Memory Tongue hotpot is located in Chatswood Interchange that serves Chongqing Hotpot. Chongqing cuisine is known for their spicy and numbing flavours (mala). We love going to hotpot during the winter as it warms up our body, improves circulation and sends us to a food coma afterwards :P. There are plenty of meats, seafood, cold dishes, fresh vegetables and various fungus to choose from. Rolled aprons can be found on each table to keep you clean and smell free throughout the whole experience.
Soup Bases
We are not into chilli/spicy foods, so we had difficulty in choosing a non-spicy soup base. There were a lot of interesting soup options that we came across but could not try due to its spicy level – such as the Hello Kitty stock broth and a lychee flavoured soup base. However, I don’t know how I would feel melting my favourite character into the soup 🙁 We were extremely pleased to find the Oxtail and Tomato soup ($12.50) as this is the go-to soup base for us whenever we go hotpot. The soup was full of flavour whilst still being able to retain the flavour of the meat. One of us got the half/half pot ($15.50) and the other choice we chose was Special Boiled Fish + Pickled Cabbage Soup. The boiled fish was extremely tender – however, the pickled cabbage was a bit too peppery. This soup was a bit strong for our liking which made the meat and vegetables lose its flavour.
Meat and Extras
All the meats were thinly sliced and cooked in the soup within 30 seconds. There was also a table signage that explains how long each type of meat, seafood and bean product should be in the soup for, but unfortunately was written in Chinese. The Beef Tongue ($14.50) was marbled so nicely for what you pay for it. We also got the Quail Eggs ($6.50) and Fried Bean Curd Sheets ($5.80), which was of high quality and complemented well with the Oxtail + Tomato Soup.
Sliced Beef – $15.50
The sliced beef was probably our favourite dish, we had to order another serving afterwards because it was an absolute bargain in our eyes considering the price.
Premium Sliced Lamb – $13.50
The Premium Sliced Lamb was enjoyable but nothing to rave about. Not too sure if it deserved the ‘premium’ title but we’re prepared to be wrong.
The restaurant has complimentary desserts and differs depending on the day you go. We were there quite late on a Sunday night, so there were only two desserts. The dessert included Cubed Watermelon and Glutinous Rice balls in fermented Glutinous Rice Soup. The watermelon was juicy and refreshing, allowing us to end our night on a sweet note.
OVERALL
Service – like most standard hotpot places, they use the pencil and paper menu where you tick in a box what you want and hand it over. Don’t fix what’s not broken I suppose. The staff was always happy to assist and would check in on us once in a while to help with topping up the soup broth.
Decor – quite spacious and tables can be far apart or close depending on which area you get sat down at.
Flavour – the tomato broth was the highlight in terms of the broths that we had. Meats were hit or miss but the standard beef stood out.
Price – About $50 per person without drinks
Wow Factor – once again, the tomato base broth and the cut of beef was the highlight.
Final verdict 7/10 – enjoyable but not the best one we’ve tried. Somewhat pricey for the quality we received. There were some standout dishes and we will give credit for that.
MEMORY TONGUE CHATSWOOD
Shop 66, Podium Level 3, Chatswood Interchange, Chatswood NSW 2067
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We are always happy to have a casual chat about up and coming places around Sydney. Check out some of our other reviews below 🙂