RESTAURANT REVIEW: Mr. Beef and Noodles at The Hub in Greenfield District, Mandaluyong

Mr. Beef and Noodles by the Wow Cow Group opened up at The Hub in Greenfield District, Mandaluyong. We pass by this restaurant daily before it officially opened during our walks with our beagle Milo, and we were definitely excited mainly because I love beef and Dane loves noodles. What surprised us when it finally opened was to find out it’s actually unlimited hotpot at ₱699 per person for a maximum of 2 hours stay.

We were immediately given service drinking water as we sat down, and the staff explained how their restaurant worked when we asked. What we didn’t expect is there was an optional additional charge to get unlimited sauces at P58/head, with options including oyster sauce, satay, or you can create different combinations of any of them by pairing them with minced garlic, spring onions, raw onions, soy sauce, vinegar, and so on. That felt a bit like a curve ball because the sauces are usually essential. Hotpot meat is typically served unseasoned, so everything is going to taste bland without it.

Once we settled in, we were given a large A3 size paper to tick off our first orders, including our choice of soup base. I chose beef bone broth while Dane had mushroom soup.

After about 10 minutes, our soup arrived. My beef bone soup came with a large beef bone in it and some carrots. It tasted beefy but very light and bland. Dane’s had some pieces of mushrooms as well, but it was also light. This reinforced our notion of getting the unlimited sauce option.

Some of the orders we added to the paper didn’t arrive. I’ve experienced this in many restaurants offering unlimited/ eat-all-you-can options so it’s quite understandable. However, there weren’t many customers yet when we arrived as it was only 5pm so it also kinda didn’t make sense. On top of that, they refilled Dane’s soup with beef bone soup instead of mushroom soup, which was also kinda strange. We’re unsure if it was a mistake or it was simply store protocol.

In general, the hotpot option were okay. Just okay. Throughout the experience, there really is high reliance on the sauce especially for the meat options as there wasn’t much flavor to start with from the protein nor the soup. By the middle of our eating journey, we started to get fed up with the taste. So it’s highly suggested to have more than one sauce combination to break the taste. For us, our palate cleanser was the crispy pork (part of the eat-all-you-can menu) as it was slightly salty and because it was crispy, it was very different from the rest of the food we were cooking in the hotpot.

Our favorites from the selection included the USA fat beef, Mongolian Lamb Roll, Juicy beef balls, Mushroom balls, and crispy pork. Everything else was nothing notable.

Mr. Beef and Noodles eat-all-you-can price

Mr. Beef and Noodles eat-all-you-can hotpot costs ₱699/head + a 5% service charge for their eat-all-you-can hotpot. You’ll also need to pay ₱58/head if you want unlimited sauces which we highly recommend. So it costs about ₱800/head in total if you want to maximize the experience. Then you can stay for a maximum of 2 hours.

Dane and I were discussing the experience until the next day and we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t bad, but it’s also not very worth the ₱800 per head price tag. A similar hotpot place Tong Yang costs roughly the same and they have more options and even unlimited drinks and dessert. And you can just add a few more and you can get into popular non-hotpot buffets like Dad’s or Vikings with so much more variety in cuisine and dishes.

One of the only redeeming qualities of the experience was the staff stationed on the second floor who attended to us. She was proactive in attending to customers, clearing out empty plates and refilling soup, and she was also proactively following up on orders when she thought it was taking a bit too long.

Overall Rating:

• Taste: 2.5/5
• Bang for Buck: 2/5
• Ambiance: 3/5
• Service: 3/5
• Would we eat here again? Maybe.