Hankering for hotpot? Summer Hot Pot could be your destination for all seasons, bringing this traditional favourite of Chinese emperors to Bandar Sunway for fans of hearty communal fare. The founders of this fuss-free but colourful space have years of experience in preparing hotpots, so brace your appetite for a feast of palatial proportions.
At RM49.80 per adult at peak hours for an all-you-can-eat hotpot dinner, Summer Hot Pot offers tremendous value for everything that’s available. Hotpots stand at the core of each table, with a circular fringe for the soup and an elevated central surface for grilling various food – a practical way for patrons to savour their meat, seafood and vegetables in two different ways.
Step one at Summer Hot Pot is selecting your soup bases; we chose the Japanese Pork Bone and the Szechuan Spicy (RM6 surplus). The soup recipes are the founder's own - hours of pressure-cooking impart a pleasant savouriness to the bone broth, potent without being overpowering, while copious dried chillies and Szechuan peppercorns make a fiery first impression for the spicy soup, lighter in flavour than many mala soups but sparking a robust burn on the palate that’s nonetheless not overbearing. The soups are topped up frequently by Summer Hotpot’s attentive crew.
Other broth options include Thai tom yam, wild mushroom, and healthy herbal. Choose up to two soups at no additional cost; three soups require a RM5 surplus, while four soups require a RM10 surplus.
Note full rates: Adults (RM49.80 at 4:30pm-10pm, RM39.80 after); Kids (RM24.90 at 4:30pm-10pm, RM19.90 after). Senior citizens 65 years old and above enjoy 20 percent off adult's rate; birthday celebrants also enjoy 20 percent off. Kids below 110cm tall eat for free. A buffet and beer free flow costs RM84.80 nett.
Variety is the distinctive spice of Summer Hot Pot; its extensive buffet line boasts a plethora of meat, shellfish, fresh vegetables, processed food and sauces.
Meat and seafood are chilled to maintain freshness, mostly locally sourced from the markets every two days. Temptations span pork belly, beef slices and oyster mushrooms to marinated specialities like rice wine chicken and curried dory fish to clams and mussels of different shapes and sizes on ice.
No hotpot experience would be complete without memorable sauces. Summer Hot Pot beckons customers over the sauce section to try the Devil’s Hot Sauce, a spicy, tangy concoction that is the signature. For a less challenging possibility, have the Thai Mookata, a sweeter alternative perked up with cilantro. The line-up also includes a classic hotpot sweet sauce, peanut satay sauce, and pork sambal, with cilantro, garlic and lime furnishing customisation opportunities for the condiments.
On-demand barbecue and stir-fry services showcase dishes cooked to order as appetisers or sides to complement the hotpot. Assorted pork chops, chicken chops, squid and even Japanese mackerel boost the protein quotient, with fried lok lok also recently introduced to ensure everyone leaves fulfilled.
We relished everything from roast pork that yields a gratifying crispiness to BBQ honey pork chop, BBQ herb chicken chop, BBQ curry sotong and BBQ saba fish, to mixed grills with a choice of up to three of pork, chicken fillet, clams, bamboo clams, black mussels, prawns, scallops and dory fish fillet, stir-fried with a special chef's sauce that's thick and lingering on the taste buds or a butter sauce that's divine, fragrant in aromatics of curry with a velvety creaminess.
Special weekday value lunch menus are also available, Mondays to Fridays, 11am-3pm, with offerings such as creamy butter sauce stir-fried sets, Szechuan spicy stir-fried sets, siew yok sets, braised pork rice sets, porky soup sets, tom yum seafood soup sets, and more, served with egg, vegetables and herbal soup.
Quench your thirst throughout with a soft drink of choice from the soda machine, as well as a free flow of Chinese tea and herbal tea; to end the feast, numerous flavours of ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, D24 durian, mango, coconut, coffee, strawberry, sweet corn, mint chips), reviving lychee jelly and fruits will soothe the taste buds after all that heat. Beer promotions are available too: Carlsberg Green Label 600ml (RM17, or RM48 for 3 bottles), Carlsberg Smooth Draught 600ml (RM17, or RM48 for 3 bottles) and TsingtTao Lager Beer 600ml (RM13, or RM33 for 3 bottles).
Many thanks to Summer Hot Pot for having us here.
Summer Hot Pot
36G, Jalan PJS 8/2, Bandar Sunway, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Open Mon-Fri, 5pm-12:30am, Sat-Sun, 4:30pm-12:30am. Tel: 03-7498-0704 or 018-201-7768
