What's best on a cold, rainy weekend ? Steamboat !!! Nothing beats having a boiling pot of soup at the center of the dining table. The most widely available soup bases we've known are chicken broth, tom yam or even with porridge (which reminds me of 田园火锅).
For our review today, Ho Ho offers a singular pot with only chicken broth, so there's no dilemma here over the soup base. No hot plate and no twin-soup base pot available as an option. One more thing, sorry for those buffet lovers out there but there's only ala-carte offerings here.
How things work here is, you order based on the number of headcounts at the table. For my case, I would usually order a minimum portion by halving the headcounts, and supplementing it with with ala-carte items. Each portion can get you a combo of goodies, such as fish-paste noodles, meatballs, prawns, dumplings, cabbages, yam, beancurd, eggs and etc. Quite a list and below is what we have received when we ordered a 2 pax portion.
As part of the package, you can have a choice of yee-mee, bee-hoon or a combination of both.
Some items we've ordered on the side. The very popular and famous QQ-tofu (beancurd). Not to be eaten raw, you have to submerge it in the steamboat first before serving. The savoury insides are soft and sparsely packed, think something along the line of soaking baguette in soup. Rating: 7.5/10
A must order item for me, Fish-paste noodle. Very smooth, springy in nature and definitely no fishy smell :D Not meant to be taken as sashimi, if that's what you are contemplating to do. Rating: 7.5/10
Finally something which you can put directly into the mouth when served, bypassing the hot pot test. I have no absolute clue on what fish this is, but I love their Deep-fried whitefish 酥炸沙尖鱼. Looks small yet it is boneless, meaty, soft, and deep-fried till crispy on the outside. Most importantly, it passed my fishy-rating test. Rating: 7.0/10.
All that goodies to go with the red, hot chilli paste. Majority out there had their chilli paste stir-fried first before being served, but this is absolutely uncooked. It's like freshly-made chilli juice and so freshness is a top priority. Fear not though, business is brisk for them so that's not much of a concern for me.
A steamingly, satisfying dinner on a cold, rainy night. With a glass of ice-cold sour plum juice to end the meal.
Price: 6.5/10
Service: 6.0/10
Conclusion: From my own (and possibly biased) perspective, I like Ho Ho for the freshness in their ingredients and chicken broth. Other steamboat outlets in town, I have my reservations simply because there's qualms regarding the freshness and hygiene issue. There are other steamboat places in JB worth a visit, and hopefully I'll be able to dine-in and post more updates on them soon.
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85/87, Jalan Molek 3/10
Taman Molek 81100
Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Tel: (+6019) 711 5572
wow cool, JB also got HOHO Steamboat
ReplyDeleteYup, that's correct. jam packed with loads of people during dinner time. The ingredients are fresh and I like their soup ... not so much of MSG.
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