Jpot

Hotpots (otherwise known as steamboat) = comfort food. At least to me. Basically anything soupy is comfort food, and so, hotpots are no different. One thing about having hotpots is that it's a communal affair, so the table tends to be rather full, with all the various dishes, and the huge hotpot in the middle. What I loved about Jpot is that instead of one huge hotpot for everyone at the table, everybody gets their own individual mini hotpot. There are several types of soup bases for hotpots, so at Jpot, everyone gets to have their favourite soup base, no squabbles at all.

 Jpot Vivocity

Mixing your own sauce

I also love that there's a condiments bar, where you get to customise your own dipping sauce. Here's my concoction - with tons of garlic, and chilli. Mix it all up and it's one definite fiery hot dip. Swee.

I've dined at Jpot (Vivo) several times already, and I usually stick to my favourite soup base - the Herbal one. I've only ever tried that, and the Superior base, and the Bak Kut Teh base. The Superior one taste pretty similar to the Herbal one, and anyway, for both the Herbal and Superior soups, when you ask for the soup to be refilled, they top it up using the Superior soup base. The Bak Kut Teh one was pretty peppery, so order it only if you love peppery soups.

Fried beancurd skin

The must-order dish here is the fried beancurd skin. It's simply the bomb. Everyone whom I've dined with at Jpot also gave this the thumbs up. It's crispy, and when dunked in the soup for like say 5-10 seconds, it's both crispy, yet slightly soft at the same time. So so so good. 

Beef slices

It's not buffet-style dining at Jpot, so you order ala-carte, which can be pretty pricey. But they do have set meals for 2 and 4 pax, which I think is pretty worth it. My friends and I usually order the set meals, and top up with additional ala-carte orders (when our group is odd-numbered).

I know there's tons of hotpot places in Singapore, with the perennial favourite being Hai Di Lao. I actually prefer Jpot over HDL though, probably cos of the individual pots, which I think is a really smart move, cos that means solo diners can also dine here (I've actually seen solo diners here before). And also, the queue is definitely much shorter here. I normally call in a few days before (or even the day itself!) to make a reservation and I usually manage to get a reservation (unlike HDL - where you need to call in for reservations way in advance, or queue for a few hours).