Hot Pot

Hot pot is a Chinese style of cuisine that in theory, should be simple and fun, as it allows the eater a chance to interact with and literally cook their own food, right on the table top. In practice, as Karen and I both found out the hard way, you are really just trying (a) not to set the restaurant on fire (b) contract some rare type of food poisoning from severely undercooked meat (c) burning any of a multitude of appendanges that come into play trying to control the food with the eternally frustrating chopsticks (d) all of the above

My first, and its safe to say last, time in a hot pot restaurant was over Christmas break. Karen and I were in Harbin, and we both passed a local hotpot place that was teeming with locals and decided to stop in. The traditional Chinese hot pot meal is centered around the two hot plates that they set on center of your table. Into that bowl goes water and some spice, with the bowl divided into two sections, one spicy and one cool. They turn the hot plate on and within minutes a nice geyser of steam is rising from the center of your table and you know its time to add the food. They then bring out raw meat and vegatables, and you add them to the boiling water and after waiting a few minutes you pull the meat and vegetables out of the boiling water and after letting them cool (I learned after the first bite...this is an important step!) its bon appetit. There was one small problem. We didn't really know what any of the stuff was that we were supposed to add to the hotpot, and we didn't know how long to cook it. The wait staff was extremely busy, so our waiter tried to help us but could only give us tips, he had other tables to wait on. Luckily for us, sitting directly behind us was a family of five, including the grandmother, and a voiciferous litter 5 year old girl that was more than willing to come over to our table and show us how to cook and eat the food. I can only imagine what she must have thought - two grown adults struggling to master the simplicities of what for her is a simple Sunday meal. She was extremely helpful, so much so that we called her, much to her delight, xiao laoshi(little teacher). All in all it was an enlightening experience, but after leaving the hot pot place Karen and I immediately went to the only restaurant in the city that served Western food - McDonald's.