Living in China without Hot Pot is like living your life without joy and if you are a foodie or have some cuisine knowledge of the eastern world, then you must have heard the name 'Chine Hot Pot' which is one of the symbolic dish of China that is very famous not only in China but it is very popular all around the world for a authentic Chinese restaurant. I am living here for 6 years and I have already tried over dozens kind of hotpot which are very popular and some are native ones and some are purely traditional one. And I can say without any doubts that hotpot is really a solid dish that will feel you joy and your dining will be exciting with your colleagues or friedns while enjoying hot pots in China.
Let me clarify about the meaning of Hot Pot first which is a typical dish that contains different soups boiling in a pot and the consumer dips different kinds of foods into thos brothe and serve themselves. It is a interactive dish that has a great varities in taste as the taste depends on the soup or brothe you chose that can be salty, spicy, sweet, watery, and many categoris to choose. So, the typical hot pot ingredients include many things, I thunk every things possible to consume including the thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, vermicelli, sliced potatoes, bean products, egg dumplings, tofu, seafoods, and many more that you can manage to consume. As it is an interactive dining style where everyone serve themseves, hotpot is very joyful with the intense taste of your items you chose that make it also very delicious.
Many people say that Hot Pot is not a healthy dish because of the heavy usage of oil in its broths which is a absolute wrong conception who does not know the details. There are many varieties with different approach, such as there is a kind of brothe that contains only water with some herbs, and hard spices, which is not spicy at all, that allows to grab the pure taste of the foods with strong herb flavor to enjoy the super healthy foods. But it is true that some category contains high amount of oil, especially the Chongqing style and my photos are of that kind which is also a traditional and top Choice of the people due to the spiciness makes the taste so enjoying but for some people it can be very dangerous for stomach. The high-fat content of many of the components of popular hot pot ingredients can be bloating for some people who has no habbit of consuming spicy foods, and the tendency to overeating is often cause some trouble as given that it is often served as a shared meal, making it hard to track portion sizes when people enjoy their meal and order after order until everyone is full.
As I have told already that there are many varieties and most of the Hot Pot restaurants will offer you multiple broths for you to choose from, including spicy, sour, salty, and raw. This one that I have shared is in Chongqing hot pot with their signature broth including flavours of Sichuan peppercorns, bay leaf, clove, and more delicious spices in full of extra oil. You can easily feel the spicy level with these intense amount of spices including the red chillies which is he most spicy one here to fight with if you are not okay with spicy foods. But it is also true I have enjoyed some amazingly non-spicy broth, especially in the 'Hai Di Lao' restaurant that is the largest hot pot chain in China that has many branches in overseas countries also where you can find many delicious broth that can be enjoyed by any people who love spicy food or hate spicy foods.
I have enjoyed this Chongqing style Hot Pot with my friend from Laos, my colleagues from Thailand and some of our friends form China together and all of us enjoyed the dinner as we met after several months together. There are so many items that you can enjoy and we have enjoyed mutton and beef as meat and some sea foods with many vegetables and other items as we wanted to try. You can order until you are full without any issues in hot pot style dinner. You can see the end the table becomes so dirty due to the extra oil dip everywhere but the taste was really so good for me as we the Bangladeshi people love spicy foods too much. My personal ratinfg would be 8.5/10 among the other Hot Pot, and my personal rating will be 9/10 for one broth from the 'Hai DI Lao' restaurant, where I have enjoyed that many times.
I hope you have a rough idea about the Hot Pot in China and my experience with this amazing dish, especially this heavily spicy Chongqing-style Hot Pot. If you have any queries, let me know in the comments, and I will try my best to answer them according to my knowledge. Thanks a lot for your time and attention. I will catch up with you at the next one.
Wish you a great day!
The photo is my own property and was taken by me.
