Yummy, tasty, delicious hot pot! ChineseBites invited a group of foodies to try out Boiling Point in Burnaby last week. Boiling Point specializes in Taiwanese hot pot and has 2 locations in BC and 15 more in the USA. The Burnaby location is on Kingsway, near Royal Oak.




Boiling Point's House Special is the authentic Taiwanese Fermented Tofu Hot Soup (#1 on the menu). They currently offer 10 diverse hot soups on their menu and is continuing to develop new combinations and flavours, which we had the opportunity to try.

They have specially made combinations of ingredients for each hot hot instead of having the customer choose a hodge-podge of ingredients and ending up with a sludge soup. This way the soup tastes different depending on which hotpot you order.


My favourite ones were Seafood & Tofu (#2), Beef Hot Soup (#4), Curry Fish Balls (#6), Japanese Miso (#9) and Organic Tofu (#11). But I avoided the spicy ones so almost all the ones I tried were very good. The only one I didn't really like was the Tomato Veggie (#7). It is a vegetarian hot pot soup and had a sweet taste - most likely due to the tomatoes. Those who tried Taiwanese Spicy said it was very spicy. You must be able to take the heat because it's only available in flaming spicy level! For all the others, you are able to customize up to five levels of heat - from none to flaming spicy.

#1 House Special Hot Soup - Napa, Fermented Tofu, Sliced Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Kamaboko, Meat Ball, Clam, Quail Egg, Pork Blood, Pork Intesetine, Nira, Preserved Vegetables, Tomato, Cilantro

#2 Seafood & Tofu - Taiwanese Bok Choy, Shrimp, Sliced Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Frozen Tofu, Baby Octopus, Clam, Cuttlefish Ring, Fish Fillet, Fuzhou Fish Ball, Vermicelli, Egg, Green Onion.

#3 Korean Kimchi - Napa, Vermicelli, Sliced Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Egg, Kamaboko, Meat Ball, Tempura, Clam, Fuzhou Fish Ball, Kimchi, Firm Tofu, Fried Tofu Skin, Imitation Crab Stick, Green Onion

#4 Beef - Napa, Vermicelli, Sliced Angus Beef, Enoki Mushroom, Tomato, Firm Tofu, Tempura, Corn, Meat Ball (Pork), Kamaboko, Fried Tofu Skin, Imitation Crab Stick, Green Onion, Cilantro.

#5 Lamb - Napa, Vermicelli, Sliced Lamb, Enoki Mushroom, Imitation Crab Stick, Kamanoko, Pork Blood Rice Cake, Organic Maitake Mushroom, Clam, Pickled Mustard Greens, Firm Tofu, Tempura, Fried Tofu Skin, Egg, Green Onion, Cilantro.

#6 Curry Fishball - Napa, Vermicelli, Slice Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Imitation Crab Stick, Fish Ball, Fried Tofu Skin, Corn, Tempura, Mountain Yam, Chinese String Bean, Egg, Green Onion.

#7 Tomato Veggie - Napa, Vermicelli, Slice Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Firm Tofu, Corn, Lotus Root, Bean Curd, Chinese String Bean, King Oyster Mushroom, Taiwanese Bok Choy.

#8 Taiwanese Spicy - Cabbage, Instant Noodle, Sliced Angus Beef, Tempura, Enoki Mushroom, Clam, Fuzhou Fish Ball, Cuttlefish Ring, Pork Intestine, Pork Blood Rice Cake, Fried Tofu Skin, Maitake Mushroom, Frozen Tofu, Green Onion, Cilantro.

#9 Japanese Miso - Cabbage, Udon, Sliced Pork, Enoki Mushroom, Clam, Fuzhou Fish Ball, Fish Fillet, Organic Maitake Mushroom, Crab, Fried Tofu Skin, Soft Tofu, Egg, Green Onion.

We also tried three types of noodles: udon, and the original and spinach wok noodles, which Boiling Point also sells packaged. The noodles were delicious! I really liked the spinach wok noodle.

Spicy Fermented Tofu

Another side dish we tried was Boiling Point's Spicy Fermented Tofu aka stinky tofu! If the smell doesn't hit you on the way in, ordering this dish will. It certainly is an acquired taste! It is very strong in smell and the taste seems to coat your mouth. I was battling it on two fronts - the spiciness and the classic stinky tofu taste. Phew!

Thankfully, these snow cube came at the end of the meal for cooling down. It's very creative way to present dessert. They come in six different flavours: Strawberry, Sesame, Matcha, Chocolate, Taro, and Hokkaido Flavour with Brown Sugar Konjac. My top two favourites were Taro and Sesame. They weren't as sweet as the others but had great taste. Matcha and Hokkaido were good too. Chocolate was ok. Strawberry was the only one that I didn't like - it was very sweet like jam. But all in all a great way to end a hot pot meal!

Disclosure: The meal was provided free of charge by the restaurant. The opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own and have not been influenced in any other way.