Jojo Pot: New lobster hot pot in Burnaby

Seems like all the hot pot places in the Lower Mainland are tagging onto the success of Big Way Hot Pot.

Previously known as Grandma Liu Hot Pot, this restaurant has now rebranded to Jojo Pot in South Burnaby on Kingsway. Still a self-serve pay-by-weight model, Jojo Pot has a cute new branding featuring a bear 🐻 and have a limited time special menu of lobster, abalone and a lobster bisque soup base.

We came here for their soft opening and here was how our experience went!

Jojo Pot
6289 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5J 0H4

The vibe

From the outside, Jojo Pot looked like a big restaurant but it’s actually not that big inside. Upon entering, there is a small waiting area and then you turn the corner to the wall of hot pot ingredients. Grab a bowl, some tongs and help yourself to whatever you want in your bowl!

Despite it only being 1 wall, I found it had decent selection. It was very busy when I came on a Friday evening at 6pm so some of the ingredients/toppings were getting low in quantity and needed to be re-stocked.

You get to the counter where you can see the soup bases and drinks menu. I quite like the new branding of Jojo Pot – it is very cute with bubble fonts and lots of photos.

There is a build-your-own sauce station with cute sauce containers (has bear ears).

The dining space is a little cramped – tables and chairs are very close to each other so perfect if you love to be nosy and eavesdrop. It is definitely easier if you are a group of 2-4. Anything larger than that will require tables to be moved to accommodate your group. I would also say the space is not stroller friendly.

Lots of natural light – good for photo taking!

Food review

Disclaimer: As part of an Instagram collab, we got to try everything featured in this post for free. But for transparency, our total bill for 2 hot pots and 2 drinks was around $75.

Hot pot with Jojo soup base

Sadly, the lobster bisque soup base was SOLD OUT 🫠 when we went so we chose the most popular soup base, Jojo’s signature instead. This is a pork bone broth soup base and looks more clear compared to Big Way’s pork brone both (looks more milky). Generally, I felt it tasted pretty good. You can choose mild-spicy. I chose mild but my husband chose a little spicy, which they essentially mixed in some chilli oil or sauce to the broth. He felt his was too salty after the addition of that.

Toppings were decent – I liked the wide hand noodles! I also liked the over premium beef over the regular beef rolls.

Lobster tasted ok 🦞 – pretty big chunk of meat in the lobster tail. They provided gloves for us to eat but it was still hard to peel the lobster meat from the shell. Even with gloves, it is quite hot to peel with hands.

Cloud milk tea + Grape lemonade

For drinks, we got the cloud milk tea and the grape lemonade. The cloud milk tea tasted a little washed out and it essentially has a lot of whipped cream on top.

The grape lemonade was refreshing and tasted like ribena.

Shaved ice

For their soft opening, everyone gets free shaved ice!

It is quite cute – this is the strawberry flavour. They also have a mango flavour that looks better.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

We had a decent dinner at Jojo Pot. I think our problem lies in that there are so many hot pot choices now in Vancouver/Burnaby and the Lower Mainland, we end up comparing them all to Big Way.

How does Jojo Pot differ?

• Currently promoting lobster, abalone and the lobster bisque soup base. But since we didn’t taste this soup base, not sure how it tastes.
• Cute branding and kid sets – fun for kids
• Shaved ice instead of free ice cream

For hot pot places, I think the broth is king. Everything else are toppings you choose from a shopping aisle. In this department, I think Jojo Pot is pretty average.

Sincerely, Loewe