The restaurant is the first malatang place in Belgium, offering soups you customize yourself.
Rue E. Solvay 6
What’s good? Yangguofu Malatang brings a popular Chinese street food, known as malatang (something like a hot pot), to Belgium. The owner, Cheng, called the concept “a Chinese McDonald’s” referring to its popularity, but we would argue it’s much healthier. Yangguofu is the biggest malatang chain, with 6,000 branches worldwide.
The idea is that you create your own dish by picking one of the soup bases and then adding to it from a wide-range of vegetables, meats, fish cakes, mushrooms, seaweed and other ingredients that your reviewer failed to identify. As such, you can only blame yourself if you choose things that don’t go well together in your soup.
The word mala is composed of the Chinese characters that mean “numbing” and “hot,” referring to the level of spice. But if you can’t handle the spice, don’t worry, there are mild variants as well.
What’s not? The ordering system is a bit confusing if you’re not used to customizing your own soup and are visiting for the first time, but the staff will help you.
Vibe: The environment is clean, not too fancy, and suitable for a casual or business lunch or dinner. It’s also the type of the place you visit for comfort food when it’s cold and rainy outside (so ideal for the next three months).
Who’s picking up the check? We paid around €80 for two people — but it absolutely depends on how much food you put on your plate.
Insider tip: It’s very easy to have eyes bigger than your belly and overload your dish. But be aware that you’re charged for weight of the ingredients, as well as the soup base.
Fun fact: Cheng, the owner, said his primary motivation for opening the restaurant was his wife, who complained about the lack of good spicy Chinese food, and malatang specifically, in Belgium.
He also said that “Chinese people from all over Belgium came on the first day of opening” and “one guy from Ghent even biked there and back just to eat the soup.”
How to get there: The restaurant is in Ixelles, about a five-minute walk from the metro station Porte de Namur.
Review published on February 13, 2025. Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO.
