Crawl down into the basement for some interesting hot pot! This is another Sharon T. dinner production and I'm glad she chose this spot for Guizhou hot pot. I'd never even heard of Guizhou before, but had to look it up and it turns out to be a landlocked south-central province surrounded by the more famous Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, which I'm sure has cuisine similar to all three. The restaurant might seem like a dingy cellar, but it's pretty clean and organized. The bare brick walls and rickety bamboo chairs are part of its charm and there are barrels of fish around for good feng shui. I like how they provide you with baskets at each table lined with plastic to store your clothes because otherwise they will absorb the flavors of your hot pot. The flavors must be pretty strong because I've never had to do it at any other hot pot restaurants, even though it's a given at KBBQs.
Everything including the soup base is ordered from the table electronic tablet or through the phone app. If you don't get data signal because this is in the basement, not to worry because you can scan the WiFi access QR code from the tablet. If you sign up for their rewards program and sign into the tablet, your order appears on both devices simultaneously. We opt for the triple sectioned pot with mushroom, steak and numb & spicy soup bases. There is a hella lot of chili peppers & peppercorns in that spicy broth. Everything is ordered a la carte except for a couple of combo plates, like the mixed seafood and special hot pot sets for 4-6 people.
We order a bunch of appetizers I've never seen before, but willing to try. There's the Spicy Rice Tofu that's not too spicy but very flavorful. There's the Pepper Preserved 1000 yr Egg that comes in a wooden mortar & pestle that's pretty good too, along with Fried Fresh Milk. While that's happening, you can go to the sauce bar to make your own specialty dipping sauce. I love cilantro, scallions, raw garlic, sacha BBQ sauce with some peanut sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce and a touch of chili sauce.
We order a lot of standard meats & vegetables to cook: thin sliced fatty beef, beef tripe, various fish, tofu & meatballs. A lot of items come on beds of napa cabbage and those go into the pool along with watercress, corn on the cob and various mushrooms. My favorite meat was the sliced beef shoulder (as long as it's not overcooked). You can't leave that in too long or it gets tough. The mixed seafood combo had some great stuff like conch, abalone, shrimp & mussels. But everything in the broth melds it's flavors together and you end up with a rich, tasty soup. The steak broth was the tastiest and had chunks of beef short rib that we gnawed off the bone at the end. Service is great and they come to refill your broth whenever you run low.
Hot pot is a communal dining experience and it's always a fun time when you're doing it with a group of Yelpers. The conversation is great and you're always surprised by what you find in the depths of the pot. read more