When some of my friends first got to Frankfurt, beyond the skyscrapers and the Römer, their settling-in agenda often included a common, delicious priority: the urgent hunt for an authentic spot of malatang.
For anyone not familiar with malatang, imagine the communal, customizable Chinese hot pot, but without the pressure of timing your own cooking of the ingredients. It’s a more accessible version of hotpot. You define your own meal, selecting from a dizzying array of fresh meats, seafood, and vegetables, and let the kitchen cook them in a bubbling, aromatic broth.
Just as we thought the city’s malatang scene was set by 香香麻辣烫 XiangXiang Malatang(Spicy Hot Pot), a new spot has just opened: Mala Bowl. It has quickly become popular, offering a diverse take on the classics and throwing in some welcome-opening gifts, which we’ll detail later.
Restaurant Profile
🏷️ Name of the Restaurant: Mala Bowl
📍 Adress: Neue Kräme 12, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
🍜 Style: Chinese Cuisine – hotpot, customizable malatang with meats, seafood, vegetables, tofu, and noodles, cooked in your choice of broth and paired with DIY dip
💰 Price: around 15 – 25 EUR per Person (incl. Drinks and Tips)
Broth Tour:
Mala Bowl offers a globe-trotting selection of broths. Each starts with a foundation of real, slow-simmered beef bone broth, for a rich and authentic depth.
- Beef Original: Pure, unadorned, this is a rare find in Frankfurt—soothing, deeply savory, and light yet profound.
- Xin Xiang Ma La (Spicy Numbing): The classic. The heat, built on the beef bone broth and crescendoing with chili, Sichuan peppercorn, and a chorus of spices for “má, là, xiān, xiāng” (numbing, spicy, fresh, fragrant) thrill ride.
- Tomato: Sweet and tangy. Perfect for those seeking comfort without the fire, its vibrant acidity complements fresh vegetables and tender meats.
- Tom Yum: A zestful taste of Thailand. This broth packs the flavor of lemongrass, lime leaves, and galangal, offering a citrusy, aromatic heat that’s also refreshing.
- Miso: Inspired from Japanese ramen broth. Savory, umami-rich, and slightly sweet, this broth provides a comforting, mellow base for the fresh ingredients.
Top Picks from Our Recent Feast:
🍜 Soothing Beef Original Broth
You don’t always need fireworks to be amazed.
The Beef Original broth may be simple, but it’s super soothing, with a deep, resonant beef flavor that forms a perfect canvas for the fresh ingredients: sweet veggies, briny seafood, and rich beef.
This is one of those rare places where we’d happily order and sip the plain soup—deep and hearty on one side, yet clear and revitalizingly fresh on the other. It’s simply that good.
🌶️ Mala (Spicy Numbing) Broth
Starting with the same honest beef bone broth, the Mala version adds a potent blend of 辣椒 (chili), 花椒 (Sichuan peppercorn), and spices. At first sip, a tingling, buzzing heat blooms across your palate, followed by the broth’s deep, layered, fresh aroma.
At mild spice levels (微辣 wēi là), you can still taste the natural sweetness of the beef bones beneath the spice.
But step it up to medium (中辣 zhōng là) or hot (重辣 zhòng là), and the chili fire starts to get bold and exciting. Fair warning—it’s then no longer a soup to sip on its own, but more of a seasoning.
Ingredient Spotlight:
Seasoned beef slices are must-try! They’re so soft and tender that they glide through the teeth and instantly melt away like drifting, savory clouds.
Lean and super tender chicken, each piece remains moist after poached in the broth.
Smooth, jelly-like duck blood cubes and crisp, chewy black beef tripe which’s an absolute treat and rarely seen in malatang shops!
Gelatinous, soft, and wonderfully sticky tendon, to add a luxurious, collagen-rich touch to the broth.
Bountiful seafood, including plump shrimps, briny clams, octopus, and baby calamari that bounce with sweet tenderness.
Vegetable mosaic of crisp, fresh bamboo shoots, broccoli, cabbage, and various green leaves; soothing and sweet winter melon (冬瓜) and sweet potato; broth-soaking tofu and firmer, layered tofu skin; and slippery-crunchy wood ear mushroom, etc.
Starchy carbs like springy wheat noodles that hold up in rich, spicy broth (like Mala or Tom Yum), or silky rice noodles that go well with subtler broths (like Beef Original or Tomato). Dumplings are also on offer.
Dip DIY:
The customization doesn’t just stop at broth or ingredients. One crucial stop lies at the sauce bar. It features a lineup of flavors, like bright, spicy fresh chilies (小米辣); savory, roasted satay (沙茶酱); sesame paste (芝麻酱); creamy, rich fermented bean curd (腐乳); peanut butter (花生酱); umami, mildly sweet Thai oyster sauce; and salty pickled vegetables (咸菜).
