Fiery Chongqing-Style Hot Pot Arrives on Crescent Street

Liuyishou Hotpot, an increasingly widespread all-you-can-eat restaurant chain from China known for its mouth-numbing hot pots, has settled in Downtown Montreal.

Specializing in Chongqing hot pot, Liuyishou’s standard broth is fiery, flavoured with beef tallow, Sichuan peppercorns, and red chilis. It’s a style of preparation characteristic of the southwestern Chinese city — reportedly home to 50,000 hot pot restaurants.

Other broth options at Liuyishou include wild mushroom, white pepper chicken, and tomato. However, sticking with the standard play means getting the spicy beef tallow in the shape of a cartoon cow figurine that’ll stand in the pot before getting engulfed by the broth and melting away.

Liuyishou Hotpot

The broths simmer in tabletop pots, ready for diners to dunk everything from pork brain, beef tripe, and frog legs to lotus root, quail eggs, and fish balls. Diners can also choose from more than 20 ingredients and condiments to make their own dipping sauce or follow one of the recipes provided.

The new 3,500-square-foot Crescent Street location is the first in Quebec for the chain, which, founded in Chongqing in 2000, now has more than 1,000 locations worldwide, including outposts in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver. Though serving Montreal diners since March 23, the restaurant is gearing up for what it’s calling its grand opening on April 16, with a promotional discount being offered that day — and the next.

Liuyishou Hotpot is open daily from noon to 2:30 p.m., and from 4 to 10 p.m., at 1224 Rue Crescent.