Boiling Point is one of the darlings of the Los Angeles hot pot scene. Since they opened their doors in 2004, a number of copycats have opened across town. Boiling Point has expanded across California to Washington State, Canada and China. Their success is the envy of the industry and the company seems to be conscious of this - their pot was patented in 2013. Although they’ve already been around for nearly 15 years, lines are still consistently long and it boils down to the simplicity of their menu. All you do is choose a flavor and a well-portioned pot is brought out to you with the ingredients already cooked and ready to eat. The House Special is built on an earthy broth and fortified with pork intestines, blood cubes, quail eggs, fish balls and Napa cabbage.

Duo-Pot serves Sichuan-style hot pots and dry pots. The restaurant gets its name from this two-in-one deal. Dry pot is the same concept as a hot pot, minus the soup. The ingredients are instead cooked in a concentrated base of sauces. The condensed results are tongue-numbingly spicy, so beware. The hot pot is in the middle and the dry pot surrounds the perimeter. Ordering is done via checklist and the pot, which clocks in at about $25, is served family-style.

This is a hot pot chain straight from the Sichuan province in China. Hai Di Lao is billed as a luxury hot pot restaurant and are well-known for their high caliber of service. All ordering is done via tablet and each table is assigned a waiter (a rare practice in Chinese restaurants) who hovers to ensure your pot is filled with water and that your ingredients are added promptly. While this seems standard to Western audiences, Hai Di Lao also attracts a solid clientele of native Chinese who are looking for a taste of home. They are perhaps best known for their “noodle dancers.” For $4, a dancer in white will come over to your table and whirl a ten-foot piece of dough right into your bowl.

Jackpot does individual pots with the ingredients already included. Curry and coconut cream, Taiwanese, hot and sour, and miso are among the variations. For those well-versed in the hot pot scene, Jackpot is often compared to Boiling Point down the street. Portion sizes are generous and Jackpot meticulously controls the quality so that the meat is still medium rare once it hits your table. 

At KaGaYa in Little Tokyo, the priority is really on the meat quality, which seems to be a recurring theme in Japanese-style cooking. That quality comes at a price - the cheapest hot pot menu option is $45 and comes with three appetizers, ten pieces of prime rib beef, vegetables and a dessert. If you have the money to spare, go for their top billed item, the Wagyu beef. Imported directly from Miyazaki in Japan, it’s perhaps one of the best cuts of cow you can get in Los Angeles and given the quality, can practically be eaten raw. The price is $128 per person.

Little Sheep’s Mongolian broth is so renowned that at one point, they were selling it in packs. They specialize in Mongolian-style hot pot - the broth is dark, earthy and enhanced with spices including cumin, soy beans, Sichuan peppercorn, cloves and of course, MSG. The restaurant is set up so that each table gets their individual pot. You order ingredients a la carte - we recommend the lamb shoulder, which is imported from New Zealand and sliced paper thin.

Even in a list of top hot pots, Mokkoji stands out for its great quality and price point. Portions are satisfying and for an extra dollar, the leftovers in the pot are converted into a beautiful bowl of porridge to finish the meal. The beef is raised Kobe-style and sourced from Lexington, Oregon where the cows are fed a strict formula under the guidance of a Japanese dietician. The seafood is sashimi grade, the chicken is Jidori and the pork belly is Kurobuta. Pots average $15 each and come with some of the highest quality cuts available in the Los Angeles hot pot world. A craft beer menu is reportedly rolling out very soon.

Paper Pot Shabu's version of hot pot will make you think the restaurant is pulling some sort of magic trick. The soup is cooked in a pot made entirely out of paper, a special grade called "washi" in Japanese. The secret: the paper is chemically coated to become durable against heat and water. The set menu features prime cuts of meat that are served with assortments of vegetables and noodles.

Seoul Garden is a hot pot veteran located on Olympic Boulevard in Westlake. They’ve been around for over 30 years and have always specialized in one thing: Korean-style hot pot with a chicken soup base. It’s a family-style affair, though you pay per person. The meal can get pricey - it starts at around $28 per head, but it’s well worth the price point. The order comes with unlimited banchan - the spicy pickled raw squid and radish is addictive. At the end of the meal, you get a large portion of udon noodles to cook in your broth and then a massive pot of porridge.