Finally go to the much anticipated Chinese-Mongolian lamb hot pot chain Little Lamb Cafe (小肥羊). The picture of the empty interior is a rare sight when you were there as early as 5:30pm. Soon this place is fully packed with long waiting lines.
We order the Yin-Yang soup base (herb soup and spicy soup). There’re ginseng, dates, and tons of medicine herbs and ingredients, very flavored, rich and healthy tasting. We order Top Grade sliced lamb and chicken. The chicken breast is too rough but it’s for my friend who avoids red meat, but she ended up eating the lamb. The lamb is just too heavenly~~
Assorted: Nappa, Daikon Sliced, Mongolian Bean Thread (very nice), Sliced Yam, Eryngii Mushroom (love it!), and of course, Pig Blood! Not in picture: Squid Paste and Lamb Meatballs
Love the sauce! There’re sacha (brown), seseme (white), plum (red), and veggie (green), so you get a variety of sweet, sour, salty and more. The (free) apppertizer dishes are very good too, especially the bread!
The (free) dessert is crazy!!! We’re so stuffed and this is the most stuffing dessert ever~ X-0 Include tax and tips, $16 each.
Very satisfied, very very good! I can’t wait to go back again!
Little Lamb Cafe
Mongolian Hot Pot
227 W. Valley Blvd. #348, San Gabriel, CA 91776 (626) 457-5599
120 S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, CA 91754 (626) 282-1089
1695 Azusa Ave., Hacienda Heights, CA 91745 (626) 581-4922
hey, this place sounds pretty good, even I want to try it too!! you say one of the soup is spicy? but they both look pretty mild. . . without any hint of red ? it is different kind of spicy? the sauce looks pretty good too! and what’s inside of the desert? red bean?
Oh you went!! Yeah, the spicy soup doesn’t look red? Was it spicy? I remember when I went to the one in HK, we started off just eating from the spicy soup but then it just got too hot and my tongue was all numb and painful(I think my spice tolerance is quite high but still!) so I switched to the clear soup, which was actually very tasty too.
You just had one lamb?? I remember the “lamb 腰 meat” was quite good even though it is much cheaper. Try it next time~~Was there a “squid paste” option? It was good too. Wahaha, you had pig blood~~~
You have so many extra stuff that we don’t have in HK – the sauces, the side dishes and the desserts~~~~but maybe you don’t need the sauces? The idea of this chain shop is that the soup is so flavoured and salty enough that you don’t need extra sauces or soy bean sauce like shabu shabu or traditional chinese hotpot. But I suppose it is a nice to have extra option to put sauces or not.
I really want to eat it now~~~~~~
We had “little spice” only so it’s not red, but still it’s quite spicy especially for the veggie that absorb the soup. It is those “Ma-La” numb type of spice so their effect stays long so even the little spice lingers on and added on when you continue eating. As for the sauce, we asked for them but most table didn’t use it, so I guess it’s not a common thing? But all of them except the veggie one taste very mild and light, especially the seseme one, so they added on subtlely. The seseme compliment the dry rough chicken breast well ^^;;; while I think the sacha goes well with the lamb (and beef).
This chain we went to only have 2 types of lamb meat: fat lamb or top grade lamb (which I assume is baby lamb). I remember your entry so I was ?_? on the little choices of lamb part we get. Maybe it varies in different chains? I gotta try the other two in LA. Oh we had the squid paste, yeah that was good!! Actually we have more stuffs that I forgot to take pictures of (squid paste, lamb meatballs).
Oh outside at the patio there’s also a “Mongolian tent” with a large table inside ^^;; Oh Tina even if you don’t eat red meat, there’re plenty of other choices too. Even vegetarians have more than enough to choose from.
I tried this Mongolian hotpot twice. I don’t know… I still like the original spicy hotpot much better. I’m really used to all those medicine taste.
Oh you can choose the spice level??? It is either spicy or non-spicy in HK. I always think “mildy spicy” will also be milder in taste, i.e. not so nice, but in this case I think they probably just put chilli into the clear soup anyway. Yeah, putting veggy in spicy soup is not a good idea – veggy in clear soup, meat in spicy soup was what I did. But having said that, I drank two whole bowls(small) of the spicy soup even before the lamb meat arrived…it was just too good~~~I like the medicine taste too.
Are there different type of soups you can choose from in HK too? (there’re 2 other kind of soup, something like, “Summer Cooling soup” and “Beauty soup” I wonder what they are ^^;;)
Eileen, which Little Fat Lamb chain did you go to? I wonder how’re the other ones quality/service-wise.
Oh no there is only spicy and clear soup in HK. L.A. seems to have more varieties~~you should try next time(ask what it is before you try though ^^;;;)