'The Delicious Restaurant' (Hot Pot)

Kitchen: Chinese - Hot Pot

Little hot pot

I have been invited to ‘hot pot’. It’s a Chinese way of serving food, thus the first step to take is to tune down the air conditioning in our private room. The service is accurate and kind. Some explanation and good advice is never far away. My host is a regular. Maybe that helps.

Hot pot is a kind of fondue: DIY food. The table is filled with raw fish, shrimp, octopus, vegetables, roots and meat. Usually it’s a group thing: a big hot pot in the center of the table with boiling hot broth in two flavours – regular and spicy. For this occasion we choose a different option: everybody gets their own little hot pot. I hotpotted once before in Chengdu (China) and the spicy variant killed all delicate flavours, so I choose the regular bouillon. In China you could also choose to dip brains, stomach and chicken heads in the pot, but today I find frog legs exotic enough.

It’s a social happening. It’s very enjoyable to share opinions about how long it takes to dip your meat, what goes well with what etc. It’s also easy to boil something in your neighbor’s hot pot, and so I learn that I’d better chosen the spicy variation. The regular broth is very.. regular. All condiments are fresh. Frog legs taste funny. A bit like spongy chicken, but not quite. Hot pot isn’t high cuisine, but it is a lot of fun!

Food 7- (because of the regular bouillon: maybe the spicy one scores higher. I will let you know) | Atmosphere 6 | Service 7+