This will differ slightly from other restaurant reviews. This is more of a review of an experience - the restaurant could be any Chinese restaurant that offers the service.
Some things often get Lost in Translation, and food is no different. Today's topic? Hot Pot. Or, Chinese Fondue. By buddy Darren and I have this weekly ritual where every Wednesday night we catch up on life and gorge ourselves on food. In fact, many of my reviews are based on my adventures with Darren. And tonight was another night where we ate enough for 4, and loved every second of it. Tonight, we were going to have Hot Pot at BoBo Mandarin over on 4th St. in Campustown.
Hot Pot or Fire Pot would be the literal translation of the dish that is somewhat common throughout Taiwan and China. The beauty of this dish is that it's really good for all seasons. In the hot summer months, you'll see people in China eating hot pot at midnight, when it's still warm and muggy out. The spicy food helps you sweat and cool off. In the cold winter months, it's quintessential comfort food. Hot, spicy, rich broth, used to cook your favorite meats and vegetables, that warms you inside and out.
Basically, it's an electric burner (or a portable gas burner) with a big, wide pot on top. You fill up the pot with this spicy broth, bring it up to a boil, and then you eat. You eat it all family style, everyone cooking their own food. So what do you eat? Anything you want. First thing into the broth was vegetables. These would slowly cook and release some flavor. Spinach, napa, carrots, Chinese turnips, whatever you had on hand. Today we just chose spinach.
As this cooked down, you'd each make your sauce bowl. You'd add whatever sort of spicy seasonings that you had. Start with some soy. Add some Bull's Head Barbecue sauce (Asian barbecue sauce that's very different from what you'd expect), some spicy bean curd, maybe some garlic or chili oil, and crack an egg in there to give it all a little texture. They also brought out some pickled mustard plant, a peanut sauce, and some MSG for us, if we wanted to use it, but we didn't.
Once the pot comes back to a low boil, you can start cooking meats. Today, we had beef, squid, beef meatballs, and shrimp. It was pretty awesome. The shrimp were whole shrimp with the heads still on. They were a little hard to peel (white shrimp usually are), but the flesh had a sweet taste to it that worked well with the spicy dipping sauce. The beef was just thinly shaved (I believe) round steak. Basically, you just dip it into the boiling broth for a second, and it's cooked to a perfect medium. The squid is probably the most interesting. Now, if you slice open a squid, and cut it into pieces, you'll find that it curls up when you cook. Now, if you were to score the meat with cross hatches, you'll see this really neat pattern emerge as the flesh is cooking. It's almost artistic.. And it creates more surface area to cook faster and pick up more flavor. The only downer was the meatballs. Now these Asian meatballs are intended to be a almost chewy and bouncy, but the ones that we got were ridiculous. It's not the cook's fault - they just buy them frozen. But I was used to ones that had a different texture, so that was sort of a miss today.
After you cook the meat and eat the vegetables, you can finish off the meal by cooking some rice vermicelli. The noodles cook quickly and soak up all of the flavor of of the broth, which has been further enhanced with the cooking of the meats and vegetables. You then add the noodles and some of the broth to your dipping sauce, which becomes like a spicy noodle soup. Add on a poached egg, and you've got yourself an indulgent way to cap off a fun meal.
Of course, this is not for those in a hurry. This is meant to be a place and time to converse, to catch up, and to slowly enjoy a meal. After all the food's been eaten, you'll still have a pot of broth, which you can sip on leisurely as you chat into the night. While the food is very simple, it's the ritual and the experience that makes hot pot so wonderful. It's something where the meaning may be lost on someone not looking for it. This isn't fast food. This is something worth taking a few extra minutes to experience, so that you don't lose anything in the translation.
The damage? After tax and our usual 20% tip, it came to just over $36. And we ate enough for 4. This is a relatively inexpensive way to really have a good time with a bunch of friends in a very interactive meal. The thought of being with friends, sitting in the street on a warm and muggy night, lingering into the early hours, sipping on that spicy broth just makes me grin.
