450/B, Charles Drive, off Duplication Road, Colombo 3
Open 11.30AM to 3.30PM & 6.00PM to 8.30PM
Chinese Juchunyuan in Colpetty is one of the few places in town to try out Chinese hotpot. The catch, however, is that if you don't add the right ingredients to the hotpot you'll basically end up drinking broth. On the flipside, it can also be excellent should you make it right.
Chinese Juchunyuan in Colpetty is one of the few places in town to try out Chinese hotpot. The catch, however, is that if you don't add the right ingredients, you'll basically end up drinking broth. On the flipside, it can also be excellent should you make it right.
When we first tried out the hotpot at Juchunyuan about a year back, we kinda' hated it, but that was partly due to our inexperience when it came to hotpots. The food here is definitely an acquired taste and any local planning on dining here should be willing to try something very much different from the food we generally get at other Chinese eateries. They do offer fried rice and side dishes but everyone seems to come here for the hotpot. Prices are quite affordable with the hotpot easily enough for four people.
It starts off looking like this, which is
pretty much broth.
They have a whole bunch of different options when it comes to choosing your
soup, which can be a bit confusing for those (like me) who aren't very familiar
with the procedure. After some deliberation, we decided to go with the half
chicken soup (Rs. 600) with fish balls (Rs. 366). In retrospect, we should
probably have gone for a different soup since the boiled chicken in the one we
got, was all but tasteless.
One thing to note though, is the fact that these fish balls were not actually balls of fish meat, rather something they import which has an interestingly fishy flavour and an almost gelatinous texture.
Along with the soup they bring you a few ingredients - chopped cilantro, chili tofu, chili paste, soy sauce, chopped garlic and an interesting peanut sauce. This is actually where all the flavour of your hotpot comes from. The waiter will make a sort of paste using all the ingredients, but then he'll bounce and leave you guessing.
After playing around a bit we found that adding said paste to the hotpot really makes a world of difference when it comes to the flavour. We did so judiciously since we didn't want the flavours to be overpowering. Once we hit a good balance, we were left with quite a tasty soup with a bit of heat from the chillies, cilantro aroma and saltiness from the soy sauce. We added the paste to the steamed rice, and even that tasted good.
Just to cover all the bases, we went ahead and got the pork and mushroom casserole (Rs. 646) which tasted pretty good with a slightly thick gravy and very flavoursome black mushrooms, although it could have had less veges and more pork.
Juchunyuan is pretty much the definition of ghetto Chinese. The ground floor dining room bares a striking resemblance to a washroom, complete with bathroom tiles. What's great though is that everyone that dines here seems to embrace the ambience. So yeah, this certainly would not qualify as fancy. They've also got a tiny ancient TV in there as well, playing black and white Sinhalese films, which creates a very apparent mismatch between the clientele and entertainment.
They've got one local waiter, who was friendly though with a very limited attention span. Besides that the food was prepared quite fast, so we didn't find ourselves getting angsty.
Chinese Juchunyuan is not for everyone, and there's a good chance that their hotpot may not appease local palates. However, if you're really looking to try something new, this may be just the place you're looking for.
Chinese Juchunyuan in Colpetty is one of the few places in town to try out Chinese hotpot. The catch, however, is that if you don't add the right ingredients to the hotpot you'll basically end up drinking broth. On the flipside, it can also be excellent should you make it right.
Chinese Juchunyuan is a little petti kade semi-authentic restaurant in a corner of Duplication Road that serves hot pot Chinese. The place isn't much for ambience, the food isn't for everybody, but at least it's an accessible place if you want to cook your own Chinese.
Address
450/B, Charles Drive, off Duplication Road, Colombo 3
Directions
You go down Duplication Road past Mahanama and the Beverley Street store and in front of a big white Jewellery store, you'll find the restaurant in Charles Drive on your right.
Contacts
Report Inaccuracy
Open 11.30AM to 3.30PM & 6.00PM to 8.30PM
Cuisine
Price Range
Ratings Breakdown
Our most nostalgic food court gets a make-over.
A nice place to get booze in the evening at beach, Cabanas…
1/5
Very very very very sad. The food was too oily and tasted too bad. We were just two people and we ordered a portion of fish and lettuce with steam rice. The fish they gave us was a huge bowl with a thick layer of oil. We couldn’t eat at all and everything was a waste. The bill was 7000. Nearly had a heart attack lol The owner got an idea that we are not Chinese and doesn’t know the menu. She didn’t warn us the portion of the fish for two people. In the end when we told her that she said next time she will let us know. Very bad service! And the there were lots of potatoes added with the fish.
