Restaurant: Wuming Hot Pot
Location: 529 E Valley Blvd #168, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 656-6568
Date: August 20, 2023
Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot
Rating: Just okay mid-end hot pot
In our slow motion question to try all the decent hot pots in the SGV we end up at Wuming.
Nice updated decor. Details reveal a lot of SGV-style DM.
We ran into the manager from 1968.
Sauce and snack bar is decent, but missing the intriguing fermented stuff I like at the best bars.
My usual two sauces.
Brent brought this young Drappier mag that was “aged” in the Pacific! It tasted pretty normal.
Golden Soup and Extra Spicy “Butter Broth” (Ox fat). The spicy one was HOT. Made you cough in that good way and induced “the purge” later.
Fried pork chews. A bit chewy.
Beef and pepper skewer. Very hot.
Beef and cilantro skewer. Not as hot.
Surf Clam. A bit lost in these broths. Better chilled and fresh.
Prawn wrapped in a bean curd? skin. Very tasty.
Crab sticks.
Squid sheets.
Rehydrated abalone.
Mushroom platter.
Tofu platter.
Egg dumplings. Nice to see these on the menu as opposed to just regular dumplings.
Some veggies, like lotus root and potatoes.
Greens.
Luncheon Meat — aka spam. Always one of our favorites.
Lap cheong sausage. Not sure I’ve had this at hot pot but it rules. Once you let it boil for a bit it becomes more tender and retains that great slightly sweet and lactic flavor.
Regular Snausages. Just ok here.
Meat balls of various sorts.
One kind of spicy meat. It was pretty good, but lost a lot of the added flavor when dumped in the pot.
Spicy Numbing Meat. Also hard to tell given the intensity of the pot.
Velvet Meat (with egg). Tasty, and the peices are thicker, so can be a bit harder to chew given the chopsticks.
Meats and quail eggs. Liked the eggs as usual.
Our lady of the meat. Cute.
More meat.
More meat.
More meat.
Overall, Wuming was a solid middle grade hot pot place. Broth was good. It was spicy. Sauce bar was okay but could be better. The options on the menu were great — lots of items and lots of good ones. Quality was pretty good but not the best I’ve ever had. Private room was great. Service was nice but almost non-existent. Hard to place it overall in the ranking as they each have their pluses and minuses. I really love the sauce bar at Shancheng Lameizi but their quality isn’t perfect either.