Soup Zen Chatswood

Soup Zen is a hot pot restaurant in Chatswood brought to you by The Dolar Shop. Soup Zen's offering is a set price hot pot where you can order as much meat as you want and help yourself to the buffet style vegetables and seafood. But there are some things that you have to know before you go to this hot pot to ensure that you get the best experience (including secret menu items!)

When Laura asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday I was trying to narrow it down between either pizza or hot pot. The persistently inclement weather moved the planchette towards hot pot. Soup Zen is located on Victoria Street in Chatswood and it's a chilly winter's Friday night when Laura, Mr NQN and I arrive. Perfect hot pot weather.

Soup Zen are extending their opening special and although their Instagram and sandwich boards offer a set menu deal that starts at $42.99, that's the happy hour deal. At regular times there's really only one hot pot set meal on offer for $55.99. Another thing was that it was supposed to be a 2 hour window but we only got 1 hour 45 minutes and our clock starts ticking as soon as your butt hits the seat so make sure that everyone arrives together. Staff are very friendly and helpful and when Laura, Mr NQN and I look confused or are looking for things, they help us out. We don the "The secret is in the soup" paper aprons and quickly order.

There is also the option of getting unlimited soft drinks for $4 per person for drinks like tea, pepsi and other sodas. Considering a soft drink is $3.30 it's a good deal and I see Mr NQN's eyes light up almost in disbelief. This man is a drink fiend. For example, if I give him a sip of my drink I have to give him instructions on how much to leave me, lest he suck up the entire drink in one enthusiastic gulp (it has happened, we have argued over this). It's a peach ice tea for me, a soy milk for Mr NQN and a tea for Laura.

We order one each of the meats - these are being shaved at the front of the restaurant. There's Angus karubi, Angus bolar blade, Angus chuck rib, lamb flap, chicken thigh and pork collar butt. There's also a section of meats that are extra like wagyu chuck kurubi, wagyu chuck rib for $29.99 each but we don't delve into these as none of us are huge meat eaters.

We also choose our broths. The most popular is a split broth of chef's spicy and creamy chicken broth and we also choose another split broth with chef's spicy and tomato broth. For our third broth we go with the sukiyaki broth (there's also mushroom, pork and Japanese seafood). Our broth pots arrive quickly and they sit these on the induction plates while we are getting our things from the buffet. You can also call the waiter and request the bill through the tablet.

There's one section for vegetables, one for seafood and one for fried items and sauces. The sauces can be overwhelming in choice. Laura's strategy is to watch what other people are making. As for me I love the Soup Zen Shacha sauce (with its light XO vibes). By the way, balsam oil is sesame oil and the Southern Milk is a red wine style sauce that is a bit of an acquired taste.

The buffet clears quickly so you do have to keep your eye out for the highly prized items like the prawns but we grab a range of vegetables like shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, cabbage, potato, pumpkin and shungiku (chrysanthemum greens). We also fill a pot with seafood - mussels, clams, squid and a myriad of fish balls. We also fill a bowl with all of the noodles. The three pots are bubbling away at the table and we get to cooking before we get up to catching up because the tablet has a count down of how long you have and honestly it feels like time's a tickin'!

The meats are the quickest to cook and Mr NQN ends up eating a lot of these. They're all good but I gravitate more towards the vegetables and seafood. Laura and I both love the balls. I make a big mistake of adding what I think of mayonnaise to a condiment bowl with tomato sauce and mustard. I did think it had a weird texture but figured it might be salad cream or something. It turns out to be sweetened condensed milk so that's a BIG fail on my part. The condensed milk is for the deep fried mantou buns but these are very hard and dry so instead we actually pop these in the soups and they're actually tasty if not rather fuzzy looking after a lot soak in the broth. As for the broths, they are all really good and I don't really have a favourite as it depends on what you are cooking. The spicy broth is great for the potato slices but the sukiyaki is a good all rounder.

Of the fried items, the corn dogs are my favourite and I eat two of these. The other deep fried balls are nice enough but they're sweet with taro inside them. During the night they will constantly fill the soups up with more. At this point I realise that I'm a cheap date. The fish balls are my favourite along with, inexplicably, the corn dogs (it's the tastiest corn dog I've had) and the noodles and sweet potato noodles. During the night Mr NQN constantly orders more drinks with his "trophy" display of finished drinks lined up on the side of the table. When we have 50 minutes to go, we get another bowl of vegetables and prawns.

With half an hour to go, we switch modes and tackle dessert. Now there's one thing that you can order that is delicious but it doesn't appear on the menu. You just have to know to order it. It's the soft serve and tonight it comes in three flavours: vanilla, matcha and a mix of the two. The soft serve is delicious and moreish. If we hadn't eaten so much prior these would have been demolished. The vanilla has a very creamy texture while the matcha has just enough matcha in it to really give you that herbaceous kick and the mix is a nice mix of the two.

The buffet desserts are mostly a DIY affair and honestly we stood there for a minute confused, before asking what to do. They explain that the jelly is the base and then you spoon everything on top of it depending on what you want. There's fresh, diced fruit (pineapple, mango, watermelon and dragonfruit) and there are also sauces (strawberry, mango) which are necessary because the jelly isn't sweet at all. Then there are the toppings like sweetened red beans and an array of popping pearls and seeds. I actually like these with the soft serve together for an Asian sundae of sorts. There's also enormous black grapes and bubor chacha (Malaysian sago dessert) as well as purple rice porridge if you are after something already made.