**** Sizzling House has closed
**** I did a revisit, you can read that post here.
One of the other victims of the China Max fire in 2020 was the Convoy location of Tasty Pot. The place was repaired with the same owners in place; but I’m guessing with all the hot pot restaurants dotting the area the proprietors decided to go in a different direction, deciding on a sizzling plate/pepper lunch concept named Sizzling House which opened in December.
I’d been trying to talk the Missus into visiting, but She didn’t seem to enthusiastic about “feeding another fad”, but She finally encouraged me to check the place out on my own.
So, I decided to head on over; arriving right after 11 on a weekday. The spacious restaurant had but one table occupied when I arrived and just two when I left.
As is the trend with many restaurants these days; ordering is done via QR code. Though I found the folks working to be quite attentive, which is probably pretty easy with just two tables occupied.
Funny thing; as I was looking thru the menu; the Missus sent me a text encouraging me to order the Japanese A5 Wagyu. When I said I thought it was waaaay too expensive, She kept insisting! Perhaps She was just feigning Her distinerest?
I finally relented and ordered the Japanese A5 Wagyu rice, meat medium rare, with an egg (of course) which had a $1.99 upcharge. This wasn’t cheap by any means.
Though you did get a free green tea, with or without hot or cold, with or without sugar.
My plate came out, with a cardboard “crown” to protect the innocent fairly quickly. It was sizzling quite nicely.
The portion of rice was quite large there was corn and edamame scattered about the hot plate. The beef, supposedly four ounces was topped with a small scoop of butter, which I thought wasn’t necessary.
The pepper sauce came in a small gravy boat. I tasted the sauce; which was interesting as it was much spicier than the usual Taiwanese Black Pepper sauce. The sauce was rather rich in texture with some decent tangy tones, a mild sweetness, and a savory component. I think this kind of overpowered the black pepper component. For some reason, I thought it would go great with shrimp?
The beef was a rather thinly sliced and I got to moving it quickly so it wouldn’t overcook.
With the beef sidelined to prevent overcooking; I worked on mixing the rice, other stuffs, and sauce to get things nicely coated. In some ways, I almost wished this was in a dolsot as some caramelization and crispy bits would add to texture and flavor.
As a whole, the sauce overpowered the beef which I’m glad I moved to the side and ate without contact with the sauce. You could cut it with the fork, but I don’t think I’d get this again. As much as I thought that there was a good amount of sauce, I think I could have used even more! Though the rice did taste pretty good; and the corn added some sweetness and in combination with the edamame more textural contrast.
Then again, I’m not going to spent forty bucks for a “funky fried rice”; though, like I mentioned above, I do think I’ll return to try with the chicken or perhaps have another sauce, mushroom and Japanese curry are offered.
The Missus didn’t care for the leftovers as it was too “rich” for Her. Though I’m glad I tried Sizzling House out; as I thought it was better than expected. Service was very nice as well.
Sizzling House & Noodle
4698 Convoy St. Suite 107
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon – Thurs 11am – 3pm, 5pm – 930pm
Friday 11am – 3pm, 5pm – 10pm
Saturday 11am – 10pm
Sunday 11am – 930pm
The bread was very crusty…it was indeed quite fresh, though it didn’t hold up real well because there was a bit too much mayo. The menu said the banh mi has pate in it; but I could not find, nor taste any. There was a good amount of pork, in chunks, fairly chewy, but decently savory-sweet-salty.
I had noticed that it was toasted, which was a clue that the folks here weren’t using Shokupan, the classic Japanese Milk Bread; a must for a egg salad sando, which this was definitely not. I missed the light, fluffy texture and the slight sweetness that the proper bread brings to the sando.
And while the rice was on the dry side and the sauce for the chicken was a bit heavy in the oil department, this was pretty good overall. The skin while a bit on the chewy side had nice flavor and as a while the chicken had been nicely poached as the flesh was quite tender and there were hints of winey-gingery-“fowlness”. One positive for having a rather oil heavy sauce was that it clung nicely to the chicken.
I will say upfront that my favorite item were the fries, which had been dusted and were perfectly seasoned and still crisp after the 15 minutes drive home.
The rice was on the drier, harder end of the scale. I was asked if I wanted “spicy” sauce with my lunch and I said yes, but I think they forgot it. It’s ok, I’ll leave that to the “soft” opening.
The “pot stickers” were like a very bland, chewy, fried mandu. This was not terrible; very fast-casual in nature, though not my kind of thing.
The bone had been really roasted, which was different form what we’d had in Old Town. The marrow was oh-so-buttery. The birria was beefy, with nice pungent-smoky-earthy tones. It’s still not quite what I recall from the San Ysidro days, but a bit better than 
This was interesting as in terms of flavor, it seemed to lack the sour vinegar tones. Though, I had to remind myself, when reading tomes like 
Anyway, in terms of the dish, the beef was really tough, and quite “metallic” in flavor. There wasn’t enough tomatoes to add a nice acidity to the dish. As for the papas fritas….well, I had to “dig” to find them. There were a few quite dry pieces of potato provided. In terms of flavor, this was slightly salty, lacking in the sour tones, with metallic tones. The rice was fine, though also on the dry side.
