Okay, this is one of my new all-time favorite things to eat. One of our friends took us to a spicy hot pot restaurant and now I can't stop thinking about it. You sit down at a table and get a bubbling vat of broth. It's separated in the middle; on one side is mild but delicious broth, kind of like a light chicken broth and on the other side is deep red beauty of spicy broth, large chunks of tofu and duck blood (resembles the tofu in appearance, texture, and taste).
They set the cauldron on a burner in the middle of the table to keep warm and you go up to coolers to choose meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles, or any other number of things you might want to add to the broth. The place we went to was all you can eat, so you could just go up and try anything you wanted.
We chose some meat and seafood, vegetables and dumplings. You dump it all into the broth until it's cooked then enjoy! At the we put a package of ramen type noodles in, and they just soaked up the broth and all the flavor from the meat and the vegetables we'd cooked. It was a slurpy delicious finish to the meal.
By the way, as far as the title of this post goes - no I did not have a momentary lapse and think I was in France and not Asia. La is the Chinese word for spicy :)
8 comments:
yum! that looks so good!
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Thanks so much for the comment and for adding me to your blog! I just visited your blog and love it and will do the same. Us expat writers have to stick together :)
All I can say is that it looks like a culinary adventure! What fun! thank you for sharing. (oh, and that red side of the pot does look very LA! (spicy! I like that I learned a new word:)
Yummmmyyyy!! In Malaysia, we call this the "steamboat" experience.. where we not only have the hotpot soup to throw anything we like into it, but the pot also has a grill section around it so we can GRILL stuff too!!
Lots of fun.. and very satisfying!!
Sorry for the delay in a response to your comments! What a horrible blogger I am!
@Lauren - definitely a culinary adventure :) The hot side was pretty hot, but luckily my tongue has been trained to handle it by a Texan husband.
@Kimberly - what a great idea to have a grill/hot pot combination! I love it! I would definitely go for that.
This makes me miss Taiwan. =o)
Sorry! I know - it does look delicious. I've been traveling for a few weeks now and I could definitely go for some spicy hot pot myself :) I don't think I've ever had anything close to the Taiwanese hot pot!
I'm fortunate to have family from Taiwan due to my husband (born and raised in Taiwan). Taiwan will officially be my home someday. =O I am just so impatient.
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