Dining Out in Doha: Sizzling Hot Pot Restaurant

There's a new restaurant in town - Sizzling Hot Pot Restaurant in Holiday Villa Hotel. We went there to celebrate our Tata Ayish's birthday. It was a first time experience for the rest, except me who loves shabu shabu and anything hot pot back home. I thought it was the same experience as normal hot pots but it doesn't come close. REALLY!

Sad to say, the restaurant was no good at all for a hot pot. But, of course, we made the best out the situation since it's a birthday treat for our beloved Aunt Ayish.

These are the things we DID like in this new restaurant:

1. Gotta love the "new" expat attitude, fresh from the Philippines. All staff are Filipinos and they are so friendly and accommodating. It's always refreshing to be served by a Filipino who is less than one month in Doha. The best service ever! Of course customer service in hotels is expected to be great but if it's a "newbie" expat - glorious service.

2. Big space - huge, gigantic, enormous restaurant space! Here's us hoping that they would be able to fill such space with customers.

That's it. All the rest are just plain crap!

• The meat is not fresh,
• Fruits are dry (except the dragon fruit!)
• Vegetables are limited.
• Fried rice is horrendous.
• Other desserts were not delectable at all. 
• Sauces are out of this world in a bad way.
• The hot pot is a cheapo hot pot which uses butane! And the fire is very difficult to adjust so we either ate the food raw or overcooked. 
• The soup bowl is plain ugly. 
• There's no exhaust in the restaurant so we all ended up smelling like fried fish or squid at the end of the meal. 
• We can't have a decent conversation during dinner since all of the waitresses are assisting us to cook our food in the hotpot. Four of them around our table while we eat and cook is just uncomfortable. 

the hot pot!

It was supposed to be a new refreshing experience for all. But sadly, it really is not. However, we ended up full despite all the complaints/ rants  below. Of course, at QR95 per person, we tried to eat  ate our hearts out! BURP! 

the little Turknoy is not happy at all! 

the birthday girl is not happy also!

the Turk's thought bubble: I eat out so I don't have to cook! WTF!

the little Turknoy girl is not happy also!

and the Uncle is just plain hungry! BLLHAAA

Needless to say, we won't be coming back again to this restaurant. Shame because it is the "first in Middle East." I don't know which market niche they want to cater too, but if it's for Asian, it is not good enough or if it's for the classy people in Doha, it's not posh enough OR if it's for the "masses or middle class", it is way too expensive. 

Let's just hope that our impression is wrong and they  manage to come up with some aggressive marketing strategy. After all the restaurant just opened last week. 

Keep exploring!