I had a hankering for a hotpot but fancied making a right pig’s ear of it and a total mess while doing so by cooking it myself. For that reason I needed a restaurant that would let me cook it at the table. That led me into Cambridge for a well overdue revisit to a local institution – Spring Restaurant.

This place is well known by locals but is an easy place to miss if you don’t see it hiding in plain sight amongst the bustle of the Mill Road chaos. It has no website or social media presence other than an old Facebook page that hasn’t updated since 2021. For that reason I felt it deserved a spot on in my Xiao Spot series.

The Restaurant

I love the quirky interior, which seems rather plain and ordinary at first glance until you really start looking at things close up. A classic example is this canvas backdrop with toy animals glued on. It was utterly hilarious and brilliant at the same time. Definitely more of this in Cambridge restaurants please 😂🤣

The staff here are super helpful and polite from start to finish. Nothing was too much for them and they really took the time to explain everything clearly to me, including how to operate the cooker. 

The Menu

The menu is huge, with a wide selection of everything you could possibly want in a Chinese menu. In fact, there was so much to choose from that despite coming here specifically for a hotpot, I was nearly tempted numerous times by other dishes – especially by their grilled fish dish.

The Process

The process is fairly standard for your typical hotpot place in Cambridge. You simply go through their fridge and pick what you want and bring it back to your table to cook. There seems to be no limits on what you pick other than you have to fit it on a square plate. The fridge doesn’t offer the same wide selection as from Mr Wang Hotpot but the quality of the ingredients felt about the same.

The hob at your table is glass and is very easy to operate.

You get a choice of half a dozen broth options from the menu; Obviously, I went for the extra spicy one that was absolutely beautiful. I picked up a selection of different meats and some glass noodles from the fridge and I was good to go!

The glass noodles are a great choice because they soak up the broth really well. The dumplings were lovely, though I admit the strong fishy flavour won’t be for everyone’s tastes. For frequent readers of the blog, you’ll remember that I utterly obliterated my potatoes in the hotpot at Kung Woo, which simply disintegrated into the broth due to my lack of experience. This time, I managed to execute it perfectly.

Practice makes perfect! 😎

Naturally, I made a right mess but the experience was wonderfully smooth. When you factor in the brilliant cost-to-value ratio, Spring Restaurant delivers one of the absolute best hotpot experiences in the city. It is definitely the sort of place I would come to regularly.

Where restaurants come and go on Mill Road, Spring Restaurant has stood the test of time by providing authentic, humble, and quality cuisine at a good price.

Thanks for reading