Shoot ‘Em Up Hot Pot

On Monday night I had my first Hot Pot experience. A specialty of the region, I had managed to avoid it thus far.

As part of a somewhat dodgy contra-deal (I proof-read an English translation of the restaurant history), I was invited to the fanciest hot pot restaurant in Chongqing. I know it was a posh restaurant because the tables were not covered with the ubiquitous plastic drop sheet. Also the presence of dancing girls suggested this was not your run-of-the-mill hot pot shop.

Hot pot consists of a pot of boiling, spicy soup laid into a table and heated from below with a gas burner. Served along with a table of bits and pieces, the soup is incredibly spicy and boiling hot. When I say incredibly spicy I mean incredibly spicy. I dipped my chopsticks in this soup to taste it and that tiny amount just about blew my socks off.


Because they were in the company of a foreigner, my hosts ordered a ‘combination pot’ meaning that there was a small inner pot within the big pot. The small inner pot held the Chernobyl-grade spicy soup while the outer pot was more of a broth. Similar to a chicken soup. But made of pigeon.

The idea is to dunk the various ‘bits and pieces’ into the soup, allowing them to cook and absorb the flavour of the soup. To define ‘bits and pieces’ I will use some examples from my evening:

Tripe

Liver

Cows neck

Pigeon

Duck intestines

Fish (full fish ie. head, fins etc)

Other unidentifiable offal

Again I was fortunate that my hosts were au fait with the ways of the crazy westerners who don’t particularly like to eat offal and animal bits. There was also a small selection of vegetarian matter such cucumber, bean curd, lettuce leaves and a variety of mushrooms. I was able to pick around the vegetables and the less offensive meats and in fact some of it was quite nice. There was some filleted fish and also some small beef rissoles made with coriander that were quite tasty. I just had to do my best to ignore my fellow diners as they dunked long strands of intestine and other bits in the soup and devoured it feverishly.

The evening was a lot of fun and the food not nearly as scary as I had expected. The dancing girls and Chinese acrobats certainly helped matters. Throughout the evening a troupe of Vegas-style dancing girls sang and danced their little hearts out on the stage at the front of the restaurant. There were a number of different themes and costumes, beginning with traditional Chinese outfits and moving along the spectrum to cowgirls dancing to ‘Rawhide’ complete with fake gunshots etc. One of the more bizarre and amusing evenings of entertainment I’ve experienced.


Watermelon is traditionally served to signal the completion of the meal. Being a posh restaurant the watermelon was served with a slice of pear, some tomatoes and a stick of Wrigleys gum. Fancy!