The Brief

Hot pot is more than just a meal — it’s an experience. There are few things quite as comforting as gathering together around a simmering pot of broth, cooking fresh ingredients and sharing a meal in real-time.

Whether you crave a bold, spicy kick, delicate flavors, or rich, meaty broths, understanding the different styles of hot pot will help you find your perfect match.

Believed to have originated in China more than 1,000 years ago, possibly as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 – 220 A.D.), hot pot gained widespread popularity during the Mongol Empire in the 13th century.

Warriors are said to have boiled meat in their metal helmets over open fires, creating a simple but nourishing meal.

Over time, different regions across Asia developed their own takes, from Thailand's jim jum to Vietnam's lẩu, adapting broths and ingredients to local flavors and customs.

Los Angeles is home to a wide array of hot pot restaurants. Here’s a closer look at three distinct styles — Chinese, Japanese, Korean — and where to find them.

Chong Qing Yao Mei (Chinese)

Chong Qing Yao Mei in Pasadena offers Sichuan-style hot pot, one of the most popular Chinese varieties, known for its bold, numbing, and spicy flavors. The signature mala broth — meaning “numbing and spicy” — gets its distinctive tingle from Sichuan peppercorns and dried chili peppers, along with aromatics like ginger, garlic, and various spices. The oil-based broth is intensely flavorful, with layers of heat and complexity. Prices start at $9.99 for a communal pot, with ingredients available à la carte.

Diners can experience this fiery hot pot with a yin-yang pot, which allows for two broths at once — typically the spicy mala broth on one side and a milder option on the other, such as a bone broth, tomato-based broth, or a non-seafood alternative.

While classic hot pot ingredients like thinly sliced beef and vegetables are available, Sichuan hot pot often includes more adventurous offerings such as duck blood, pork aorta, beef tripe, and luncheon meat. Offal and other cuts with unique textures are particularly prized for their ability to soak up the intensely spiced broth.

This hot pot is typically paired with a sesame oil-based sauce to help balance the heat. Many modern Sichuan hot pot restaurants, including Chong Qing Yao Mei, offer an all-you-can-eat self-serve sauce bar, where diners can create their own dipping sauces with garlic, cilantro, scallions, and fermented soybeans, and enjoy unlimited snacks like peanuts, chips, and desserts throughout the meal.

A popular way to elevate the dipping sauce is by mixing in a raw egg — when hot meat is dipped in, the residual heat lightly cooks the egg, adding a silky texture and extra umami to each bite.

Osawa (Japanese) 

At Osawa, also in Pasadena, you can find shabu shabu, a Japanese style hot pot that emphasizes simplicity and high-quality ingredients. Unlike bold and spicy Sichuan hot pot, this Japanese take is light and clean, focused on enhancing the natural flavors of its ingredients.

The name shabu shabu is a Japanese onomatopoeia, mimicking the sound of thinly sliced meat being swished in the broth. Instead of adding all the meat to the pot at once, diners quickly dip and swirl thin cuts of beef, pork, or lamb until they are just cooked — usually in seconds.

Unlike Sichuan style's oily, intensely spiced broth, shabu shabu uses a delicate, dashi-based broth made with kelp (kombu). Restaurants often also offer options like tonkotsu (pork bone) broth and spicy miso broth for added richness.

At Osawa, lunch costs $32 per person, including a pre-set menu. Because the broth is mild, the quality of the meat is crucial, with many restaurants serving premium cuts of Wagyu beef or prime meats. At Osawa, diners can choose from Wagyu, Black Angus ribeye, seafood, salmon, or Kurobuta pork loin.

Shabu shabu typically includes fewer ingredients than other hot pot styles, focusing on a select few such as tofu, napa cabbage, mushrooms (shiitake, enoki), and udon or soba noodles. Since the broth itself is subtle, dipping sauces provide most of the seasoning. The two most common are goma, a creamy, nutty sesame sauce, and ponzu, a citrusy soy sauce that adds a refreshing tang.

A traditional shabu shabu meal often ends with the remaining broth — now infused with the flavors of the meat and vegetables — being used to cook ramen noodles or transformed into a rice porridge called okayu.

Olle Korean Cuisine (Korean) 

In Korea, jeongol is the term for hot pot, referring to a dish where various ingredients, such as meat, seafood, mushrooms, and vegetables, are arranged in a pot, simmered together in broth, and shared communally. Historically, jeongol was considered an elaborate dish, often served in the Korean royal court.

