I think it's finally time to write about this.
For some reason I have been putting it off- I don't know why.
It's not that the food wasn't good.
Neither was it that the experience wasn't good.
On the contrary, it was a very pleasant, even unusual experience, one which I got to say I had not had ever before.
It's not that I have never had mookata.
But to have it in a coffee shop, in a 'hood that I have never come to before, well, that's the new part, and an interesting one it was, too.
We were there at an early dinner hour, around 530, if I'm not wrong, and I had thought there'd be no one else besides us- I mean the coffee shop isn't prominent from the main road- but there were two other tables, and they came one after the other not too long after we arrived.
Mookata is more commonly known as Thai-style Steamboat & BBQ, and is most recognized by its gear which shape is reminiscent of a dome surrounded by a moat.
How it works is to line the entire dome with frozen pork fat, then place the lard all right in the center at the top of the dome. All around the sides then the food goes, serving as a grill as the dome heats up. The moat holds the soup of the mookata, which is often plain chicken stock, seemingly boring but which flavors get enhanced by the oils of the meat that flow down the dome whilst they're getting cooked.
One of the best charms about Mookata, especially one like this, is the seafood that they offer.
Now I don't normally take prawns or much other kinds of seafood but my friend was charmed by the offerings of crayfish, so he got for us a huge plate of those.
I have to admit, crayfish at a Mookata is attractive.
Anyone who appreciates crayfish will know how sweet yet firm a well-cooked piece can be. There are people who feel it the same as they do with crabs, prawns, baby lobsters and all. Me, however, prefer the flesh of crayfish over the flesh of crabs and prawns.
Maybe because this doesn't fill me up as prawns do (so I can eat more)
What makes this offering here extra special is that there aren't many places which have crayfish on the menu. Oh, they have prawns, for sure, but crayfish, not always.
So I'm glad to have them.
They didn't take very long to grill, and when done, they made for some of the nicest meats to be had for this dinner.
The other thing we took a lot of were the meats.
I can't recall whether there was beef, but from the looks of it, I think so.
What I'm certain is that we definitely helped ourselves to a fair bit of pork, some chicken, and probably the beef as well.
How many plates exactly, that I don't know, my friend was in charge of the portions. I took care mostly of supervising the grill, turning the meats around, shifting them here and there, placing the cooked ones on the plate, replacing them with the raw from other plates.
It was fun, arranging the crayfish on the grill, switching out the meats, taking the lard here and there and munching on it, then throwing more and more vegetables into the moat.
Here I should add that our dip for the day was, I think, yogurt with miso, or was it with garlic powder. I cannot remember. But it made for a great dip to eat with the meats and enhanced the flavors very much too.
What I'm certain of is that we brought our own base oil to line the mookata grill with.
Beef tallow- remnants from the oils of the fat fat steak that we make at home- and which, I got to say, really did make the meats taste so much nicer.
Most of my attention was on the moat, however.
My friend doesn't pay much attention to the soup part of Mookata, so it's mostly up to me.
There're many ingredients one can throw inside the pot.
It might be the carrots, the green leafy vegetables, the fish balls, cuttlefish balls, lobster balls, egg, corn, all the regular hotpot ingredients.
For me, however, there's only one thing I really like- and that be the green leafy vegetables. My favorites are the Romaine lettuces but I take cabbages, spinach and any green leafy vegetables that soak up the soup and are very soft to the tongue.
Of course I don't just take the vegetables.
If there be cheese tofu, I take that too- we like those, both of us- and if there be other fun ingredients that make for great additions to the soup, i have those too.
Today I took a lot of lettuce.
But when the lettuces ran out, I helped myself to some of their spinach, and because I saw that they had quail eggs- an absolute favorite of mine- I got four, five of them, or maybe more.
Then I got some cheese tofu, and of course, some lobster balls, not so much because I really, really liked them, but I thought they made the pot look really, really nice.
