Hot pot is a popular meal around here and it’s not hard to understand why. You get to sit around a boiling pot of soup and cook your own fresh vegetables and meat. The bonus is a nice warm up and a good meal on a cold day. Here’s the run down.
Pick your place. We’ve been liking this place lately because it is a chain restaurant. We like that it is always clean, they always have the same items on the menu, the service is pretty consistent, AND there is a bathroom WITH soap in the restaurant.
Select your vegetables and meat from this nice, multiple choice menu.
Mix your own dipping sauce from the sauce bar. There is an assortment of pickeled vegetables, spices, and oils including minced garlic, green onion, peanuts, red pepper, sesame, fermented bean paste. Ok, you get the idea.
Put your meat and vegetables, a plate or two at a time, in the boiling soup.
Pick a piece from the pot when it is done cooking and dip in your sauce. Don’t forget to add a little stock from the soup to your sauce as well. Gives it a nice consistency. This below is a strip of tofu.
Eat! Best meal ever. Oh, and we’ve not been able to enjoy hot pot until recently. You eat this at a slower pace so combine this laid back affair with the fact that there is a boiling pot (some times with red hot coals under) in the middle of a table and you don’t get a meal that is great with babies and toddlers! Here’s to growing up!
