Hot pot is for lovers...

Today we travel to Chongqing where R & I first met, dated, and got engaged. I have wistful memories of winding taxi rides through the gray drizzle and long afternoons learning to drink tea at a hillside homestay together. Chongqing is known as a foggy mountain city, but we have such bright memories there!

Fall of 2009-dating. river cruise on the yangtze/jialing rivers

We're looking forward to this trip to see friends, get a break from the cold (did I mention it snowed AGAIN Sunday night and most of Monday?) and relax some since R has been working really hard lately. Friday he did 100 visa applicant interviews in 4.5 hours (yes those ARE in mandarin). Yikes!

hot pot deliciousness

Not to mention the spicy cuisine of the south that we so desperately miss. REAL sichuan food is the best cuisine, maybe in the world, and it's just not the same nearly as good outside of southwest China. I'm trying to convince R that he does NOT need to participate in the 3-in-1 hot pot challenge that is taking place on Saturday. You see, he was a part of a group of men that instituted this rite of passage- eating spicy hot pot for breakfast, lunch and dinner in one 24 hour period- almost 3 years ago. I'm up for meeting everyone for dinner that evening, but the idea of my husband sweating sichuan peppercorns, red peppers and oily garlic out of his pores is not what I'd call a "vacation".

Seester & I trying hot pot for the first time under R's tutelage in March 2008

But hot pot plays a pretty special role in our dating life. R was probably one of the biggest hot pot enthusiasts out of our little group of expats in Chongqing. Hot pot can be an acquired taste. From the look of it, a boiling vat of oil and spices accompanied by raw meats and often animals' digestive organs, it's intimidating! I didn't even deign to try it until 7 months into my first year in CQ, when my seester was in town visiting . I felt like it would be a disservice for her to visit and not try the cuisine our city was so famous for (she's always been a more adventurous eater, anyway). Much to my surprise, I really liked it. I wasn't interested in eating it for every meal, but the flavor is like nothing else and there's a social aspect to hot pot that is hard to beat.

eating hot pot together when we were just friends in the fall of 2008. side note we get to spend time with the guy on the left this weekend too!

When R asked me to go on a first date with him (after being friends for a year and a half prior), it would have been unfitting for it to be anything other than hot pot. We went, and he talked almost the whole time and I was so nervous I could barely speak (which if you know us is a complete reversal of our personalities)! I also got a nose bleed but hid in the bathroom until it stopped and didn't tell R until many months later. 

NYE 2008- shirtless hot pot for the guys- I definitely had a crush at this point

Because this weekend marks our return to Chongqing and the home of hot pot after almost 3 years, I'm going to share R's guide to hot pot that he developed when we lived in CQ. Below is his specific instructions on how to navigate a hot pot menu (even if there's an English translation, it can be quite tricky). We hope this only increases the number of westerners that appreciate this culinary delight!

2009 -christmas eve hot pot- why not?

How to Order Chongqing Hotpot

Disclaimer: Hotpot restaurant vocabulary is anything but standard. Restaurants often have their own twist on how to write the menu – use this guide to roughly get to know what to look for (or what to ask for, if you can’t find it).

1. The Kind of Pot

There are several kinds of hotpot. There is hongtang (red hotpot), which is spicy, and there is qingtang (clear hotpot), which is not spicy. You can also get a small pot of qingtang in the middle surrounded by an outer ring of hongtang if you would like to do both or half and half. Different restaurants have different names for this, although one popular one calls it yinyangguo. You can just say you want qingtang and hongtang if you want this variety, the restaurant will understand.

Key Words:

红汤 hong2tang1: Spicy. You can order light, medium, or very spicy: 

微辣 wei1la4   中辣 zhong1la4    全辣 quan2la4

It is safe to assume (in Chongqing) 中辣 will already be pretty spicy.

清汤 qing1tang1: Clear hotpot, like a chicken broth based soup.

2. Meats | 荤菜

When looking at a hotpot menu, there are some keywords and radicals you need to know. You do not need to understand all the characters, but you do need to know roughly what to look for. Hotpot restaurants have the habit of using specialized vocabulary/names on their menus, so it is important to be able to look for what you want based on one or two characters, as there may be other characters in the name of the dish that are superfluous to what the dish actually is. 

Key words:

• Know your meats, the characters for beef (牛: niu2), pork (猪: zhu1), lamb (羊: yang2), chicken (鸡: ji1), and fish (鱼: yu2).  Also, know the character for egg (蛋: dan4), which is key if you want quail eggs. Seeing these characters will help you know basically what you are getting.
• Know your kinds of food – how the meat will be served.
• 水饺: shui3jiao3: Jiaozi. They may ask you if you want them already boiled or boiled in the pot. Tell them in the pot.
• 串: chuan3: Meat on a stick.
• 肉片: rou4pian4. Thinly sliced meat, the set name for sliced pork is 老肉片 （lao3rou4pian4）.
• 肉卷: rou4juan3. Again, thinly sliced meat, but rolled. This is actually basically the same as 肉片, but it is often the set name used for sliced lamb: 羊肉卷 (yang2rou4juan3).
• 丸子 or 丸: wan3zi. Meatballs. You’ll have to ask what kind of meat is used if it isn’t specified on the menu. My personal all time favorite hotpot food is 香菜牛肉丸子, beef cilantro meatballs.
• Know your moon radical, 月. A radical is a part of a character that hints at either the pronunciation or the meaning of the whole character. The moon radical 月 is often used in to denote body parts/organs. Hotpot menus have a lot of weird stuff on them which you may not be up for, but you can generally weed about 75% of that out just with this radical. Examples are : 肚 and 肠, which are stomach and intestines – you don’t really need to know the right side of the character, if you see the moon (月) on the left side, know that you might be getting into something interesting (or gross).

3. Specialties | 特色菜

Every restaurant will have its specialties. Often they will be some special variant of something already on the menu, like 丸子，肉片，or 肉卷. Use the keywords to figure out if there is something there you want. 

4. Vegetables | 素菜

You can order a host of vegetables with hotpot. Below is a list of some that are popular:

豆芽：dou4ya2: bean sprouts.

豆皮：dou4pi2: tofu strips，thin.

黄瓜：huang2gua1: cucumber.

藕片：ou3pian4: lotus root strips.

年糕：nian2gao1: a kind of noodle like strip，very good.

海带：hai3dai4: seaweed.

土豆：tu2dou4: potato.

豆干：dou4gan1: thicker tofu strips.

南瓜：nan2gua1: pumpkin，often on the menu the set name is 老南瓜。

香菜：xiang1cai4: cilantro, this is great in the dipping oil.

生菜：sheng1cai4: lettuce. Be careful, it really soaks up the spice.

麻花：ma2hua1: a kind of bread twist. Great plain or in the oil.

平菇：ping2gu1: anything with these characters will be a kind of mushroom。

空心菜：kong1xin1cai4: a kind of hollow green lettuce like produce. 

金针菇：jin1zhen1gu1: golden needle mushrooms. Particularly good.

5. Snacks and Drinks | 小吃     酒水

You can also get some common snacks at hotpot restaurants:

蛋炒饭：dan4chao3fan4: fried rice with egg.

南瓜饼： nan2gua1bing3: pumpkin cakes.

春卷: chun1juan3: egg rolls (spring rolls, actually).

Beyond water or tea, you may want to have beer, soy milk, or peanut milk with hotpot. All of these are helpful if you get a bit too much spice than you can handle.

啤酒：pi2jiu3: beer.

花生奶：hua1sheng1nai3: peanut milk.

豆浆：dou4jiang1: soymilk.

可口可乐：ke3kou3ke3le4: Coke.