Spice Palace Hot Pot, Irvine CA

A reasonably priced hot pot restaurant like this is hard to find in Irvine. We’re glad we found it!

Food is just awesome, best authentic hotpot place I’ve tried in LA area. Service is mediocre. Snack bar is amazing, everything tastes so good! Price is very reasonable, I would say it’s cheap especially compared to the hotpot restaurants in where I’m from - Vancouver Canada.

One of the best dining experience I’ve had in LA.

This place is super authentic. Some of the menu items are in Chinese only and I had to ask for help. There is a “sauce” station that also has other snacks and desserts. It’s hard to figure out what we’re supposed to do when we don’t know Chinese and the servers were not helpful. Food is good overall but wish they had ponzu sauce. I know ponzu is Japanese but it’s still what we like.

New Chinese hotpot restaurant in town. Not too busy on a Thursday evening. Everything is great here. One of the best Chinese restaurants in OC. Food is fresh. Decorations are attractive. The free snack bar has many choices including some upscale items. But the price is among the lowest in Chinese hotpot restaurants.

Very good seating options and food quality. The pricing was very fair and the atmosphere was beauoful.

One of my favorite Hot Pot restaurants!
Real Chinese Food Spicy Tastes. And they offer so many different types snacks.
Highly recommended. You will not disappoint.

This was a great company lunch spot. We shared two pots across 10 people and it worked well. The meat was fresh and the quantities were good. They also had unique Chinese cuisines you don't see often like frog and stomach lining, both of which were delicious.

The only downside was that the waiters were not very attentive in refreshing water and removing plates. We also had trouble with loading the online menu due to poor reception and it took awhile for the staff to bring us paper menus to actually order.

They are totally open when we arrived (4pm on Sunday, which is within the hours - see picture), but told us they are closed. The waitress apparently didn’t want to work, so she lied about the schedule in order to kick us out.

I ordered chicken soup pot bottom, beef and mutton slices, fish balls, etc. The food is very fresh, the dining environment is very good, the sauce is delicious, and it is very comfortable to eat.

The spicy soup is full of spicy taste
Chicken soup stock plus vegetables cook together sweet
Scan the buffet to order~

I've been eating there for several years and it's always been good, but recently it's been really bad. The waiters don't know how to train them, and their attitude is worse than the last one. Especially the middle-aged lady who works on weekends, and she won't let two people eat at a table for four. Can you please plan the restaurant? Seats for two? The guests next to me are also two people sitting at a four-person table. Do you think that the other guests can't see it? Why can't I give up my unbooked seats? Then why don't you just close up shop? Tell me there are 12 guests and then you don’t let me sit at a table for 4 and ask me to sit at a long table for 12. This is either because I have a problem with my IQ or because I have a problem with my eyes. I made the guests angry and apologized without having a mouth that is harder than diamond. What kind of service industry can we do with such an attitude?

Poor service. We had two and asked for a vacant table which seats 4 (there were 3 of them being vacant). This "Karen" server took us to a long table which seats 8 having another group of customer taking half of it. She said they have a seating group of 12 coming so I can't seat at the table for 4 which makes no sense for us at all. There are other groups of 2 at table of 4. We asked if it's reserved and she said no. So I insisted on sitting at the private table that seats 4 and she starts being rude and "Karen". It's simply pathetic when a server is throwing tantrum at customers.