Last few times IronFist and I found ourselves in Sydney, we always noted the extremely long queue to get into Six Po Hot Pot, a Sichuan style spicy hot pot situated along George Street at Haymarket. Large crowds of people never cease to pique my attention as I always imagine the restaurant to be really good and worth the long wait. Even with some bad experiences waiting in line, we decided we needed to know what on ear the hype was about, so we got there right after opening time, before a queue formed.
We were seated very promptly. Service was friendly but devoid of English. Poor IronFist spent the whole evening marginalised and ignored by the waiters.
Starting up with the signature yuan yang pot, it was set up fairly quickly. As you would expect, one side was spicy the other was herbal. I stuck religiously to the herbal, but was fairly amazed that IronFist was quite spice tolerant.
A skewer can was provided on the table for us to dispose of used skewers (and to allow them to tally up our total).
Our waiter didn't do much by way of introducing how to order, but rather pointed at this note taped to the corner of our table. Sauces were charged at $2 per head, soup was either full spicy or half half (what we got), small skewers were 70c each and large skewers were 90c. There was also the choice of three non alcoholic drinks to accompany the hot pot. Iron Fist asked for red wine, and was directed to get his own bottle from across the road.
Compared to what I've had before, the sauce station was a little depleted, but still contained everything I needed to make my signature soy, garlic, green onion sauce.
Of course we avoided the can of oil on the side as we still wanted to live a long and (relatively) healthy life.
Food via skewers or plates were obtained on a DIY basis. Although I could see the benefits in being able to choose your own skewer and dishes, there were quite a few skewers that had no meat on them, and quite a few meats with multiple skewers through them, it took a while for me to actually find one piece one skewer, so I guess it would be fairly easy to be overcharged if you were in a hurry.
Before long, our table was full.
Small skewers were fairly small in portion, as were large skewers. Dishes of non meat items like tofu and noodles were fixed in portion so we couldn't have a lesser amount even if we wanted to.
Dishes of meat were quite fatty, and for the price, portions were not too generous.
Skewers in bubbling hot soup is still a fairly new experience for me, and this was definitely a fun experience. Coming to roughly $50pp without any drinks though made for a pretty expensive dinner considering we weren't overly full when we left. Having said that, it satisfied my curiosity.
Taste: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Service: 5/10
Environment: 6/10
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