聚日式鍋物 台北南昌店
# Open for Business During the New Year
Except for New Year's Eve on 1/28 (Tuesday), when the restaurant will be closed (some branches will be open!), the restaurant will be operating normally from Little New Year's Eve on 1/27 (Monday) to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year on 2/2 (Sunday).
Jù Japanese Hot Pot is a brand under Wang Pin, established in 2004, originally named Jù Hokkaido Kombu Hot Pot, serving fixed set meals. In 2020, it transformed into a “vegetable buffet” style all-you-can-eat restaurant (two locations still maintain the set meal style), with a total of 27 branches across Taiwan.
The Nanchang branch is located in the Zhongzheng District of Taipei City, with the nearest MRT station being Guting Station Exit 1, about a 5-minute walk away. The restaurant is located on the second floor, requiring climbing stairs (there seems to be no elevator). The space is quite large, with many seating options, decorated in a simple and comfortable Japanese style.
After entering, a staff member guides you to your seat, and you scan a QR code to place your order. After dining, you settle the bill, and the receipt has a carry-on option for service charges. Today, two adults and one child came to dine, and children under 120 cm are admitted for free.
There are six soup bases to choose from for hot pot. For two diners, a yin-yang pot is provided, but all soup bases other than the kombu broth require an additional charge of $69. Since I didn’t want to pay extra today, both sides had the same soup base 😂.
For the main dishes, we chose the Snowflake Pork for $398 and the Fresh Squid Seafood Platter for $448. The portion of pork was relatively small, and the seafood platter looked a bit lacking.
Additionally, there was a complimentary “Mt. Fuji” meat dish for birthday celebrants, which didn’t have a lot of meat but looked visually impressive 🥳.
The meat selection was not abundant, but the star of the show was the all-you-can-eat buffet:
The variety of vegetables was limited, but the quality was quite good. There weren’t many choices for mushrooms and balls, but interestingly, there was fresh meat paste that could be cooked into giant or mini meatballs, with nearly 30 types of ingredients available.
The side dishes included the uncommon udon and dipping noodles, with rice options of beef sukiyaki and truffle-flavored wild mushroom rice. The rice wasn’t very hot but had a buttery aroma, which the child loved, eating four or five bowls. My significant appetite made sure I got my money's worth from the side dishes ✌️
Another highlight was the dessert area, which had eight options, and my favorites were the warabi mochi, pearls, and brown sugar syrup. Eating the sweet and chewy delights was very satisfying 😋.
Overall, the quality of the ingredients was quite good. Although the meat was limited, the buffet area made up for this. An all-you-can-eat option under 500 TWD seems to have a good market.
One drawback to note was the layout of the restaurant space; the counter is located between the entrance stairway and the buffet area. Today, there were over ten customers waiting to be seated, which caused a bottleneck at the counter area, creating chaos in the buffet zone—this is quite rare in other Wang Pin chain restaurants.