i love malatang & this place is such a solid place to go theres a waitlist you can put your name down on, but its never too long. once youre called, you can get seated and walk over to the ingredients to pick out items for your bowl. they weigh it, hand you a bracelet w a number, and you pay at the end! i always opt for the classic bone soup which is $14.99/lb and do medium spice :-) my bowl usually comes out to be around a pound but i always get less than i think i need bc i get scared of going overboard LOL while waiting for my bowl to come out, i always make my sauce at the sauce station in the back! the malatang has this slight sesame/peanutty flavor which i very much enjoy and they fill your bowl to the brim w broth so i always take half home to enjoy for my next meal!! ive also tried their spicy dry work but i think i much prefer the broth version. also parking is a bit tough bc its downtown, but i always find neighborhood parking across the street or further down!!

This week I was watching someone eat at Zhangliang Malatang on TikTok and getting hungry, and I remembered Zhangliang Malatang actually opened in downtown Berkeley so I asked my husband to try the new spicy hot pot with me on a weekday. So many meats/seafood, tofus/bean curds, veggies, and balls to choose from. We are now fans! So many different toppings to pick the right items and portions, soups, drinks & dressings if you need them. There's also a little tissue packet for your nose because it's hot & spicy! Definitely coming back for more.

Not bad! Another quick grab n go lunch spot in berkeley... service goes fast because it's been pretty busy ever since they opened. Everything was fresh and affordable. I'd say the soup options are okay, there's only like 4 soup options and you can't choose the spice level which is fine because they actually have a sauce bar(like hotpot) so you can add more spice or make a sauce. Unsure of what my bowl weighed but I shared it with my friend, our bowl came in a large bowl and it came out to $23. (bowl at bottom of pic) My vegetarian friend had a smaller bowl and hers came out to $10! Super affordable. As I said service is fast which is good, the workers pay attention but they also like to rush you. My friends and I were still eating about halfway done and one of the workers came over with a to-go bowl. LOL. no way we stayed that long?? We thought it was funny but we were only there for a 1 hour. We noticed they did the same with other tables but it's okay, not a bad thing because they're attentive i guess.

It's like a limited-portioned hot pot, which is great for someone like me who wants to control their diet. The restaurant is clean and well-organized, and the food is displayed clearly. There's a wide variety of ingredients and sauces to choose from. I picked the tom yum soup base, and it tasted really good. Lunch for $20--pretty nice!

Choose your broth and spice level as well as the noodle and ingredients you want is the idea behind the restaurant. Be careful, it's easy to get carried away and end up with 2 lbs of food! Simple, fast, and easy. Love this location as there is a wide variety of items to select compared to others. As this is on Shattuck, parking is going to be difficult but it's well worth it! Come closer to closing if you don't want to wait in line for long.

So insanely delicious AND affordable!! After hearing so many rave reviews about the place, I finally came in with a friend to try it and it was so delicious. IMO--I liked this spot a lot more than Pixiu. There are a lot of different options for toppings to choose from, as well as a DIY sauce bar. I honestly thought I picked out way too many toppings but the total came out to be less than $20. I liked the veggies and fishballs filled with roe the most! This spot 100% satisfies a craving for something hot and brothy and I was pleasantly surprised by how rich and flavorful the broth was. Definitely coming back!!

I came here on a weekend and there was quite a bit of people here. I love the wide variety of meats, veggies and noodles they serve. You get to choose the kind and amount of ingredients for your bowl. It is by weight so be cautious of how much you put in your bowl. They have various kinds of soup bases with different spice level. I decided to go with tom yum. It was quite spicy for me but I liked the spicy and tangy taste of the broth. They also have a self serve sauce bar, which I thought was pretty cool. I highly recommend this spot if you like malatang! They have great ingredients and soup choices!

Walked in to a packed restaurant at around 1:00 PM on a Sunday. I was a solo diner so I had to wait longer than everyone else because all the small tables were occupied. Those that came after but in larger groups were seated first. Similar to most malatang spots, you get your own bowl and tongs and start to pick what you want to add to your bowl. They have a pretty decent selection but not as much as Tang Bar, another popular malatang spot with locations in the Bay Area. And all the ingredients were being refilled constantly. I got beef slices, lamb slices, potato noodles, Napa cabbage, enoki mushroom, spam, imitation crab, etc. Then you go to the counter and select either a soup broth or a dry pot and the spice level. They weigh your bowl then take it to the kitchen for it to be cooked and they bring it to your table once it is ready. Your meal is determined by the weight of your ingredients prior to it being cooked. I had a pretty filled bowl with some weight to it and it came out to be around 1.6lbs. With tip, it ended up being around $31 which is pretty standard for malatang. I ordered the bone broth with a spice level of spicy. It had a lot of chili oil so it was quite oily and filed with chili bits but not very spicy. Decently flavorful broth but I've had better so I'm not super impressed by the soup broth here. The broth is pretty hot and the ergonomics of the spoon did not help, so I kept burning my tongue trying to sip the broth. Ingredients tasted pretty fresh. Usually at malatang places the meat is quite tough or super fatty, but the meat quality here is actually pretty decent, even better than some of the AYCE, boil in your own pot, spots. The vegetables generally tasted very fresh and I did not see any wilted, yellow, or bruised pieces which was very nice. However, the enoki mushrooms weren't cut the best and they left some of the dirty parts on it. It was a lot of food and I couldn't even finish, so I'd def try to control yourself when selecting your ingredients so you don't end up wasting food. To pay you need to waive down a waiter which took a while. The kitchen staff spotted me and helped me get the waiter's attention which was so nice of them. Overall, a decent experience. I will come back to try their dry pot and update my review.