What you see above is a Taiwanese hot pot from a restaurant called Boiling Point, a popular San Gabriel mini-chain that started sometime around 2007 specializing in the Sterno-heated dish. There are stores in Arcadia, Hacienda Heights, and Monterey Park, not to mention a few out of state. The next is planned for Irvine in the same plaza as Buffalo Wild Wings and Caspian on Culver near the 5.
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On its website, the seven varieties of hot pot on offer is described as “So hot. So bubbly. So stinky. So wanty! Originated from Taiwan, stinky with a great savory taste, non-greasy and non-fattening are the distinctive features of our famous soup base.”
For now, the Irvine store is nothing but a banner. Peeking inside the space, I saw that not much has been done. They've barely started gutting the place. Whether it will take as long to complete as some of the long-awaited new restaurants at Diamond Jamboree (Chef Hung, etc.) remains to be seen.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.