Nǐ hǎo: That’s how you say hi in Chinese. I’m here in Taiwan, and I’m having such an amazing time. I’ve got to tell you, it’s a little bit loud. Not only that, but I’m at somewhere where there’s a balcony so I can actually go outside and sit out there, and talk, and be a part of the community. It’s a fascinating neighborhood, but if there’s one thing that I have to talk about, it’s hot pot. I want to give you the experience of hot pot. I want to sit you down. I want to tell you about this experience because it has now changed my life.
Nowhere in Jamaica, or anywhere that I’ve been in America so far, I’ve been able to experience this. Yes, I’ve been to buffets, but this is a different type of buffet. This is a different type of experience. Let me start you off. We’re in Ximending. You’re coming off the main street into this restaurant.
Everybody knows about Mala Hot Pot. It’s a very commercial place, but at the same time, they have the right value for the buck. That’s why everybody goes there. They also have a lot of different selections that a lot of places; I hear don’t have. They even have Häagen-Dazs ice cream. It’s a very beautiful restaurant. A lot of the decoration around the place is not Asian style. It’s more modern decor, but you see all along the walls, there are tables, and inside the tables, there are these big holes.
You have to choose between the different soups before you start your meal. I chose the Mala favorite, the spicy, but there was also another choice or three different choices you can choose from. I got collagen and Mala. You also choose your quality of meats because you get a selection of meats that come to you unlimited as you’re sitting at the table for the time of your meal. They explain to you the rules. The rules are that you have two hours to sit.
I think at 90 minutes, they cut you off from ordering and everything else. It’s just unlimited. You can take what you want. They’ll come. Once you finish your meat, you can order more. You can get as many drinks as you want because it’s a fountain place.
You can get anything that you want from the large wall of everything placed there, a ridiculous amount of vegetables, pumpkins, the corn, the squash, this, that. Then they have these balls of meat, of fish, of pork, of anything. They have noodles, all different types of noodles, egg noodles, rice noodles, vermicelli noodles, all of these different selections of things that you can combine into your hot pot.
For hotpot, since you are cooking your meal, you turn on the stove, and it starts to heat up the pot that’s boiling the broths. It’s a hot pot. You’re dipping it in the broth. When you’re doing hot pot, you have to remember two things. You should try to keep your chopsticks separate, the one that touches the raw meat and the one that you put in your mouth because it’s easy to get contaminated. Number two, you don’t want to boil the meat too long. You dip the meat in eight seconds for the thin slices. For the thicker slices, you might do it for two minutes. There’s a real process to it. You get your little bowl, you put some rice in the bowl, and you get your dipping sauces.
When you get to the sauce station, you have Hoisin sauce, you have soy sauce, you have these different sauces. You can combine them with scallion, with garlic, and you can create your own combination. Even the chili sauce is there. How did I forget the sesame oil? That was the star of the show last night. You get your sauces.
You come back to your table. The food hasn’t heated up yet. The hot pot’s not hot. It’s not boiling yet. You go to the station with all the vegetables. You grab all your vegetables. You get the corn. There was squid there and fish there. There was a lot of different exotic vegetables that I don’t think that I know the names of.
You go back to your table. You can dip your vegetables in, but you get your bowl of rice as well, and you have your dipping sauces. When the meat comes, because the meat actually showed up just right then and thereafter I got all those things, you take your chopsticks, the one that you don’t put in your mouth, get the meat, you dip it in for the amount of time, you swirl it in your dipping sauce, you put a little bit of rice on it, and you take that first bite of flavor.
Wow. It was amazing. I can tell you that it was amazing. That’s the experience of hot pot!
Mala hot pot had different flavors of other things that weren’t Häagen-Dazs, but they had three flavors of Häagen-Dazs. It was delicious. I was so stuffed after those two hours.
So stuffed. So stuffed.
I love that experience. Hot pot is such an amazing experience to be able to have. Here in Taiwan, it’s also different. I heard, even though it’s a Chinese kind of thing, Taiwan itself has a different hot pot tradition. There’s a different area, I was told, that you can also go to get a specialty hot pot that’s not like this. It’s like a stone hot pot.
I got an opportunity to walk around with somebody and have dinner and even see some of the city. We saw some of the temples, the different areas around Ximending district because Ximending has Longshan Temple. It has a few different temples scattered and littered within the city, so you’ll be walking down a block and then all of a sudden there’s a temple in the middle of the block. You have to take off your shoes before you go in. Some of the temples—I think you bow. I think not all of them are even the same type of temple or Buddhist temples. I’m not sure, but it has a few different types of temples.
There’s no shortage of food in Ximending or in Taiwan. There’s so much food everywhere. As you’re walking down the street, there’s always food all the time. So much food. I’m eating to my heart’s content, of course.I’m catching up to the days of the jet lag kind of getting me, but it’s been amazing being here and seeing the different things and experiencing hot pot. I love it. Hot pot is now my new thing.
It’s been amazing being able to have that kind of experience because the flavors of the food are quite different. Like when you dip it into the hoisin sauce, it doesn’t taste the same as when you dip it just into the soy sauce. Because when they bring you the meats, they’re just shaving off the meats. There’s no seasoning on the meats. There’s nothing like that on the meats at all. You’re just getting raw meat that they’re putting to you on a platter. That’s it. That’s what they’re bringing. That’s what the hot pot experience is.
You’re getting to put together your flavor, the kind of unique experience that you like. It’s so delicious. Try it.
If you come to Taiwan, you have to try it. I love being in Taiwan.
-Tall Black Nomad