is this 4.4 ⭐️⭐️ place as good as haidilao?!!

📍chi-gui mala hotpot (jb midvalley southkey)

hello zestiesss, i recently went to jb and tried this hotpot place in midvalley southkey for the first time so let me share my thoughts on this place👹👹

WHAT WE GOT 🍲🍲 - mala milk + tonkotsu milk

for those who wants to know if the hdl hack of ordering 4 soup bases works here…unfortunately it doesn’t iirc 😓😓

for the MALA MILK , i was really excited to try this because hdl has the exact soup base and i would say it didnt disappoint!! the kick was defo there though so do take note if you cannot take spice🥵 it was pretty spicy but addicting at the same time??

meanwhile i had pretty high expectations for the tonkotsu but…where is the tonkotsu 🥲🥲 idk what went wrong but it just felt like the typical bone broth with a VERY strong shallot oil taste ; which is probably due to all sorts of condiments they add to the soup.

personally i am neutral towards those condiments but i didn’t really like it because it was not what i expected.. i barely drank that soup and mostly used it to mix with the mala milk soup 💀

PRICE POINT 💰💲💸- imo its pretty pricey for the quality??

for 2 pax, it was around $60 sgd with taxes included etc.

however we really didn’t order alot…IIRC we ordered a full portion of pork,2 soup bases, 2 condiments (which is paid per pax), half portion of dumplings and 2 noodles(but i would say that they were REALLY generous with the noodle portions..i feel that 1 portion can easily feed 2).

at the same time, note that their condiments are NOT like hdl.

while hdl offers a variety of side dishes,fruits,white fungus soup and century egg porridge, chigui only covers sauce station, fruits(watermelon/honeydew) and ice cream(vanilla/matcha).

hence, for this aspect, hdl >> chigui.

OVERALL - i would honestly NOT visit this place again despite its 4.4 ⭐️. in fact, we honestly wanted to get hdl that day but it was closed and we just tried this out bc when we passed by the store, the mala smell was soo strong.

furthermore, other than the mala milk broth(which is also found in hdl), nothing is spectacular about this place and i feel that you could honestly get better food at this price point in jb.

overall these are just my thoughts on it and maybe i just didn’t order the right items??(there is also the tomato soup which we didnt get)