Our sauce-making ritual often includes:
- Sesame Paste: The creamy, nutty base that tames the spice.
- Aromatics: A confetti of fresh cilantro, green onions, and pungent raw garlic.
- The Heat Trio: A spoonful of Laoganma老干妈 (the iconic Chinese chili crisp, with its smoky, savory, and slightly fermented depth), pickled chili for a sour-spicy punch, and a dash of their self-made chili sauce.
- The Finisher: A sprinkle of crushed peanuts and a few drops of sesame oil for a warm, nutty aroma.
Mix it all together. What you get is an umami bomb—a complex, aromatic paste that is spicy, nutty, umami, and enticingly garlicky🧄. The smoky roast from the Laoganma makes it so heavenly. Dip a piece of that melt-in-your-mouth beef, and you’ve reached malatang euphoria.
The Mala Bowl Game Plan: How It Works
The process is simple: grab a bowl, load up on the fresh ingredients (with meat and veggies at the same price), pay by weight (€2.60/100g), and take a beeper. When it buzzes, your custom-made bowl is ready.
Mala Bowl is a re-opening, run by the same owner as the former Ming Garten. As a welcome gift, we got a free drink, if our bowl weighed over 400g. With our healthy appetites, we often managed to score two free drinks per person!
While you’re waiting for your food, don’t forget to grab the complimentary small sides like edamame or kimchi as an appetizer.
So, if you find yourself in Frankfurt with a craving for something authentic, customizable, and bursting with flavor, your search ends at Mala Bowl.
Passed by here today but didn’t stop to eat. Will try next time
The flavor is really good. Definitely worth trying.
Thanks for sharing. Their soup is the best I’ve had in Frankfurt!
You have to try the tom yum soup base. The moment it’s served, you can smell the rich beef broth aroma. The owner said it’s made from a slow-simmered beef bone stock. It’s surprisingly not thirsty at all after eating. I literally alternated between a bite of food and a sip of soup and finished the whole dish. Fragrant, spicy, and satisfying!
Near Frankfurt’s Römer Square, a really nice place serving warm, flavorful, and comforting malatang.
Although the prices are really cheap and the homemade kimchi is delicious, the ingredients for the malatang were honestly so not fresh. On Friday, all the veggies were wilted except the tonghao, and the shrimp was sitting in water with the top looking dried out. I ate the malatang in the evening, and that same night my stomach reacted. I had diarrhea and then threw up three times!!!
Mala tang is getting more and more expensive these days. If you add a bit more, it basically costs the same as an all-you-can-eat hot pot! 😅
All-you-can-eat hot pot tastes awful 😅
It’s just spicy and more spicy. It feels like there’s no real chef behind the dishes. Honestly, it doesn’t make me want to eat.
When Ming Garden first opened, they did tons of advertising, but honestly the food was just average. Even with such a prime location, they couldn’t keep it going. Maybe this mala tang setup can give the place a second life.
Hard to say, the location is central, but the place is so easy to miss. You could walk right past it without noticing. A lot of people said their food used to be really good, but none of us ever saw their ads, and even when strolling around the city center, we never once noticed.
Every new Chinese restaurant that opens seems to be another mala tang place 😅
You’ve got to visit Jin’s Haus Malatang! The most impressive thing about this place is how many broth options they offer. They even have some rare flavors like green Sichuan pepper, snail soup, and mala dry mix. 🔥🍜
Cheap and tasty. Nothing beats the joy of seeing some many fresh greens on your plate 🥬✨
Ming Garden is gone…what a pity! 😢 There’s Jins Haus Malatang and Xiang Xiang nearby, and now this is the third mala tang place in the area.
Why does it feel like Chinese food in Germany is basically just mala tang and noodles? 😅
Because they don’t really require much cooking skill, the ingredients are simple, and the costs are low.
Went there for the first time today and tried the Tom Yum flavor. It tasted like a mix of lemon and pickled chili, really delicious! 🍋🌶️ Even outside of peak hours, this mala tang place is still quite busy.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’m eating here right now! The food is really good, the sofa seats are super soft, and the place has two floors. 🥢
They also have more veggie options than the other two malatang places in Frankfurt.
At Jin’s Haus, I always get pressured into adding extra ingredients when my bowl costs less than €10 😩 But Mala Bowl doesn’t do that! I got super full for just a bit over €8! 😋
You got super full for just over eight euros?? 😳 Can you tell me how much you usually eat? I normally spend around 20 euros just to feel about 80% full!
They don’t give free drinks anymore 🥲🥤
A new mala tang (spicy hot pot) place in Frankfurt, tasty and clean!