It has been a couple of months since we last had a meal at this place in SOTA.
I wish I could remember what the name of the place was, or when it was we had this meal.
But I don't.
The only thing I do remember is the size of the fish, the meats, the hotpot, and the little bites that the place also provided.
Grilled hotpot-style fish done China style has in recent years gained a cult following amongst the millennials and Gen Zs. It is one of those dishes best eaten when shared, and best eaten when everyone at the table has a similar liking for fish, and the soup base that comes along with it.
There are a couple of popular soup bases- tomato, mala, suan cai, pork bone. Today we took the suan cai, which is a pickled vegetable kind of broth that has lots of other vegetables, and herbs inside.
It's funny, I don't have a picture of the fish here.
But I can tell you that the fish was not small.
It also looked like it had been pre-fried.
Actually I had thought that the fish be already chopped up by the time it came to the table, but it was a full piece of fish complete with head, tail, and bone. Seeing the eye of the fish frightened me, so my friend dunked the head inside the soup.
What you don't see won't scare you.
Our meal was, shall I say, a fairly balanced one.
The star of the meal was the fish, but there was meat, there were vegetables, and there were cooked food, all of which we could either order from the cashier, or take from the chilled counter.
I can't recall just what kind of meats there were- they had so many- but there were a few, amongst which was sliced pork belly, and this sliced meat, which I think was probably beef.
I had a very delicious time with the pork belly.
Easy to cook, easy to eat, full of flavor once cooked inside the soup, it is one of my favorite meats when it comes to hotpot, and I can eat plenty of it.
Same way too I can go for plenty of vegetables.
Not that I choose everything though.
Sometimes I choose the fungus.
Sometimes I choose the mushrooms.
Here I decided to be selective.
First up was the lettuce.
This particular lettuce is one of my favorites when it comes to hotpot.
Its name I don't know- I forget- I think of the leaves like a huge, canopied tree that when cooked in soup becomes one of the largest, juiciest vegetables that is delicious, and easy, on the bite.
After that there were quail eggs, noodles, and what I call beancurd strips.
If you're wondering why I took something as normal as quail eggs (instead of all the other foods) it's because quail eggs are one of my favorites whether they be with dessert or savory as a meal.
It's fun seeing them bop about in the soup.
It's fun popping them inside my mouth.
Better yet, of course, when I can have as much as I like.
One thing though, they fill up easily.
Then there are the noodles.
If you know me and my hotpots, I love noodles that have been simmered long in soup, so no way was I going to have a hotpot without having any of them fresh ramen for the taking.
And I didn't want to miss out on the beancurd strips which in Chinese we call fu pi, or beancurd skin.
This is an interesting food.
On its own it doesn't have as much taste, but dunk it into the hotpot soup base, and suddenly the taste of, and texture of the skin is enhanced.
Surprised me very much the first time I ate it, and have always tried to go for it whenever I see it at the counters. I only ever see it at the Mainland-type of hotpots, though.
Maybe it's not a popular ingredient with the local crowd.
But I like it.
I like the way the bean absorbs the taste of the soup and how the soup softens the texture to a degree that it gets all mushy and soft and warm when you bite into it.
By right, three plates of noodles, two servings of beancurd skin, one serving of noodles, and six quall eggs would have been more than enough for me.
But I didn't want to miss out on the cooked.
Would've been a waste to.
She might be small, this place here at SOTA, and with more of a homecooked aesthetic than a restaurant one, but the owner didn't dial down on the offerings.
There was fried chicken done Korean style, and steamed dumplings which we could order from the cashier.
There were spring rolls, fried eggs, more fried stuff, then a couple of braised vegetables and braised meat for the taking.
My friend wanted to have the chicken, so we got ourselves two baskets. The boneless chicken pieces came well-fried with a generous squeeze of yellow mustard, and sweet, spicy yangnyeom sauce.
Then the dumplings were warm, tasty, and slightly chewy (like how Northern dumplings should be) on the palate as well.
From the counter I took for myself one fried egg and a couple of spring rolls.
It doesn't look very appetizing, but I actually liked the spring rolls.
So they were not very fresh, nor very crisp, even a little hard, but they added a little bit of crunch, and taste, to the rest of the food.
Maybe it does take a bit of stirring and mixing to truly enjoy all the food here.
Like the fried eggs.
Eat them alone and you might find them cold and hard.
Eat them as a complement with the warmed boiled fish, the sliced meat, the noodles, or the vegetables, and the cold, hard egg- together with the other food- takes on a different flavor altogether.
It was the same way I had the tteokbokki, which, to my chagrin, I only discovered so late in the course of the meal.
By then I had already finished one whole serving of noodles, worked through two plates of sliced meat, and chomped through three spring rolls.
I was feeling kind of full to take any.
But I am someone who cannot resist tteokbokki whenever I see some, so a couple of them rice cake tubes went into my bowl.
What's funny is that I don't really remember what I had it with.
Maybe I dipped them with the yangnyeom sauce.
Maybe I dipped it with the soup.
Or the vinegar that came with the dumplings.
I might even have had the tteokbokki plain.
I don't remember now.
But I'll pay better attention to such details when I go back to this place next time.
Same way to I'll pay better attention to the dessert- if they still have it.
This afternoon the dessert came complimentary in exchange for a (reasonable) Google review.
At first sight, the bowl might look complicated with a lot of different ingredients. After a while we figured that you were supposed to mix the whole lot together, so we did just that, and realized all the sweets and textures worked together really well.
Just don't ask me what they are- I have no idea.
The only ones I know are the grass jelly base at the bottom, and the popping boba above.