-foodgeek
Some things often get Lost in Translation, and food is no different. Today's topic? Hot Pot. Or, Chinese Fondue. By buddy Darren and I have this weekly ritual where every Wednesday night we catch up on life and gorge ourselves on food. In fact, many of my reviews are based on my adventures with Darren. And tonight was another night where we ate enough for 4, and loved every second of it. Tonight, we were going to have Hot Pot at BoBo Mandarin over on 4th St. in Campustown.
Hot Pot or Fire Pot would be the literal translation of the dish that is somewhat common throughout Taiwan and China. The beauty of this dish is that it's really good for all seasons. In the hot summer months, you'll see people in China eating hot pot at midnight, when it's still warm and muggy out. The spicy food helps you sweat and cool off. In the cold winter months, it's quintessential comfort food. Hot, spicy, rich broth, used to cook your favorite meats and vegetables, that warms you inside and out.
Basically, it's an electric burner (or a portable gas burner) with a big, wide pot on top. You fill up the pot with this spicy broth, bring it up to a boil, and then you eat. You eat it all family style, everyone cooking their own food. So what do you eat? Anything you want. First thing into the broth was vegetables. These would slowly cook and release some flavor. Spinach, napa, carrots, Chinese turnips, whatever you had on hand. Today we just chose spinach.
As this cooked down, you'd each make your sauce bowl. You'd add whatever sort of spicy seasonings that you had. Start with some soy. Add some Bull's Head Barbecue sauce (Asian barbecue sauce that's very different from what you'd expect), some spicy bean curd, maybe some garlic or chili oil, and crack an egg in there to give it all a little texture. They also brought out some pickled mustard plant, a peanut sauce, and some MSG for us, if we wanted to use it, but we didn't.
Once the pot comes back to a low boil, you can start cooking meats. Today, we had beef, squid, beef meatballs, and shrimp. It was pretty awesome. The shrimp were whole shrimp with the heads still on. They were a little hard to peel (white shrimp usually are), but the flesh had a sweet taste to it that worked well with the spicy dipping sauce. The beef was just thinly shaved (I believe) round steak. Basically, you just dip it into the boiling broth for a second, and it's cooked to a perfect medium. The squid is probably the most interesting. Now, if you slice open a squid, and cut it into pieces, you'll find that it curls up when you cook. Now, if you were to score the meat with cross hatches, you'll see this really neat pattern emerge as the flesh is cooking. It's almost artistic.. And it creates more surface area to cook faster and pick up more flavor. The only downer was the meatballs. Now these Asian meatballs are intended to be a almost chewy and bouncy, but the ones that we got were ridiculous. It's not the cook's fault - they just buy them frozen. But I was used to ones that had a different texture, so that was sort of a miss today.
After you cook the meat and eat the vegetables, you can finish off the meal by cooking some rice vermicelli. The noodles cook quickly and soak up all of the flavor of of the broth, which has been further enhanced with the cooking of the meats and vegetables. You then add the noodles and some of the broth to your dipping sauce, which becomes like a spicy noodle soup. Add on a poached egg, and you've got yourself an indulgent way to cap off a fun meal.
Of course, this is not for those in a hurry. This is meant to be a place and time to converse, to catch up, and to slowly enjoy a meal. After all the food's been eaten, you'll still have a pot of broth, which you can sip on leisurely as you chat into the night. While the food is very simple, it's the ritual and the experience that makes hot pot so wonderful. It's something where the meaning may be lost on someone not looking for it. This isn't fast food. This is something worth taking a few extra minutes to experience, so that you don't lose anything in the translation.
The damage? After tax and our usual 20% tip, it came to just over $36. And we ate enough for 4. This is a relatively inexpensive way to really have a good time with a bunch of friends in a very interactive meal. The thought of being with friends, sitting in the street on a warm and muggy night, lingering into the early hours, sipping on that spicy broth just makes me grin.
-foodgeek
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