Made a trip to the newly opened Little Sheep Hot Pot, although we had a reservation for 4 at 7pm, I was given a queue number to wait and asked if I only wanted a table indoors or if I was ok outdoors. There was pleasant weather today and the view outside is pretty spectacular since One Fullerton faces MBS and you get a gorgeous view of the city skyline, as well as the River Angbao, iLight and Prudential MBC during this time of the year. I only got a table at 7.20pm but that’s not too bad.

We opted for the signature soup base made with chicken and beef bone and the spicy soup base for old times sake (used to have their packaged soup bases with my university friends in winter time in Australia). Surprisingly, the soups were chock full of garlic and spices. They were flavourful, and the non-spicy signature soup base was more peppery than the packaged one. The spicy one was not very spicy at all, but came packed with chillies. This definitely can’t hold a candle to HDL ma la base as there’s no ma or la feeling at all. In fact, this soup is perfectly drinkable although I would advise against it as there’s probably a fair bit of MSG (all of us that drank the soups felt super thirsty after). There’s also a tomato soup base which we would’ve tried, but you can only order 2 soup bases here so we had to skip it this time.

I would recommend ordering the spicy base if you intend to order some lamb meat. I guess Mongolians eat a lot of lamb meat, and the spices in the spicy base are essential in masking the strong smell of lamb (especially in the fattier cuts). I didn’t enjoy the fattier lamb shabu (which was in the middle tier in the picture), but the leaner cuts were quite manageable for me. Two of my friends were enjoyed the fattier cuts though. We ordered the beef and lamb platter and it was pretty good although we couldn’t tell which meat was what at just a glance. Their menu also doesn’t describe what meats they are providing (vague description: 2 parts of lamb and 2 parts of beef). I found the beef cubes in the platter quite enjoyable, although some cubes were almost 90% fat, the others remained soft and flavourful after being thrown into the hotpot for a few minutes.

Only the winter melon and lime juice drinks are refillable and go for $6.90. Water costs $0.80. Condiments (with complimentary desserts) cost $5 per pax, which we decided to skip this round.

I would probably not order the lamb shabu if I ever made a return trip. In addition, I would reconsider even making a return trip as it is pretty expensive. For the amount of meat we ordered, the bill might be slightly cheaper than HDL (~$58 per pax with service charge) but the service is also not as great as HDL as the staff aren’t attentive and don’t give personal service. I would probably be better off just buying the soup base from the supermarket and savouring my own hotpot at home without fear of being rushed to leave the table or facing unfriendly waitstaff.