The other night, some friends offered to babysit the boys and Mike and I went out for hot pot! Now that the weather is cooler, we have been looking forward to enjoying some yummy hot pot (it's just way too hot to eat in the summertime).
Hot pot is common in Chinese communities across the world, especially in winter. A boiling pot of broth is placed in the middle of the table (or sometimes, smaller pots are given to each individual diner, as was the case at the restaurant we went to). You choose the kind of broth you want and there are usually several choices, such as vegetable, seafood, super spicy, tomato, or curry-based broths. While the pot is simmering, raw vegetables, frozen thin-shaved meats, seafood, tofu, dumplings, and noodles are added to the hot pot and cooked right at the table. Sometimes a waitress pushes around a cart of raw ingredients to choose from, sometimes you order small plates of meats and veggies from a menu, and sometimes the restaurant has a buffet of raw food items that you go and choose from. The place we went to had a buffet, although the raw meat was kept in a freezer (thankfully!) and we just had to ask for what we wanted.
Our selection of meat and raw veggies. The meat you see is beef, pork, and lamb, plus a couple of huge shrimp. The veggies you can (barely) see are mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, spinach, and corn. We also had lots of tofu, tofu skin (my favorite), noodles, and fish balls (which Mike loves). The shiny metal bowls set into the table are the hot pots of broth. We each had our own little control panel under the table to adjust the heat setting.
My hot pot simmering away. I had the spicy broth--you can see the chili oil on top of the broth. It was super spicy!
Mike eating a cube of tofu.
Eating corn on the cob Chinese style. It's a pretty tricky thing to do with chopsticks!
Good grammar on this Sizzler's billboard...
...and nothing is more fresher and more healthier than a big plate of fried food and tartar sauce!
