getting late, but I'm hungry, I'm more than happy to run into a (24 hour) Denny's.
What's wrong with Dennys? It
What's wrong with Dennys? It's not great food. It's not even very good food. But Dennys has a particular place and time, and for those exact dennys-moments --- 11:30pm on a Thursday, a midday breakfast after driving through the night, 20 kids still in their prom attire with milkshakes -- it's perfect. You can have a high standard for food and still like trashy comfort food, while acknowledging it's trashy comfort food and doesn't purport to be anything more.
It's like saying anyone who watches and writes about a lot of indie and arty film shouldn't enjoy the occassional cheesy blockbuster disasterporn. Trash can be a well executed, satisfying version of trash, and sometimes that's what you want
When was the last time you were in a Denny's? I stand
by my assertion that as national chains go, it is good at what it means to do, which mostly is to be the MacDonald's of greasy-spoon diners in terms of ubiquity and familiar consistency.
Maybe you have a counter-example from the same category I should be considering?
(Also, its slow-cooked pot roast with mushrooms and mashed potatoes is surprisingly delicious.)
I've wondered, re: Denny's
How a Waffle House might do around here. Considering how early most places close around here (11 on a typical weeknight), late night eats aren't always easy to come by. But the Waffle House might be a bit more beloved, especially in areas like the South, than Denny's. But it's not for nothing.
Say what you may...
... but the nice friendly Chinese lady who ran that shop and got busted did provide gainful employment to the local junkies. I’m not so sorry Walgreens and CVS up the street were hit with the five finger discount now and then and that the savings was passed on to the community. Now in her place instead some CEO of a national chain will be hauling in the profits. I am sorry to see a small business pushed out and a chain outlet coming in.
Can someone come up with a legal cannabis joke?
There has to be a good joke that can be made between "hot-pot" and the coming of legal weed in retail, but I can't think of one yet....
Reality has already overtaken your joke in the form
of Pot Bar, a new Allston joint that does individual serving sized hot-pot.