Shancheng Lameizi Hot Pot

Around Orange County, it’s not difficult to find Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese restaurants serving hot pot meals; Some are all-you-can-eat-style, giving each table one or two different broths to soak-cook endless plates of meats, fish, and vegetables, guaranteeing stuffed guests will either waddle or roll back to their cars; others are a la carte or weigh out meals by the pound. Shancheng Lameizi Hot Pot is somewhere in the middle of the pack: Founded over 20 years ago in Beijing, China with one OC outpost (in Irvine, next to Tokyo Central) and several others across California, this restaurant instead offers a large menu of a la carte proteins and vegetables, but adds AYCE access to an optional but trivially inexpensive “sauce” bar for only $3 more per person. Since the bar actually includes not only sauces but also snack items and desserts, hungry guests still have the ability to fill up inexpensively – just not on comparatively high-value proteins.

Shancheng Lameizi’s menu includes dozens of different proteins, ranging from comparatively tame thin-sliced beef, lamb, and chicken breast to semi-exotic meats including frog, snakehead fish, and supposedly authentic Kobe beef cuts, plus quite a few interesting organ meat options such as pig brain and goose intestine. Militant omnivores may be intrigued by “tofu blood,” while vegetarians have around 20 choices ranging from (presumably bloodless) tofu variations to glutinous corn, rice cakes, mushrooms, and square bamboo shoots.

In the attractive, traditionally Chinese-decorated space, which includes multiple small semi-private dining rooms, pricing varies considerably depending on what you order. Individual protein or vegetable plates range from $4 (soybean sprouts) to $50 (kobe beef ribeye), with the vast majority in the $5 to $13 range. Seven pre-cooked, appetizer-sized “staple foods” such as steamed rice ($1.50) and fried Chinese donuts ($6) round out the food menu. Soft drinks and teas are generally inexpensive at only $2.50 to $3, while beer (including China’s famous Snow Beer) goes for $4 to $11 based on bottle size. A single type of sake is available in either 375ml or 750ml sizes for $20 to $36.

If you’re thinking you might visit Shancheng Lameizi and just pay $3 for access to the sauce, snack, and dessert bar, think again. Guests are expected to choose between the restaurant’s signature “nine boxes spicy pot” ($19) – a square hot pot container with either mild, medium, or hot broth sub-divided into nine compartments for organized cooking – or a half-and-half pot ($16) that adds any of five non-spicy broths (bone, mushroom, tomato, fish/chicken, pork tripe/chicken) as options.

As huge spice fans,we ordered the hottest spicy broth and the pork tripe/chicken broth; the former blood red and full of red chilis and chili oil, the latter pale yellow with sliced ginger, green onions, and jujubes floating on top, plus small chicken wings and pork tripe slices floating below the surface to add flavor. We were fully satisfied by the spicy pot, which offered enough heat and umami to nicely season anything we cooked in it; the pork and chicken broth was comparatively bland, making the sauce bar all but necessary to punch up the flavor of meats, fish, and veggies.