Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot and Grill Restaurant Review

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot and Grill is a hot pot restaurant in downtown San Mateo, right across from Walgreen’s. Their soup base options have recently become more acceptable for mainstream Americans.  This company has a couple locations in the USA and many more in Asia. Yum Brands (KFC, Taco Bell) actually partly owns this company. Chinese hot pot is a fun meal where a pot of boiling broth at your table is used to cook meats, vegetables, and seafood. Cooking involves dipping the food in the boiling broth for 30 seconds to a couple minutes. They also have some pre-cooked BBQ and Rice, Dumpling, Pancake items on the menu. Our last visit was at the end of 2011 for dinner.

Decor, Vibe – Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot has clean modern decor, surprising for a place like this. Bar area up front. Not like most Chinese restaurant, with clean bathrooms. This place gets crowded at night.

Mongolian Hot Pot Menu

Menu

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot has added a Vegetarian soup base, Herbal Pot shop, Miso soup, and Pork Rib pot on our last visit.  All cost $3.75 per person.  These bases make their hot pot a lot more mainstream.

Take care when you order, it is easy to order too much.  You can always add to your order! Luckily you can cook all those extra items and take them home.

Full Set of Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot Menus

Picks:

Half Spicy Broth/Half Normal

Beef, Lamb

Vegetable Assortment

Mongolian Mini Hot Pot Combo ($9.95 Lunch) – We selected Half Original /Half Spicy broth, Lamb and Beef, Veggies. It was fun to cook our items. The soup base had a little more Chinese herbs than most may be used to, but was fine for us. You might be better off at Shabuway if you cannot handle this. Quality of the meats was average, nothing gourmet here.

Pork Rib Pot Soup Base ($3.75 per person) was a welcome addition to the menu. Little Sheep’s original soup base is pretty medicinal, while this one is a lot more mainstream with its strong port flavor. As a bonus you can meet the tender rib pork meat at the end of your meal.

Supreme American Style Kobe Beef ($13.95) was much better than the normal beef, but still not as good as Shabuway’s.

Assorted Mushroom platter ($10.95) is a must for any mushroom fan. Several different types.

House made lamb meat ball ($6.95) takes a while to cook but are a solid bet.

Ton Ho vegetable ($3.95) are relative of the spinach and broccoli family. You get a huge bundle of these greens which just take a couple minutes to blanch.

Fresh tofu ($2.95) had a good-sized selection of jiggly white tofu.

House special wide noodles ($4.95) with a bowl full of wide among being noodles that cooked up in 30 seconds or so.

Red Bean Paste Yam Cake ($3.95) had 2 soft and hot yam cakes filled with very sweet red bean paste. An acquired taste, but hot and delicious.

Mongolian Lamb Skewers ($6.95) had 4 meaty skewers of lamb. Good quality, a little gamey, lots of spices on top made for a pretty spicy skewer.

OK:

Supreme lamb shoulder slice ($5.95) had a lot of fat and was fairly low in quality.

Supreme beef slice ($7.95) was a pretty average selection of meat with no special flavor.

Mojito ($9) was on the weak side, more like a slush than a cocktail.

Sesame Pancake ($5.95) was a big freshly cooked round bread with sesame on top. Hot and fresh, so we ate it fast. As rewarmed leftovers, it was terrible.

Pans:
None

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot’s service was average, all they had to do is serve the soup base and bring the raw stuff to our table. Hard to screw up! Expect to track down servers for any other needs including the check.

Lunch, with its $9.95 Mini Hot pot Combo is the best bet. They have other lunch specials, but look at the name of the place! We have been here before and spent over $20 per person checking off items from their long lists.

Hot pot Shabu Shabu is fun way to eat, and great for groups. Order a little first and then add more if you have the room. It is easy to overeat when chowing on small bites at a time, so eat slowly. Don’t forget to drink the leftover soup when you’re done cooking. A good hot pot restaurant is Japanese Hot pot restaurant Shabuway. Their meat is better, but their menu is more limited. Prime Rib Shabu in San Francisco is also a good bet. Go crazy with unlimited meat and beer at Shabu House in Burlingame and San Francisco.

Hot Pot restaurants in Beijing are interesting in their diversity.

$25 Dining Certificate for $5

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot and Grill Overall Rating: (Good 2)

Come Back?

Food Rating:	(Good)
Service Rating:	(Average)
Atmosphere Rating:	(Very Good)
Value Rating:	(Very Good)

Guide: 0 = poor, 1 = Below/Average, 2 = Good, 2.5 = Very Good, 3 = Excellent , 4 = Extraordinary

Alcohol:	Full Bar
Attire:	Casual
Hours:	5pm-11pm, Mon-Fri 1130am-230pm.
Parking:	Street
Reservations:	Yes
Prices:	$4.49 - $9.95