Little Q Hot Pot and Szechuan House

Little Q Hot Pot and Szechuan House
submitted by Jared Katz

I’m often a meat and potatoes kind of guy, but every now and then I like to try something different and funky. I had been to Little Q Hot Pot in Quincy Massachusetts a few times before with a friend and had loved it. Although it was a bit of a drive from where I am in the northern suburbs of Boston, it was well worth it. I was surprised when I was driving to work last week and saw Little Q Hot Pot had opened in East Arlington Massachusetts. It is now called Little Q Hot Pot and Szechuan House.

For some reason or other the Quincy location had closed down a few months ago, but Quincy’s loss is my gain! I excitedly called my friend and we made plans to go for dinner. The Arlington location is about a third of the size the original Quincy restaurant. It was nice and new inside and everyone welcome us on our arrival.

When we were seated , I grabbed the menu to have a look. To the best of my recollection, the Quincy location only served Hot Pot., however this new location has a new Szechuan House section. which means they serve a wide arrange of Chinese food as well. After some discussion we decided to stick with the traditional hot pot for our dinner. We decided for the broth, to go with a half pot of Chinese miso and a half pot of chicken soup. We ordered a wide variety of ingredients for the hot pot; beef, lamb, wide noodles, mushrooms, spinach, corn on the cob, and egg dumplings.

The food was great and the experience was just as fun as I remembered from our trips to Quincy. One thing that didn’t really impress me was the service. There always needs to be a happy balance of service in terms of not being pestered, but also not being left alone. In this case they were overly attentive. When you want to sit with a friend and chat over a nice dinner it isn’t always fun to have the wait staff come up to you and ask you how you are doing and if you need anything every few minutes. I understand that they had just opened and everyone was a little overly eager, but the staff was just a little too much. The owner and also the manager stopped by to ask us how things were at least three times, and the servers every few minutes. What also was weird was their choice of music. I don’t think the people working there noticed, but it was if someone had hooked up an iPod on crack and let it keep going. There was some random music when we went in, which switched over to some hardcore punk music for a song or two and then for the rest of our time there, we listened to Mariah Carey’s Christmas CD. A bit of an odd selection mind you as we visited during the month of May. Not even my dining companion noticed it, but I sure did.

All in all I would give the experience 3 pans. The food was great…but the service needs to be worked on. Little Q Hot Pot and Szechuan House is located in East Arlington, on Massachusetts Avenue, very close to the Capital Theater.

Little Q Hot Pot and Szechuan House
196 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA 02474
(781) 488-3755