Yo Hot Pot X More, Karrinyup: Perfect stop-off amid your Christmas shopping trip

Detailed summary

On entering the restaurant, which is charmingly themed with Japanese Maneki-neko statues, Vietnamese-style street food posters and a lot of gold and red, you can’t misunderstand the assignment.

After a long morning tramping around the Black Friday sales aisles at the vast Karrinyup Shopping Centre, the last thing our little family party wants is fuss. We want yummy food, fast, to buck us all up before we head back out into the fray for the afternoon.

Dad is the pickiest Asian-food person on the planet, having two Chinese anthropologist parents and been dragged across most of the continent for half his childhood. My husband loathes soup of all kinds.

So it’s with trepidation we enter Yo Hot Pot X More in the centre’s sprawling outdoor food court, meeting Miss 8’s requirements, but specialising in hot pot soups (sorry, Darling Husband).

On entering the restaurant, which is charmingly themed with Japanese Maneki-neko statues, Vietnamese-style street food posters and a lot of gold and red, you can’t misunderstand the assignment.

A giant fridge takes out one wall, with every and any topping one could ever want in a hot pot, and a stack of large steel bowls and tongs beckon for you to begin your own pick-and-mix adventure.

A note of warning, while super fun for kids, I’d recommend parents make sure they aren’t alone with multiple children while they do this — you need a spare pair of hands (or two) and eyes in the back of your head. This isn’t parenting-for-beginners fare.

My husband gives me a beseeching look: “I hate this . . . and I’m starting to hate you” is the clear message.

I gesture for him to look beyond the fridge to the main counter, where the full menu is pinned onto the wall.

His eyes light up, because alongside hot pot, the outlet also has a great range of dim sum-style sides, including pork buns, fried chicken, wonton, cold noodles, gyoza . . . and the option of using all those yummy hot pot ingredients in a stir-fry. There’s something for everyone.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The West Australian. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.