Please don’t go to this place unless you really have lots of money and you want to waste it over some nasty oily Chinese food.
The food really looks bad. I noticed that now new staffs in Yamu only give 3 or 4 stars for all the new reviews. That is far from what Indie and shru did. To be honest, you can't 'play safe' for food review. Viewers will get bored as they already predict the same result for every review. Be bold and honest, this is what we want to read.
the place is miserable and unfriendly. The Chinese however seems to love it. The staff tried there best to get rid of us, It is strange and very suspicious looking. We asked for the menu and they kept saying what we asked for wasnt available.
this has been one of my favorite spots for many many years
yamu you guys ordered wrong you should try the hot pot with beef, kang kun, tofu and noodles
this is what i usually order and its amazing
and btw your not suppose to eat the chicken bones that come in the hot pot thats just for flavor :P
they do a nice fried rice hot butter cuttlefish and chillie chicken aswell if your not a fan of hotpot
This place is really nice. The Sri Lankan staffs aren't friendly but the Chinese staffs are nice. The hot pot is my favorite. I always order bean curd skin, pork meat, Chinese cabbage, black mushroom, prawn wanton, and at the last, add noodles in the pot and eat it like ramen!
Btw, don't always judge it by the looks the important thing is the taste, whether its good or not.
Chinese Juchunyuan is the quintessential, low-budget, hotpot restaurant that you would find in any Chinatown. But having said that, I have absolutely no qualms about this place and recommend the adventurous diner to definitely try it out.
The gist of it all boils down to broth you pick and the sauces they give you. I usually order the spicy broth as it has just the right amount of spice and flavor (it might be on the 3.5/5 on a spicy scale). As for the sauces, you need to be a little creative about how you mix them up. I recommend adding a generous portion of the peanut sauce and augmenting it with the other sauces/ingredients to suit your taste. The restaurant also has a variety of meats, vegetables and mushrooms to add to your hotpot, and don't be afraid to try out some unconventional ones!
The Chinese staff is quite nice as opposed to the Lankan staff who seem rather 'meh'. Anyway, the prices are affordable and anyone with a somewhat voracious appetite can eat for about 1500/-.
Tip: Go with friends. It's actually more fun than a regular dinner.
Place has been significantly upgraded since this review with a very nice interior, all AC and purpose built fancy granite too chafing tables! Food was fantastic the meat was very good, the broth was as spicy and flavorful as what you get in China, the noodles were bit too thick, Sea Weed was fresh and nice, so was the black mushrooms and portions were well sized. It is bit high priced but worth it when you fancy the real deal. Ah one caveat, the bill is handwritten Chinese!!! So if you ate a lot and lost track its a tough chat with the half English speaking Chinese staff yo understand the bill, it’ll be a good idea to get a POS with English and Chinese prints … probably not essential as the clientele seems 99.9% homesick expats anyway!
My friend and I visited there to have dinner and found out that the owner had changed.The ambience was good but there were few people next to our table smoking so much that it was difficult to stay there however we tolerated it hoping we would get to eat good food.The waitress was very rude,she was in a hurry to take the order and everything was written in Chinese so we had to select through pictures and when we finally placed our order it took too long to reach our table.We had ordered a fish curry and two bowl of rice with lettuce hoping it would be enough for the two of us but the fish curry was of Large family portion size which was tasteless and filled with oil and potatoes.I nearly vomited seeing so much oil,the lettuce also tasted aweful.We finally decided to get out of that place and when we asked for the bill it was LRK.7000/-
My jaws dropped seeing the bill.
P.S-Please donot visit this place,it’s not worth the money!!
And you forgot to mention the nasty pubic hair you saw on the commode when you went to use the washroom. The washroom was so dirty. Not worth the money you pay for the food. There are so many better Chinese places to eat. You should think twice before you go to this place.
1/5
Chenchopulu
Very very very very sad. The food was too oily and tasted too bad. We were just two people and we ordered a portion of fish and lettuce with steam rice. The fish they gave us was a huge bowl with a thick layer of oil. We couldn’t eat at all and everything was a waste. The bill was 7000. Nearly had a heart attack lol The owner got an idea that we are not Chinese and doesn’t know the menu. She didn’t warn us the portion of the fish for two people. In the end when we told her that she said next time she will let us know. Very bad service! And the there were lots of potatoes added with the fish.
Please don’t go to this place unless you really have lots of money and you want to waste it over some nasty oily Chinese food.