Mala King Hot Pot & Chinese BBQ (麻辣王火锅和烧烤) was easily one of the most highly anticipated restaurant openings in Winnipeg this year. Seriously, the hype was insane! Apparently, people were lining up in the pouring rain just to get a taste during their Grand Opening on Saturday, September 26, 2026.
To celebrate my friend’s birthday, I called to make a reservation that day for the following Tuesday. Even over the phone, I could hear the loud background. It sounded like the place was absolutely packed!
Arriving at the Restaurant
The restaurant is in the basement. It was The Captain’s Broil, before that, Yamato Japanese Restaurant.
The decor is cute, but the space feels a bit cramped, similar to many restaurants in Asia. It’s divided to two sections – the north side and the south side. In between is the cashier and weigh area, and the water dispenser sits on the counter. There is also another counter section where they display dessert menus and stack plates.
We got there before 5:30 PM and it was already busy. I would say 80% of the customers were under the age 30. Some of the staff looked scrambled. It was a young staff, and I am not sure how many serving experiences some of them have had. But they were trying their very best.
We were given a table number holder with our table number on it. The tables are so small. Also, there’s no space between my chair and the chair behind me. I thought, how are they able to serve hot pots? Well, they don’t.
You see, when I first heard the word “hotpot”, I was thinking grabbing the ingredients and cooking them yourself in a boiling pot. You know, something many Chinese do at home. (If you are interested in learning more about hot pot at home, read here: Cozy Chinese Hotpot at Home: The Perfect Winter Comfort Meal)
My friend and I are very familiar with hot pot restaurants with self-serve sections. But as we sat down, the staff didn’t say anything to us about how this works, and there were no signs showing customers where to go. If this were my first time visiting a restaurant with this kind of setup, I would be completely overwhelmed. At one point, I ended up helping other wandering customers by telling them what they needed to do.
Let me walk you through the steps so you can walk in knowing exactly what to do, if you haven’t been:
Step 1: Grab a metal bowl (or a plate for skewers) and a pair of tongs
Naturally, we just went to the self-serve area. It’s long and narrow, so can’t fit too many people at once. We were wondering if we’re going to be given bowls or plates by the staff as we didn’t see any in the self-serve area. Finally, a staff member came out with a stack of big metal bowls and put them all the way at the end of the self-serve area where the tongs were hung.
Step 2: Put what you want in the bowl
You have your choice of seafood, veggies, assorted balls like lobster balls and fish balls, bean curd, noodles, meat, and snow crab (limited to 1 piece per customer). There is also a skewer section specifically for the BBQ.
Step 3: Pick the soup base
Ok, we picked our food. Now what? We looked around. I saw a scale at the cashier, so I assumed that’s where we would get our food weighed. Yup.
My friend thought we had to show our table number, but it turned out we didn’t have to. The girl behind the counter asked us if we had already been seated or if we just went ahead, grabbed a table number holder, and got our food. It took a bit of back-and-forth communication to get it sorted out.
Now it’s time to pick our soup base.
The soup base is for Malatang (麻辣汤)—literal translation: numbing spicy soup. If you don’t want soup, you can opt for a stir-fry base called Malaban (麻辣拌). Shaokao (BBQ 烧烤) bases are also available for the skewers.
Step 4: Weigh your bowl and pay
The cashier will weigh your bowl on the scale and calculate the price at CAD$39.99/kg. You pay right there at the till, and they will cook the food.
Step 5: Make your own dipping sauce
Go to the sauce station, grab a small dish to customize your mix, and take it back to your table. This is for dipping your cooked food later. You can actually do this right at the beginning if you prefer. Of course, if you do not want any sauce, feel free to skip this entirely.
Step 6: Wait for your food
The staff will bring the cooked food right to you. The soup bowls are massive! Two of them basically occupied our whole table.
The Soups
I chose the tomyum soup base and my friend picked the signature mala tang base.
Well, it was worth the wait. The soup was deelish!! My bowl was packed with seafood, veggies and with a few slices of meat.
Funny enough, I forgot about the meat. The slices sank right to the bottom of the bowl. By the time I finally scooped them up, they were overcooked to my liking.
My bowl weighed 0.754 kg and it came to CAD$30.08.
My friend’s signature soup base was also very tasty. It wasn’t spicy at all like I expected, nor did it have that signature numbing taste 👍.
Her bowl weighed 0.93 kg and came out to CAD$37.11.
Overall, we both really enjoyed our food!
Water
They do not bring you water here. Instead, there is a water dispenser sitting right on the cashier counter as I mentioned above. The problem is, it runs out of water fast, and the paper cups they provide are small. This setup reminded us of a school cafeteria.
The Dessert
Unfortunately, we were too full to try the BBQ skewers, but we definitely had room for dessert.
Their dessert menu is very complex. All the ingredients are numbered at the bottom of the page, and there are corresponding numbers on the side of each dessert item so you can figure out what is in what. It is definitely not the easiest page to read.
Forget that – we were too lazy to decode it. We decided on the Matcha Bingsu, which is Korean shaved ice. It looked really good on the menu.
The waitress brought the dessert and just walked away, even though our dirty empty bowls were still on the table. We had to ask the staff to clear the table so we could have space to share our dessert.
When we looked at the dessert, it looked nothing like the picture, nor did it have that distinct, snow-like shaved ice texture. It looked like a pile of ice cream sitting on top of a soup full of red bean, maybe sago, and some kind of pudding cubes that looked like raisins.
My friend put it best: is this Bingsu or Bingsoup? 😂
She ended up asking the waiter while showing him the picture on the menu, and he just said it’s the same thing, but everything had melted to the bottom. We thought that was hilarious.
Member Privileges and Rewards
You can visit their website to see all the perks. On the bill, it shows you can get points. But when I texted the codes after the meal, nothing happened. It’s been days. Maybe I did it wrong, or maybe my points are just lost in cyberland😂.
The Verdict
Even with the minor hiccups, we had a lot of fun. I will give it some time before heading back to try the stir-fry base and the BBQ. However, the chances of me ordering their Bingsu again are extremely slim.
If you want to check it out yourself, they are open Sunday to Thursday from 11 AM to 12 AM, and Friday to Saturday from 11 AM to 2 AM. The younger crowd would absolutely love it.
📍 667B Stafford St, Winnipeg, MB (Google Map)
🏘️ Crescentwood, South-Central Winnipeg
🌐 https://malaking.ca/
🚗 Free parking lot
To watch the steps in action, watch my 3-min YouTube video below:
If you have a voracious appetite and prefer an all-you-can-eat hot pot or BBQ feast, there are other great local spots to check out: 6 Popular Non-Buffet All You Can Eat Restaurants in Winnipeg, Canada