Seapot--San Mateo, CA

I'm slobbering as I write this review of Seapot, and that doesn't happen often. I'm thinking especially of the endless, steady stream of meat that came to our table by wait staff and the conveyor belt delivering bounties of shrimp, fish, veggies and other raw ingredients for a tasty hot pot. I don't recall being so, well, excited about lunch. And, why shouldn't anyone? For a $17 during a weekday lunch, you can have all the meat and veggies your belly can handle with, in my case, a "creamy milk" broth to cook it in. For all the meat they slice up for you, my favorite ingredient of all, in fact, was Spam (or its equivalent). Please take note of the following:

• Although there are six soups to choose from to cook your items, you have to stick with one type for the entire meal. Your server will re-fill your pot when you want him to.
• Chicken, pork, lamb and beef will be delivered to your table; if you want seafood you'll grab it from the conveyor belt.
• You make your own sauce at the sauce bar.
• For us, at any rate, the 90-minute limit was enforced.

Not done with mirrors: The conveyor belt really is this long.

Don't go to Seapot for the desserts. You'll be disappointed. There were, maybe, two or three different small cakes you could get and none of them were memorable.

Also, if you can swing it, go here for lunch on a weekday. Otherwise, you'll pay a $12 premium (that's more than 70%) for the same experience. At any rate, it's called "lunch", but for me it was my only meal of the day, if you know what I mean.

The service was attentive, but it could have been because our lunch was on the late side and the customer to server ratio was dwindling. Understood from the get-go was the 90-minute time limit and, indeed, at that point we received the check as our cue.