Today, its most popular modern adaptation is budae jeongol, or army stew — a fusion dish that emerged after the Korean War, incorporating American military rations like Spam, sausage, and instant noodles.

While many Korean restaurants serve budae jeongol, the quality of ingredients sets each version apart. At Olle in Koreatown, the army stew includes house-made Spam, sausage, bacon, and ham, along with kimchi, rice cakes, tofu, beansprouts, and gochujang, creating a rich and savory broth.

Like traditional jeongol, army stew is served communally in a shallow pot at the center of the table ($27.99 during lunch Monday-Friday.), allowing diners to add ingredients as they cook.

While jeongol is known for its carefully arranged, layered ingredients, army stew follows a similar approach but with heartier, processed meats and noodles. Despite their different origins — jeongol with its royal court roots and army stew born from post-war improvisation — both dishes embody the essence of Korean hot pot: a comforting, communal meal meant to be shared.

A coalition that organized an independent homeless count in Hollywood found the neighborhood’s unsheltered population has remained flat over the past 18 months, despite ongoing city-led efforts to move people inside.

A RAND Corporation report released last week found Hollywood’s unsheltered homeless population stayed mostly unchanged throughout 2025, as reductions in tent encampments were offset by large increases in vehicle-dwellers and so-called “rough sleepers,” people living on the streets without even a makeshift roof over their heads.

Findings released Wednesday by Hollywood 4WRD, a public-private coalition, show that trend continued in Hollywood over the past four months. But the group also found in May that more people were living in tents and fewer in cars than RAND had observed in January, a surprising reversal of the recent overall trend.

“ It's not something we expected to find,” said Brittney Weissman, Hollywood 4WRD’s executive director. “The headline has been that there are no tents and no encampments left in Hollywood, but that’s not the case right now. So, we’ll have to see where this goes.”

About 745 people were camping in Hollywood and East Hollywood on May 19, according to the count. About 19% slept in tents or makeshift lean-tos. An estimated 35% slept in cars, vans or RVs. Meanwhile, 45% were rough sleepers camped directly on sidewalks and streets.

Organizers say understanding and tracking those breakdowns over time helps make sure the right services are directed to the right people and develop new outreach strategies for people falling through the cracks.

“ We can really only meet the moment if we know who's there and we adapt to the need,” Weissman said.

The count covered 29 census tracts and relied on volunteers from local homeless service provider organizations. They followed methods developed by RAND researchers, who also verified Hollywood 4WRD’s findings.

Terry Boyd, left, repairs a bicycle rim in his tent at an encampment along Hollywood Blvd. and Gower Street on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024

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Timely data

Official homeless counts from the region’s lead homelessness agency, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, occur once a year. The latest official estimates are based on 14-month-old data. The results from this January’s official count are expected sometime this summer.

Service providers said they want more frequent and precise data.

“ It feels good to have the data immediately and figure out what we need to do,” said Arnali Ray, executive director of the Hollywood Food Coalition who volunteered for last week’s count.

Service providers in Hollywood have relied on data from The RAND Housing Center, which led bimonthly counts of the neighborhood, along with Venice and Skid Row, since 2021. That project, the Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey, or LA LEADS, conducted its final unsheltered counts this January and released its results last week.

RAND is looking for funding to restart the project, researchers said. In the meantime, the researchers said they hope community efforts like Hollywood 4WRD’s can help fill the void.

“You need to understand the homeless population to end homelessness,” said Louis Abramson, lead author of RAND’s LA LEADS study who consulted on Hollywood’s count. “As RAND's marquee project in this field ends, the best thing we as researchers could do was give the community the tools to gain this understanding in perpetuity for themselves.”

In 2022 and 2023, RAND’s LA LEADS estimates were in line with LAHSA’s official point-in-time tallies. But RAND found LAHSA increasingly undercounted the unsheltered population in both 2024 and 2025.

That has increased demand for independent data-gathering among service providers and public officials.

Hollywood 4WRD said it aims to complement, not replace, official data.

“Our annual count sometimes misses people,” said Weissman. “ We can really only meet the moment if we know who's there and we adapt to the need.”

Hollywood 4WRD deployed its count of 29 Hollywood and East Hollywood census tracts from the Hollywood Partnership's pit stop building on Hollywood Boulevard.

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Aaron Schrank

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LAist

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Building on RAND’s work 

Official estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority showed a nearly 18% citywide reduction in unsheltered homelessness between 2023 and 2025, along with small declines in overall homelessness.

