Hot pot is one of those quintessential Taiwanese customs that is as regular as burning ghost money or walking painfully slowly and then stopping abruptly to inadvertently block the flow of people around you – we accept it, and in most instances, we even embrace it.
Stone hot pot, though, what’s that about?
Table of Contents
As you sit down at any hot pot restaurant, you are likely to be faced with a placemat that also doubles as a menu. You’ll likely be given a selection of vegetables as standard, a couple of empty bowls, a bowl of rice, a few spoons, and some chopsticks. So, really, all you need to do is choose your soup base and your meat.
The menu
For more of a comprehensive look at menus, check out my previous post on how to order at a restaurant. But for now, I will go through a few sections of this menu in order to break it down a little more for you:
- 主鍋 – zhǔ guō
- This is where you pick your desired meat/seafood to go with the soup.
- My advice is to hone in on the type of meat you would like (they have no vegetarian options on the menu here, unfortunately) – 牛 beef, 豬 pork, 羊 lamb, 海鮮 seafood, or 海陸 which is a mix of meat and seafood options.
- This is where you pick your desired meat/seafood to go with the soup.
- 單點 – dān diǎn
- If you want to order any individual (a la carte) options, then this is the section for you.
The drinks
Drinks are offered in most hot pot restaurants. Here, on the left is the milk tea and on the right is the green tea. Both are packed full of sugar, so I would either recommend the water or have your dentist ready on speed dial…
The sauce station
Now here we go, a step-by-step guide on how to sauce.
I followed the instructions on the sauce and it was great! But, I would add a little dab of chili, too, for good measure. I like a little kick with my hot pot for one, to be honest. What I would say about the sauce at this stone hot pot restaurant, though, is that the initial satay sauce base that is provided on your table is really damned good. So, ultimately, be happy that you’ve got a quality sauce right on your table when you arrive here.
A recurring theme of hot pot restaurants is that they offer up mounds and mounds of green onions, minced garlic, and chili. I mean, get in!
Stone hot pot
One great positive about this stone hot pot restaurant in Yonghe is that they use a nice dose of oil, heat that up to an almost smoking point, then throw in some onion, garlic, and some of the veggies for you, too. This allows the aromatics to get into the base of the stone hot pot before the soup base is added. The benefit of this? Depth of flavour with added richness.
The spread
So all of the cabbage gets used up in the frying up of the onions and the garlic, but you’re still left with this wonderful vegetable spread. Not only that, but the meat also arrives on your table around the time that the hot pot is ready to have the soup added to it – bonus!
The meat
So chain hot pot for one stores like this will likely have all of the meat cut wafer thin and ready to be given to you almost as soon as you order it. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing, but just make sure to curb your enthusiasm for the freshest and succulent-tasting meat…
Here’s what we ordered:
- 沙朗牛肉鍋 – shā lǎng niú ròu guō
- Sirloin beef pot $280
- 美國霜降牛肉鍋 – měi guó shuāng jiàng niú ròu guō
- American frosted beef pot $440
There’s not a huge visible difference between this meat, apart from one being slightly fattier (the American frosted beef) and the other being slightly leaner (the sirloin). In flavour, there’s also not much of a difference. So, with a price of $280 and $440 respectively, I would probably just go for the sirloin next time I come to this particular hot pot restaurant. Some of the other places I have visited have had better meat than this, for sure.
All about that dip, dip, swirl, swirl, eat. The meat was certainly not tough, but it was also not particularly delicate in any way. The contents of the hot pot itself were all tasty enough, and the soup base was pretty good, in all honesty.
The bottom line
Is it worth it? If you go in with the very clear expectation that it is a chain-stone hot pot restaurant, then yes. However, if you are expecting curated delicate food, then no.
Would I go back? I will definitely go back, as I do like hot pots. But, will I rush back? Probably not.