[This is my Trail] Things I love about China: Hot Pot

[Rachelle]

Hot pot has recently enjoyed a renaissance in my life. For a while, I swore that I didn't like hot pot, but for some reason, now I like it again. Basically, it's a kind of Chinese fondue. You get raw stuff, you put it in a pot, which is hot (gasp!) and let it cook. Most hot pot places around here will give you a divided pot with one section being a kind of vegetable/chicken broth and the other containing liquid fire. Seriously. That does not stop anyone from eating it, but man is it spicy!

Last time I had hot pot (with a group of Chinese coworkers), we had duck intestines and cow throat in it. Yum! I know everyone's favorite part of reading a blog from someone abroad are the stories of weird food. So there you go. The meat added to hot pot is often very strange stuff. We also had hot dogs and a bologna kind of meat. Good times. There are also noodles, veggies, tofu, mushrooms, etc. etc. etc. It really is pretty good. And, because I know you're wondering, the intestines and throat did not really taste bad. I mean, they didn't really taste like much of anything.

The pictures are from a hot pot expedition several weeks ago. Notice how many pairs of chopsticks it takes for the foreigners (and Mona) to get the noodles out of the pot. Haha. Good times. :) And now, I'm actually off to eat hot pot again!

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 8/21/2008 06:18:00 AM