Located in the Park & Shop, just a bit further right from 99 Ranch, you will find yourself at…read moreZhangliang Malatang, wedged between quite a few other eating/beverage places.
Zhangliang Malatang offers a soupy experience, where you get the options to build your own soup. The soups themselves are already flavored and made, but what you do get to edit is what actually goes in it.
It's a decently sized place, while lots of small tables could certainly be pieced together if need be for larger tables over at the booth side of the restaurant. It's basically all self-service here, from what you want in your meal, to the condiments (which there are plenty) that may go with it.
They do offer things other than just soup based cooking style, as they have a stir fried chow mein of sort too if you decide to go that route, though do beware that apparently they only have the one sauce for that cooking style, and it's pretty spicy, so if you go that route just know that there will be no flexibility for that at all flavor wise.
How about the ingredients here?
I've been to other similar places like this before, for example, Tang Bar, which also does this pick your own ingredients thing and they soup it or stir fry it for you.
I'd say between the two though, the quality of ingredients at Zhangliang is probably a bit better than those other places, though selection options are about the same, but Zhangliang still have a few options that I usually don't see at the other spots. I also feel the ingredients here just feel fresher overall, albeit still frozen for some, but even then fresher.
Again, you can make your own base here, so you don't have to get the noodles if you don't want to because it will just come as a soup regardless. If you just want soup and not noodle soup, that's fine. Though, a bit of warning, everything is counted by weight (minus the soup), so just don't get too happy putting stuff in because it all looks so good because speaking from personal experience, it will go over your expected cost very quickly depending on what you got. Watch out for that noodles weight!
Service here is usually pretty good. Even though it's self service mostly, you still have to go up to the front to pay, and then let them know what flavor of soup base or cooking style you want. Never had an issue, they were willing to answer questions and such.
The condiments bar while you are waiting for the arrival of your food to get prepared and finished is usually where you should go. I generally just pack up on the garlic for the most part because there can never be too much garlic in your soup. That's right, I said never! Just kidding. But the point is that there's plenty of condiments and you can get as much as you like. I also personally like to make a sesame peanut sauce since all the ingredients are there for me to do so for when I pull food out of my soup I can also dip them into that sauce, similar to what you do at hotpots.
Once you get your food, you will be able to test out the ingredients first hand since they're not ready to be eaten. I feel almost everything I get each time I go in, I've been happy with them being in my soup, so no complaints there as it's always been tasty.
Final verdict, Zhangliang Malatang is a great place to go to if you're in a soupy mood. The Malatang part is also for those who are spicy adventurous and interested in making their tongue feel the burn. I've had the spicy stuff here before and it is indeed very spicy, but I would not recommend for most if you can't handle it. Noodles are always great, but they are deceptive because that's usually where much of the food weight will be coming from in your bowl if you go too heavy. Ingredients over noodles for the best bang for buck. I would recommend this spot for those who are in the mood for hotpot, but don't want that tenuous and slower hotpot experience.