Mr. MaoCai Ottawa Menu Revealed: A Flavorful Instant Hot Pot Restaurant in Ottawa Set to Open on Bank Street

At Mr MaoCai Ottawa on Bank Street offers a Chinese style "Instant Hot Pot." You don’t cook your own hot pot. Instead, you choose your ingredients, soup base, and spice level, and they do the work for you. It's instant hot pot magic—no stove, no mess, just a flavourful soup fully customized to your liking.

📍Mr MaoCai Ottawa

149 Bank Street, Ottawa

Menu Highlights: Sauce Bar, Customizable Hot Pot, Adjustable Spice Levels

No website available at the time of this post.

We attended the "Soft Opening" of Ottawa’s Newest Chinese Hot Pot Restaurant - Mr. MaoCai on Bank Street near Laurier.

Here’s a few things to know before you go.

This new Ottawa Restaurant is SO new they don’t even have a website or Instagram handle yet (At least not at the time of this post)

The Hot Pot is fully customizable. Everything from the ingredients to the soup base and spice level even ranges from not spicy at all the Spicy as "Hell" We didn't dare go there.

Mr. MaoCai Ottawa isn’t the usual hot pot, it’s what they call “instant hot pot.” You pick all your ingredients (meats, soup base, veggies and spice levels), mark it down, and then in minutes, poof, your hot pot shows up. You don’t cook it yourself at the table. They cook it for you, so you don’t risk setting off the fire alarm with your soup.

The only thing you make at Mr. MaoCai is your own sauce, which is like a choose-your-own-adventure, but in sauce form. Probably one of the best things at any Hot Pot restaurant is the sauce bar. If you mess it up, don’t worry, you can keep trying. There’s no sauce judge saying, “Hey, you reached your sauce limit.” I like that. Freedom of sauce. 😉

You mix your own combination of flavours for dipping your Hot Pot meats and veggies. Everything from minced garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, chili oil... it's part of the fun - seeing what kind of flavour you'll get from your mix. My only complaint here, is that I wish Mr. MaoCai had a few more ingredients to mix, but then again, we've also been to other Hot Pot restaurnts where there's way too many options and you get a little overwhelmed.

An important detail to note at Mr. MaoCai, it’s their Ottawa soft opening, which means it’s like a rehearsal dinner for the restaurant. There were a few hiccups—my tomato soup tasted like it needed more tomato and less… whatever was in there, and my beef and shrimp were a little overcooked. Definitely a disadvantage of the whole "Instant Hot Pot experience" compared to a regular table cooking Hot Pot restaurant where most of the meat comes raw and you cook it at your table to your liking.

But the staff at Mr. Mao Cai were super friendly. They were like, “Hey, tell us what’s wrong so we can make it right.” I respect that. It’s like they’re making a soup documentary and we’re all co producers.

I think by the time of the restaurant grand opening, which is set for next month, all the flavours are gonna be on point. Until then, I’ll just keep perfecting my sauce game.

Check back for updates on Mr. MaoCai Ottawa to see what's changed after their Grand Opening.