Xiabu Xiabu (Hot Pot)

Many apologies for the lack of posts recently. Recently, time to write blog posts has been hard to come by.

About a week and half ago (yes, falling behind quite a bit), I went to eat hot pot/火锅 with my Chinese language teacher. We arrived at the restaurant at approximately 4:50, but that still wasn't early enough to beat the dinner rush, but the delicious food was well worth the 45 minute wait.

I thought the restaurant's name Xiabu Xiabu was phonetically derived from Japan's version of hot pot, but my teacher soon corrected me saying that Chinese characters for Xiabu Xiabu 呷哺 呷哺 have 20 口, which is the Chinese character for mouth; so the twenty mouths represent how delicious/ mouth-watering hot pot is.

Xiabu Xiabu Restaurant

If you haven't had hot pot before, here's a quick briefing on what you're missing out on. Hot pot centers around the pot of boiling broth positioned in the center of the table (hence the name hot pot). Accompanying the hot pot are thinly sliced meats (lamb, chicken, port, beef), vegetables, uncooked noodles, and seafood. After each batch of food placed in the pot is done cooking, the food is dipped into a sauce (spicy, sweet, whatever floats your boat) and then eaten. The flavor profile is difficult to describe, but with each progressive batch, the flavors begin to meld and compound upon each other. So good.

The hot pot. Left side is a mild broth, right side is spicy.

A lot of food...

Gone.

Chinese Language Table Group!

With each day, I'm finding life here in China becoming easier. Talking to teachers has become easier, calling for the 服务员 has become easier, even understanding the taxi drivers' thick Beijing accents has become easier. As the new phrases increase in number in difficulty, I find it is the inexpensive and delicious food, (like hot pot) here in Beijing that keeps me going.

Dumpling count: 114