O'neko - Hamilton

We love this restaurant for their amazing hot pot and great service! The owner is super nice and very accommodating. If you are looking for a place to gather with friends for a good hot pot, definitely check out this restaurant!

This was my first time I tried the whole hot pot experience, so I have to admit that I don't have much to compare it. In fact, when I told the waitress that, she suggested that I try something different than it takes a long time. I wasn't really in a hurry, but went with the recommendation and ordered some kind of hot/spicy noodle soup. It was pretty tasty... and yes... really hot. I also had two spits of lamb, that was SO yummy. In fact, if I did it, I would just order more lamb and eat it for the whole meal. Watching others in place, making the whole hot pot experience was fascinating and I plan to return with my wife and children to try. The negatives? I found the menu a little hard to follow/understand and the place was quite cold/drafty. Also note that they only take cash. I can't say I'm really gonna decorate the whole place with photos of your cat... but this is not really here or there for me... I'm just not a cat. Anyway, I'm planning to go back and try this place again, because I'm really indecision as I feel about it. What I'd say is that what they did well, they did really good and what's going on is really going on.

My friend and I are excited in O'neko... Not only was the service extremely... But the food is crazy ordinary.. The taste of food is far below part.. The spices were not present and they only took cash... What place does cash take today? Stay away! The prices are cruel for the food you get.

This restaurant was absolutely delicious. I was on the street at the hotel, so I ate here three nights in a row. I have an obsession with ramen and that was some of the best I had. If you're in Hamilton... I recommend checking this place. Only cash! Ramen is about $11 CAD

TL;DR Terrible service. Terrible food. Cash only. Limited English. Stay away. A quick search for Ramen in Hamilton lead my wife and I to this establishment. It appeared to be the only restaurant nearby that offered it, everything else being over an hour away....When we arrived, we were quickly greeted by someone who we believe was in some type of manager capacity; greeted not with a Hello or Welcome but rather We aren 't doing Ramen tonight, only Hot Pot . My wife and I indicated that this wouldn 't be an issue and were seated. It was out first time trying Hot Pot . We were seated on the left wall, which was garnished with several pictures of a cat resembling a less cartoonish and skinnier version of Garfield. We were asked if we had done Hot Pot before which we had not. We were given a brief menu tutorial, All you can eat buffet for $20 . We selected an original broth , the only broth without an additional cost to the All you can eat buffet price! It was also explained to us that we received one free sauce each and that any additional sauces would be $1 per. We proceeded to order our free sauces (Garlic Hot) and then ordered multiple items on an ordering sheet such as broccoli, mushrooms, romain lettuce, beef, chicken, hot pot noodles , shrimp, mussels. The idea behind Hot pot is that the broth will cook the items you insert into it. In fact a large Hot Pot full of broth is brought to your table and placed on an induction burner at your table. We quickly related Hot Pot to Chinese Fondue , which we have had several times at home with a beef broth or peanut oil and thinly sliced beef chicken. This was the exact same concept, however perhaps an attempt at a more authentic approach. However, the broth was absolutely tasteless, lacking even the basics of a bit of salt. I jokingly nicknamed it Swamp Water as it appeared to be hot tap water with some green onions. The garlic sauce and a hot sauce we had selected earlier were equally terrible and flavourless. A waitress, who spoke very little English, brought the first plates of food to the table, 3 massive plates of thinly sliced beef, my wife instantly said Woah that 's a lot! we had only ordered 1 portion of beef. The waitress came back to the table 10 seconds later to indicate that she had given us the wrong order. She took 2 of the 3 plates of beef back to the kitchen and then moments later to another table. The services of items ordered were massive! (See pictures) After finally finishing our first order (romaine lettuce overload) and still no sign of our noodles from the initial order, we placed a second order. My wife made mention of the missing noodles and they were eventually brought to the table. This time on the second order, trying more intriguing things to place in our broth such as dumplings, wontons, rice noodles, japanese tempura , etc... We waited 25 minutes until the same manager type described earlier asked if we were done. We mentioned that we hadn 't received the second order yet, he began to panic, apologized and offered us a 10% discount. We nodded and he head back into the kitchen area where he was still visible to us. He proceeded to ask (in Mandarin) two gentlemen in the kitchen area about our order while he pointed at us. He then headed to a garbage and LITERALLY began shuffling through the garbage and pulling out old ordering sheets. 5 minutes later, he brought a plate of watercress (which we had not ordered) and an order sheet that he had retrieved from the garbage, which still had pieces of food stuck to it and asked if it was our ordering sheet. We quickly replied in disgust, No . He retreated back to the kitchen and came back explaining there was a new guy in the kitchen and that we would have to re write our order on a new ordering sheet. We complied and submitted our new ordering sheet. We began receiving the items we ordered, eventually receiving everything, with the exception of once again a noodle mishap, receiving glass noodles instead of rice noodles. The wontons and dumplings were terrible! They were served frozen, which isn 't an issue for some hot Swamp Water to bring back to life, however a clear indication that nothing brought to the table that wasn 't a vegetable was fresh, all frozen. This includes the thinly sliced beef, the thinly sliced chicken (which the wife mentioned didn 't taste like chicken), the thinly sliced pork, the shrimp, the mussels, etc... I also had to Google Japanese Tempura as I had no idea what it was that was served to me, stay away! Once we finished our plates, I went across the street to take money out from a convenience store ATM found out during dinner that it was a cash only establishment re entered the restaurant, zipped straight to the cashier and paid $45. No 10% discount was deducted and my wife and I just wanted to bail at this point therefore I didn 't bring it up. Clearly, we do not recommend this restaurant and will never be returning ourselves.