Sharing meals with family and friends brings us together to celebrate our relationships, and to enjoy the food put before us. When we actually share food from common vessels, we increase those bonds and connections. This close social connection releases endorphins that allows us to relax, smile, and hopefully even share a laugh and a story. This is the magic of communal dining.
Communal dining can be found in many different methods, from Chinese hot pots to Korean BBQs, fondues, and even buffets. It’s more than just sharing food in common vessels – it creates comfort and encourages intimacy. We can create communal dining experiences in our homes, or there are also several places in Calgary where we can practice the art of communal dining.
Chine Hotpot & Noodles
Hot pot is an interactive dining experience where a communal (or individual) pot of broth is put at the table, and diners choose from a variety of meat, vegetables, and noodles to cook themselves in a boiling, flavorful broth. It’s a tradition that is over 1,000 years old, which is believed to have started with Mongol warriors who cooked fresh ingredients in a communal pot over a fire to keep warm. At Chine, each person selects their soup base (from over 11 varieties), and then the table chooses a bunch of ingredients to share in order to make their own unique dinner. They have a wide variety of meats, such as New Zealand lamb, a selection of different slices of beef and pork, quail eggs, duck feet, shrimp, mussels, and so much more. They also have 15 different vegetables, including lotus root and pumpkin, and seven varieties of noodles. You could choose to have a different hot pot experience every single time!
While there, adding on the Peachy Mango smoothie is a must; with its chunks of mango, this is the ultimate hot pot dessert! Hot pot is unique, interactive, a great way to stay warm, and a great way to spend quality time with the ones you love.
Chine has a north and south location in Calgary (south – 8971 Bonaventure Drive SE; north – 1110 11 Royal Vista Drive NW).
Cheongdam Korean BBQ
Korean BBQ is another fun and interactive communal dining experience for families. At Cheongdam, each table has its own grill, which all diners share to cook their own dinner. They have an extensive meat and seafood collection and a wide array of sauces, as well as onions, zucchini, and mushrooms to add to your grill. The most fun and the most common option is their all-day-all-you-can-eat option. You can choose as many meats and vegetables as you like (provided you eat them, of course), as well as appetizers including shrimp and squid tempura, fried chicken, dumplings, takoyaki, deep fried scallop, honey glazed potatoes, tangsuyuk (sweet & sour pork), ddukbbokki (sweet & spicy rice cake), and steamed or fried rice.
The all-you-can-eat option is $32.99 for adults and $16.99 for children ages six to 11 (for lunch and dinner Mondays through Thursdays). Friday through Sunday dinners, as well as all day on holidays, is $34.99 for adults and $17.99 for children ages six to 11. If you really want to spoil yourself, they also have a premium all-you-can-eat option that includes premium cuts of meat such as wagyu. They have spacious seating areas for families (and can, in fact, comfortably host groups of several dozen people), and they even have kid-friendly utensils. If you’re there to celebrate a birthday, they can make available a chef-made birthday cake upon request.
And if you thought hot pot has been around for a long time, Korean BBQ supposedly dates back all the way to the Goguryeo era (which was between 37 BC to 668 AD)! Now that is a long time of perfecting the Korean-style of BBQ!
Cheongdam has a north and south location in Calgary (north – 5130 4 Royal Vista Way NW; south – 875 19587 Seton Crescent SE).
Thomsons Kitchen & Bar
Two other forms of communal dining experiences are buffets and fondues. Buffets allow diners to try a diverse range of menu items. This is where we often find ourselves discussing these items and sharing our opinions on them with our fellow diners, which lends to the interactive social experience of buffets. Thomsons Kitchen & Bar offers a Sunday buffet brunch that is absolutely phenomenal. They have a huge selection of buffet items that change weekly, including a carving station and an omelet station. The last time I was there, I had mouth-watering AAA striploin at the carving station, and they had an entire wall of German-themed menu options! They have both salmon and back bacon eggs Benedict, which are made to order and brought hot to your table in a frying pan. Items change weekly, however, to keep their buffet fresh and exciting. Truly, this is one amazing buffet! And guess what? If you’re lucky, you will hit up Thomsons Kitchen & Bar buffet when they have their chocolate fountain set up! That’s a buffet and fondue all in one place! It is offered sporadically, so call first if you want to make sure it’s there on the day of your choosing. However, chocolate fondue is always set up on their special buffet days, such as Easter Sunday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, and their Christmas buffet. For their Easter buffet, they set up a soft play place for the kiddos to allow parents extra time to enjoy their meal.
Thomsons has recently released their Christmas 2025 buffet items, pricing, and reservations. Besides the usual AAA prime rib, turkey, and ham, they have a bao station, a dim sum station, seafood paella, bison short ribs, braised lamb, gnocchi, an entire fish and seafood station, a hot chocolate and affogato station, and of course numerous salads, vegetables, charcuterie items, and desserts. Check out their website for more details.The Christmas buffet is $145 per person, $73 for children ages six to 12, and free for kids five and under.
Thomsons’ regular Sunday buffet is $48 per person, $24 for children ages six to 12, and free for five and under.
Thomsons Kitchen & Bar is located in SE Calgary (112 8 Avenue SE).
Whether it’s Chinese hot pot, Korean BBQ, fondue or a buffet, all of these communal dining options are great ways to connect with our family and friends.
Jennifer is a local foodie with a passion for food writing. Find more of her food writing on her Facebook page: For The Love of Food YYC.
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