Hot Pot

The first days of October have definitely ushered in the fall. We seemed to have skipped over the mild, pleasant days and plunged right into the cold. Today was cold and windy, with a gray rain settling over the city. It was the perfect day for my first hot-pot experience. Hot pot is a much enjoyed Chinese meal that is great for the wintertime. The team bundled into taxis and headed over to “the best hot-pot restaurant in town” (according to them-I wouldn’t know). Each person gets a little pot of soup over a flaming sterno-type can and cooks their food right in front of them. We ordered a variety of meats and vegetables, plus noodles, tofu, and manto (a sweet bread type thing). The meats are all raw strips that cook really quickly in the pot. It just occured to me that probably grabbing raw meat with wooden chopsticks and then eating with the same chopsticks is probably not all that sanitary. But you can’t think of things like that at the time. You put whatever you want into your pot to cook it, then dip it into some type of vinegar sauce before eating. Hot pot is a bit more expensive than our normal fare (it was about $5 instead of $1), but the chopstick fingers get a good workout and the whole process requires you to sit back and enjoy the time spent eating. Since the whole meal is eaten over a steaming pot of boiling soup, it provides a cozy atmosphere for a dark, rainy evening.

The first picture shows the cooking pot with some of the uncooked dishes in the background. The second picture shows the pile of duck heads that were on a cart near our table. We did not order those. But I just had to show you. :)