Hot Pot

I get several questions every time I meet a new Chinese person. I have heard these questions so many times I could answer them in my sleep. The first question is simple, “Where are you from?” Next comes, "Do you like China?" Those two I have gotten everywhere I go. Question #3, however, is one more specific to Chongqing:

“Can you eat Hot Pot?”

Hot Pot is the famous cuisine of Sichuan, the province that up until fifteen years ago Chongqing was a part of. Hot Pot is famous for being super spicy, so when someone asks me if I can eat Hot Pot they are essentially asking me if I like spicy food. Which I do, and respond accordingly, but up until Friday night I had never actually eaten Hot Pot. Hot Pot is considered a treat here, kind of like a nice steak dinner, and so whenever I go out to dinner with my students we typically frequent cheaper/faster places. But after having been asked about it fifty-bajillion times, I decided enough was enough.

Friday night, Justin, his girlfriend, and I found ourselves at Hechuan’s fanciest restaurant.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the fanciest restaurant around.

We were handed a Chinese menu and Justin and Penny proceeded to make seemingly random check marks. Then a large pot of oil was brought out. Hot Pot is kind of like fondue in that a burner on our table is used to heat up the oil so that we can cook the food of our choice right in front of us. (Side note: oil is a super important part of Chinese cooking. It is so vital and expensive that a black market has popped up where used oil is sold out the back of restaurants to street vendors who will then reuse it. More about that here.)

A small pot in the center had oil and herbs such as garlic and salt. A second larger pot of oil circled this and was filled with so many red peppers it was hard to imagine any food would fit in the oil.  Next, the uncooked food itself was brought out. Justin and Penny had ordered potatoes, seaweed, quail eggs, pork, beef skewers, ham, lettuce, sticky rice cakes, squash, and tomatoes. The bowls of food were then dumped in all at once, and I was told that whenever something started floating in the oil it was ready to eat.

Justin and Penny

While skeptical about some of their choices (quail egg?), I started out by trying one of everything. In fact, all of their chosen dishes tasted awesome. The oil had infused everything with the spices and made the food taste amazing. While I was expecting super spicy thanks to all the peppers, it was generally mild compared to some of the foods I've had here. I'm going to ignore how bad all that oil must be for me and focus on how many more vegetables I eat here than at home.

We polished off everything pretty quickly, then sat around sipping beer and enjoying the drunken karaoke that had broken out at the table next to us. While expensive by Chinese standards ($20 for all that food plus beer for three of us), I can't imagine a meal that filling and rich costing so little at home. The only downside was I managed to severely burn my mouth when I didn't properly let a tomato cool off. Once I can taste food again, which may be in several weeks, I would love to do it again. Quail eggs and all.

P.S. China does not practice Daylight Savings Time, meaning I am now a slightly-more-inconvenient 14 hours ahead of Chicago. Fun fact regarding China-time; all of China is on the same time zone. This time zone is based around Beijing, so when it's noon in Beijing it's noon in Tibet. Even though at noon in Tibet the sun is only positioned at like 8am. China, why are you so crazy?