Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - The Drunken Pot

This hotpot restaurant is located in Causeway Bay V-Point, but there is another outlet in TST. Decorated with interesting street arts, lights that look like traditional lanterns, there is a hip atmosphere which give a great contrast to most of the hotpot restaurants in town. The name translates to 'a pot of wine', it is renown for the many different soup bases.

Arriving early in the evening there are not that many customers yet, and we were seated on the window side with a nice view. However, we felt quite hot and the staff helped us to move to another table in a side room, which was much cooler.

We ordered a drink to start, with me going for Cucumber & Lime ($58) while my wife had the more traditional Sugarcane and Imperatae Drink ($28). The former is quite refreshing and is a good beverage to accompany hotpot, while the latter has a modern twist, served using a bulb-shaped glass. I found the sugarcane drink a bit weird on the taste though.

The soup base was Fish Maw and Chicken with Chinese Medicine ($198). There was half a chicken in the soup with a few pieces of fish maw, and even before we put other food in, the soup was already very tasty.

The restaurant has some signature hand-made meatballs. We decided to try both the Drunken Chicken ($88 for 3 pieces) and Happy Penguin ($88 for 3 pieces). Both looks very cute, but in fact they are nothing special, with one a shrimp ball on fish ball 'egg-shell' while the other is squid ball. They are also quite pricey.

We also ordered a live fish for sashimi. Visiting the fish tanks I decided to have a live Sea Bream ($788). Fresh and tasty, the fish has a great texture, offering a nice bite and a delicate flavor.

As the size of the fish is large, the staff recommended us to deep-fry the belly, bones and head with garlic salt. Really good for pairing with beer (but unfortunately I was not drinking one), it was a nice 'two-way' for the sea bream.

The other dish I liked was the Onion, Pork, Shrimp and Egg Dumplings ($58). Although it sounds trivial, this one was in fact tasty, with the good mix of pork and shrimp giving a nice crunchy texture wrapped inside the egg 'crepe', and the onion added good flavors. Compared with the signature meat balls ordered, this one was much more tasty and better value for money.

We also had Frozen Bean Curd Cubes ($38). A great dish for most hot pot, the cubes absorbed the flavors from the soup, making them bursting in mouth (be careful!) with great taste. In my opinion a no-brainer choice.

Wrapping up the Assorted Vegetables ($68) offered a mix of different seasonal vegetables, including different types of broccoli, corn, pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, kale and Chinese lettuce. All were good and fresh but the corn was a bit too old for me.

Service is in fact quite good, with the staff friendly and advising us to order the appropriate portion. The bill on the night was $1,601 and frankly it was quite expensive, but mainly due to the fresh sea bream ordered. If you want to try a place for hot pot with nice view and hip design, this is an option. But if you just want a nice hot pot, there are many other choices.