icook: an all you can eat hot pot self service experience.

Icook

7030 Warden Avenue

Markham, ON

(905) 307-7878

Like in that giant T&T complex @ warden and steeles

Me and my friends were gonna go out for Hot Pot to this place we went before, but decided to check out this All you can eat self serve hot pot place in Markham called, icook @ 7030 Warden Ave. We were so excited about it, OMG, we get to take as much food as we want, and cook our own food and then get up and serve ourselves drinks and get more food ourselves... AWESOME.... yeah. now that i think about it... We're paying, what $20.00 each, for trays of uncooked, unseasoned food, talk about gold mine... icook is right, icook and iserve myself. itip myself. 

but really, what are you expecting out of an all you can eat place anyway? standards are always set pretty low (except if you're Country Style mmm mmm mmmm)

some of the items available: mussels, prawns, meat slices (beef, chicken, pork, lamb), fish balls, quail eggs, noodles of sorts (glass, udon, ramen etc), veggies (chinese cabbage, green stuff?)

Good:

• all you can eat sauces, hot sauces, sesame butter, chili oil, egg, satay, soy, garlic flakes, onion flakes, etc etc etc all you can think of (that usually costs extra for each sauce, and egg) to put in  your personalized dipping sauces.

• all you can drink pop (usually pop is extra at sit down AYCE hot pot)

• individualized hot pots, to keep my broth clean from those lamb meat stinkers

• everything is put out in the back, so you can help yourself to everything

Bad

• everything is put out in the back... and it's overlapping each other, cooked stuff, raw stuff, there are 1 set of tongs for everything

Gross

• now i didnt experience this, but in the boys bathroom, the place is a health hazard, with the counter rotting from the bottom up, and a roll of paper towel nesting in an ingenius waterproof (ding!) garbage bag covered cardboard box with a hole cut through to pull the paper out.... we totally had laugh about it... and then all went home to threw up.... oh and he wanted me to add... also throw up in toilet from his butt.

It pretty much is the consensus between all my friends that we are not going to visit this place again. a hot pot experience isnt life changing, i mean you cook your food in flavoured water. most hot pot places are All You Can Eat (AYCE) anyway, so the difference here is....... that you have to get it for yourself... soooo, depending on how fast you move... i guess its timeliness of getting food into your mouth? if that really matters to you and you cant wait for a server, than yeah, get the table at the back and stuff your face to your heart's content.