Originally posted 22nd February 2015
Richard is still on holiday - so we are still focused on food.........
- Last night we went to the Hai Lao Hot Pot Restaurant reported to be the best hot pot restaurant in town, and I can see why. It's on the fourth floor of a tower block opposite exit 7 of the Changshou Road metro station. And I believe it takes up the whole of the fourth floor. It is huge, but divided up well, so that whilst you are seated you don't feel as if you are in a mega-canteen, but it does mean that you have to be careful if you go to toilet in the middle of your meal as you can get lost if you don't pay particular attention to where you are going. Just like Richard did. That caused the waiting staff quite a bit of amusement, especially as he got the number of his table wrong. We had already entertained them with our lack of Chinese and they seemed to take extra care of these idiots in their midst who had to be shown exactly what to do all the time, which was good.
When you climb in the lift there are only two options: 1f (ground) or 4th floor. As you arrive you are handed a numbered ticket, taken to a low plastic table and given a plastic tray with nibbles and watermelon and some plastic cups full of what tasted like hot lemonade, where you wait until your number is called. If you have to wait any length of time you can play games like Go which they provide. Whilst you are waiting they hand you a menu to select what you want to cook in your hot pot mixture, thankfully with
Nibbles to Occupy While One Waits
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| Entrance to Hai Di Lao Hot Pot Restaurant |
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| Foods To Be Cooked In The Hot Pot |
English translations. We chose ribbons of bean curd, paper thin slices of beef, Haggis! (turned out to be strips of tripe), mixed seasonal vegetables which included pak choi, lettuce and spinach, mixed mushrooms, and assorted balls and buns which turned out to be fish balls made from a variety of fish and seafood, a bit like small quenelles.
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| One Of The Many Dining Sections |
When they were ready we were led to our table. It was then we realised just how big the restaurant was. It just went on and on, through room after room. We eventually reached our table at the far end. It was table 120 and I should think that there were 500 people there sitting down to dine. Richard spotted one other european group, otherwise it was completely full of Chinese people - a good sign.
We have had hot pot in a number of places in China, the most memorable was
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| Red Hot Hot Pot and Brown Cool Hot Pot |
is Chengdu capital of Sichuan (Szechwan) province where the pepper comes from. Now the Sichuanese like their food hot and their hot pot is HOT, but I don't think we had a particularly hot version of Hot Pot whilst we were there with Rozy. Richard was all for ordering the real deal last night, but the restaurant were reluctant to let him and thankfully advised him to split the hot pot into two adding a mild mushroom one in one half to bubble alongside the authentic hot version in the other. I am SO glad they did. When I tasted my first mouthful from the hot side it literally took my breath away and I ended up gasping for breath. From then on I stuck to the mild side. Whilst we were waiting for the two liquors to start bubbling we were taken to the condiments section to select from a bewildering array of sauces and flavourings. Even though there were English translations, I hadn't got a clue which sauces to select. It was all very hit and miss.
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| Flavourings |
Anticipating that we would be messy they provided us with aprons and lens wipes for our glasses! The waiting staff added the different food stuffs to the hot pot liquor at different times, so that they would get the correct amount of cooking. We then ladled out whatever had been in the cooking liquors and ate with gusto.
An enjoyable evening: I expect we shall be going back.
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