RAND’s previous surveys found declines in overall street homelessness in Hollywood throughout 2024, led by reductions in tent-encampments through programs like Inside Safe. Tent dwelling dropped by nearly half between late 2021 and January 2026 within RAND’s LA LEADS study area, including a 23% drop in 2025 alone. But those reductions were mostly offset by an increase in rough sleepers and vehicle dwellers.

RAND’s survey data suggested tent removal could be contributing to the rise in rough sleeping. About half of rough sleepers surveyed reported losing a dwelling within the past year, and 46% of those said it was confiscated or towed by government officials.

Vehicle dwellers are, on average, more likely to have jobs than people living in tents, researchers said. Rough sleepers are harder for outreach workers to engage and have greater health needs.

Hollywood 4WRD said its findings might encourage some providers to advocate for more safe camping and safe parking programs in Hollywood.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

As concerns linger after last week’s East L.A. oil spill, qualifying Eastside residents can still apply for free in-home air purifiers provided by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. 

The residential air filtration program is open to residents of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Eastern Coachella Valley and parts of Commerce. Applications are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Read more: Live near the East LA oil spill? What you need to know about your health and safety

Parents, teachers and environmental advocates have raised concerns about possible health risks after crews punctured an underground pipeline, spilling more than 2,000 gallons of crude oil onto East L.A. streets and into storm drains. Some students and teachers on Friday complained about strong odors, with some reporting feeling nauseous or dizzy.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice warned about potential respiratory exposure to nearby residents. “The oil releases volatile organic compounds,” said mark! Lopez with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “Benzene is of particular interest because it’s so hazardous. When people breathe it in, that exposure is happening.”

The air filtration program, which predates the spill, aims to reduce residential exposure to particulate matter (PM), defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air so small they can be inhaled and cause serious health problems, in neighborhoods disproportionately affected by air pollution. 

Funding for the units comes from Assembly Bill 617 (AB 617), a state law passed in 2017 aimed at addressing environmental justice concerns in such neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods of East L.A., Boyle Heights and Commerce are impacted by rail yards, freight and freeway activities, as well as industrial activities at refining, rendering and processing facilities in the area, according to the California Air Resources Board.

How to apply

To qualify, applicants must submit the first page of a utility bill or property tax statement to verify residence in one of the four target areas. Specific boundaries for these areas for program eligibility are available here.

Interested applicants can find more information on the program and apply online here.  

The following is a South Coast AQMD guide on how to apply:

The Los Angeles City Council’s recently approved budget includes funding to expand a program that diverts police from some mental health crisis calls to 911.

Since launching in 2024, trained clinicians with the city’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) have handled over 20,000 calls ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 96% of those calls were resolved without police or a response from the L.A. Fire Department.

The new city budget includes funding to expand those teams from nine police divisions — including Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley — to a total of 15.

“In a year where many programs continue to fight for service funding from the city, it’s so great that we are able to continue prioritizing this,” Godfrey Plata, deputy director of progressive policy advocacy group the LA Forward Institute, told LAist.

Plata said UMCR’s expansion is one more step toward taking the program citywide, which his group hopes to do by the 2028 Olympics.

The crisis teams are slated to go online within the six additional police divisions by June 2027. It’s not yet clear which police divisions will be selected for expansion.

The move comes after the City Council voted unanimously in February to make the pilot program permanent.

A 2024 LAist investigation found that nearly one-third of LAPD shootings since 2017 involved someone living with a mental illness and/or experiencing a mental health crisis.

How the program works

In 2024, the city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide teams of trained clinicians in service areas spread across L.A. The teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

In its first year, Los Angeles’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response sent teams of unarmed clinicians to more than 6,700 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 4% were redirected to the LAPD. Average response times have been under 30 minutes.

Examples of these interactions include members of the teams taking food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

Support from LAFD

During an L.A. City budget hearing last month, fire officials expressed support for the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response.

The department said it’s worked with the teams of clinicians to divert calls for service away from fire first responders since September 2025. The department saw 144 calls diverted to UMCR in the month of March alone.

“We’ve found them to be an incredible asset and ally to addressing some of the issues in the field,” LAFD Chief Jaime Moore told council members at the hearing. “The recommendation would be to expand the program, get it into more police divisions which would then get it into more of our battalions and our bureaus."

What’s next 

City officials have expressed support for expanding UMCR citywide by the 2028 Olympics.

With the plan to expand to 15 police divisions by June 2027, UMCR would need to expand into another six divisions to meet that goal.