Hotpot

I went to eat at a hotpot restaurant here in Taizhou. Since I had never been to a hot pot I wasn't sure what I should expect. It was traditionally decorated on the inside and the restaurant overlooked the old part of town. The restaurant itself was relatively new but still bustling with business. Our hostess showed us to our table, a large table that could accommodate 6 but there were only four. My friends told me to seat in the chair of honor, a chair much taller and different colored than the other ones.

Once of the strangest things I found kind of cool, was that we were not given a single menu. The way we ordered was we scanned the table and then we used our phones to order the food. Each item was individually priced. For example, hot pot is soup base of your choice plus added vegetables and mushroom of your choice as well as whatever meat of your choice. And of course whatever drink you wanted to drink. I was very impressed with flow of things. I let my friends order for me since I had zero clue of what the items on the menu aside from the vague little picture that was attached to it. All I asked for was that my coworkers not order intestines and stomach of any animal. Or other weird parts of the meat. 

On the table, there is a sheet that looks like its part of the periodical table, and that tell you exactly how long the food should be cooked. For example, the meat we ordered will taste better if you drop it in the pot for 3 minutes. Or corn for 4 minutes. Also on the table was these short chopsticks with a little screwed hole on the bottom like something was missing something. I was confused and asked why the chopsticks were so short. The answer, because in front of every person's periodical sheet along with an individual wet wipe , small bowl and spoon, was a small little packet that contained small wooden disposable chopsticks that you screwed in to the other short chopsticks for a more sanitary use.

The soup that my coworkers chosen in my honor. While they cannot tolerate spicy food, they ordered three different flavors and one of them was spicy. There were more than 100 chili peppers in the soup with a base of broth of lamb. The other two were orange apple soup with tomato base and beef bone-marrow soup.  

Finished product

The whole process from start to finish took two whole hours since, much like Korean barbecue,  you have to cook your own food into a boiling bot of soup. However, while delicious and interesting, the day we went for this hot pot it was 24 degrees Celsius (Around 75 degrees Fahrenheit) so it was too hot to have hot pot. This would be a lovely meal to have during a COLD winter day. 

As always, Zai Jian!