This viral Bay Area seafood restaurant feels straight out of Vegas

A glass dome held by a robotic arm ascended from our table, releasing a whoosh of steam that seeped into my pores. But I wasn’t at a spa: Before me appeared a tantalizing plate of freshly cooked shrimp. 

Xian Steam Pot & Yakiniku, a new restaurant that opened in Milpitas in June, specializes in both Chinese steam pot and Japanese yakiniku (also known as Japanese barbecue). The rarer of the two is steam pot, a form of hot pot that uses steam to cook seafood and vegetables instead of the usual simmering cauldron of soup. 

Lured to the restaurant by eye-catching viral videos on social media (one influencer declared it “one of the most unique dining experiences I’ve ever had” in an Instagram video with 615,000 views), my colleague and I stopped by for an early weeknight dinner. The restaurant was fairly quiet, but the decor was loud. 

A lavishly decorated Christmas tree stood at the entrance, and Christmas pop songs blared over the speakers (think Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe”). But even without the brash seasonal decor, Xian Steam Pot would have still felt like Las Vegas. A school of neon jellyfish hung from the ceiling, and a brightly lit green water installation bubbled up the walls. Steam rose from the booths on the other side of the restaurant, situated next to tanks of live seafood. 

When we entered Xian Steam Pot & Yakiniku, we were asked if we’d like to opt for steam pot or yakiniku — two different dining experiences seated in separate parts of the restaurant. 

Being seafood fiends, we were there for the steam pot. We were seated immediately at a booth with a high-tech steamer embedded in the middle of the table. 

The steam pot restaurant trend is thought to have originated in Guangdong before spreading to Hong Kong and Singapore in the past decade. It appears to have first arrived in the Bay Area around 2017, when San Francisco Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer reviewed Oakland’s Tastee Steam Kitchen. He noted that the only other restaurant he knew of at the time specializing in steam cooking was Fresh Elements in Daly City. Today, a few more have popped up, including Pop Kitchen in Daly City, but it’s still a bit of a rarity. 

Excited for my first steam pot experience, I ordered something from the live seafood menu. A warning: This is not for the faint of heart, as you will have to watch your dinner perish before your eyes. King crab, Dungeness crab, rock cod, sea bass, lobster, geoduck, clams and more are all available to be plucked live from the aquarium and placed onto your plate. 

This section can be pricey, and since it’s market price, you won’t know what you’re getting into until you ask. After finding out the live coral shrimp was $59/pound, we decided instead to order the cheaper live sweet shrimp, an off-menu special at $35/pound. 

We also ordered the razor clam vermicelli ($19), Chinese broccoli ($10) steamed octopus ($19), and scallop and mushroom porridge ($7 per person). As the dishes arrived, they were stacked onto a cart next to our table, waiting for their turn in the steamer. 

The live shrimp went first; our server warning us that they might try to jump out as she lowered the dish onto the steamer. A bonus: The shrimp, as well as every other dish that gets steamed, sits on a perforated platform above a bowl filled with rice that would become our porridge at the end of the meal, absorbing all the tasty juices from our seafood.

As the steamer’s metal arm lowered a glass dome over the shrimp, they didn’t twitch at first, but began wriggling as the cooking got underway. We thanked the shrimp for their sacrifice, watching with fascination until the steamer’s timer went off and the lid rose to reveal our extremely fresh dinner.

We were provided cups of the restaurant’s house sauce — a spicy, salty mala sauce with numbing Sichuan peppercorn and chile — but the back of the restaurant is also home to an entire sauce bar. You can mastermind your own perfect potion, although I’ll admit I preferred the house sauce to the overzealous concoction I created. The bar also offers other accoutrements, including cucumbers, vinegar peanuts, lemons, cilantro, scallions and fresh fruit. 

The shrimp were called sweet shrimp, but I wasn’t prepared for just how candy-like they would be. While they were great dunked into the spicy house sauce, they were so flavorful on their own that I preferred them with just a squeeze of lemon. 

The razor clam vermicelli was also delicious, a generous portion of sweet razor clams on a bed of super savory noodles. Vegetables, it turns out, also shone in the steamer. The heaping plate of Chinese broccoli emerged just how I like it — tender, but still with a bit of crunch. This dish, however, definitely needed a dunk in sauce as it was not seasoned otherwise.  

The steamed octopuses were cooked to ideal tenderness, but were less naturally flavorful than the shrimp, so I was less enthralled. Surprisingly, though, the best part of the meal was still to come: the porridge. 

As we slurped down our last shrimp, our server returned to give our porridge at the bottom of the steamer a final stir and ladle it into bowls. Steeped in all the juices from the shrimp, octopus and razor clams, in addition to dried mushrooms and dried scallops, it was some of the most flavorful congee I’d ever had. A tiny spoonful of the house sauce took it to the next level. 

If I were a meat eater, I’d definitely return to Xian Steam Pot to try the yakiniku experience, too. Many a TikTok showcases the dramatic presentation of the meat, wagyu and filet mignon stacked on a gold cow steaming with dry ice.  

Our total for two people came to just over $100 before tip, which I thought wasn’t bad for all the fresh seafood. You could definitely do a lot more damage here, but if you’re savvy, you can experience a little Vegas in Milpitas without blowing a whole paycheck — and with a bonus facial steaming, too.