Tonight, I went on a date with one of my friends to Hot Pot. I have never been to such a restaurant, even though I’ve heard many a rave about how good this style of cuisine is. While no one is really certain where the hot pot concept came from, most scholars agree that it was likely the idea of some enterprising (read: lazy) chefs who decided it would just be easier to make the customers cook the food themselves. I dined at a Sichuan Hot Pot restaurant, which has it’s own unique style, or so I was told.

Hot pot cuisine consists of…..a hot pot. You go and pick the food you want to cook from one room, then the waiter brings a pot to your table that looks like a volcano surrounded by a moat. You cook the food in the moat. Sounds pretty simple eh? In theory, it would be quite simple, except for the westerner, the choices of food leave a little to be desired. Our picks were:

1. Mutton
2. Mini-Squids
3. Ink-Fish Balls
4. Gelatinous Duck Blood
5. Tripe
6. Finger Shellfish (that was just my name for them, cause thats what they looked like)

I would like to point out that these were the most appetizing things I could possibly select from the room with all the food. You know you’ve got a wealth of options when Duck Blood makes forth most viable plate. According to my friend, this was one of her favorites.

Luckily the mutton was decent, not great, but decent, especially when combined with the peanut butter and vinegar sauce you dip everything in. Yes, peanut butter and vinegar made it taste better. The minisquids were very chewy, so I avoided them after the first. The fish balls were kinda gooey, but I don’t really like eating fish, and I definitely don’t like eating balls. The duck blood was actually the sleeper, it tasted like a salty tofu, so not bad, but knowing what it really was brought down its flavor rating by 120%. I don’t eat friggin tripe. I only had one finger shellfish because there was too much brine in its taste, it’s eyeballs were popped out from being cooked, and I kept imagining them talking to me saying “EH Guv’nor!”

So here’s what I think about Hot Pot. Me cooking unknown seafood items is like playing Russian Roulette. But instead of a quick and painless demise, there’s a chance one of these shellfish fingerlings turns my stomach into a scene from a grindhouse flick. Not good. As such, I devised a clever set of strategies to deal with eating at these restaurants.

Avoiding Certain Death at Hot Pot Restaurants

• Order a large bottle of beer, and down said beer as fast as possible for courage.
• Continuously comment to your date/friends on how delicious the food is, and that you’ve never tried such “interesting” dishes before.
• Eat the mutton and side dish of noodles, and only after they’ve been dunked in the boiling water long enough to sterilize the 20 different strains of salmonella breeding on them.
• Inquire about the dishes people are eating at other tables even though they’re eating the exact same thing as you. While your friends are trying to figure this out, try and take as much of the other crap food and sink it in the pot like the freakin Titanic. Lucky for you the pot is deep, and everything but the fish balls deep six.
• Take a large leaf of lettuce and cover the fish balls. When someone asks you what the hell you’re doing, make up some lame excuse like the fish balls’ flavor is photosensitive, or they need sleep too. Pray that they forget they’re there.
• “Che Bao Le” Means: I’m full, lets get out of here before the finger shellfish start reciting Macbeth.
• Once your friend(s) are out of sight, hit the nearest McDonalds like a fat kid for the first time.

More pictures after the link.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble.

This isn’t tofu.

You can have any dish you want, as long as I don’t have to eat any of it.

I think the fumes from the Volcano were getting to me.

Filed under: things i ate