Yum Brands Inc. has made a preliminary offer to buy the remaining stake of Chinese restaurant chain Little Sheep Group Ltd. (0968.HK) that it does not already own as part of its ongoing international expansion.

Yum, the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell fast-food brands, already holds a 27.2% stake in Little Sheep, which it purchased in 2009.

Little Sheep operates about 480 “Mongolian Hot Pot” restaurants in China, as well as several others in Japan and a dozen in North America. The Hot Pot concept involves consumers ordering raw meat, and then cooking it themselves in a boiling pot of soup at the table, similar to a fondu process.

– Anne Gasparro, Market Watch.

There are a ton of KFCs and Pizza Huts in China, but I didn’t spot a single Taco Bell the entire month I was there (it was 2007, though, so hopefully things have changed since).

I did, however, enjoy hot pot at a place I believe may have been a Little Sheep. It was delicious. I know there are a bunch of hot pot places in Flushing and elsewhere around the boroughs and I’ve been meaning to go for a while, but if anyone has a strong recommendation I’m all ears.