Local Hotpotting and Some Good BBQ

The Local Hotpot

A few days ago,  I attended a birthday dinner for one of the teachers.  Most of the teachers from the other university program living around here attended including a newly arrived guy and his wife.  We met out the front gate and walked about 50 metres to a hot pot restaurant that had opened very recently.  Some of the staff seemed no older than teenagers and we were met with the usual laughter and nervous yet brave "hellos"  followed by more laughter.  The restaurant was bright and cosy, and we were seated near the back on little stools.  Along side the wall were all kinds of vegetables and lots of meat and seafood items.  

We gathered a few trays of everything and then we lined up at a little saucing station to fill bowls with various sauces and condiments.  Being hotpot, the best dipping sauce to have is the sesame paste mixed with fresh chives and coriander.  I served a bowl of this concoction for myself and then we proceed to throw in anything and everything into the cauldron of spicy and non-spicy hotpot liquid while drinking small glasses of Chinese beer.  We also grabbed some youtiao, which are a kind of fried doughy bread, perfect for dipping into the hotpot liquid.  At the end of the meal we were served a sort of complimentary milky dessert thing, with green sultanas and pearl bubble things found in bubble tea, a bit like tapioca and milk combined.  It was slightly sweet and quite tasty.

Hotpot is one of those meals where one can eat and eat and eat and eat, and so I did.  Although I'm not usually the bigest fan of it, it was nice to be eating out with good people, in a cosy environment, getting to know everyone.

The Good BBQ

A few days after the hotpot birthday, a call went out to meet up for some bbq at the bbq restaurant near the main interesection where we live.  This restaurant happens to be less than 100m from my apartment and I'd been meaning to visit.  About 7 of us met up and headed over.  We were seated upstairs, which was nice as we had space, but it seemed like all the wafting delighful aromas from barbecued stinky tofu had gathered directly where we sat.  (Stinky tofu being that Chinese delicasy which I encountered first in Guangzhou almost 20 years ago, and for a few years couldn't work out what on earth this infernal stench was that people were crowding around, on one balmy night, best described as a combination of burning rubber and burning dog poo).  The smell wasn't that strong, and soon was overtaken by the smell of lamb cooked on sticks at our table.  We also got chicken wings, vegetables,flat round buns on skwers, a bowl of some mushroom salad, and of course beer. 

Everything tasted so good that a couple of us were sent downstairs to get more meat and vegetables and chicken wings and thick slices of potato from the self-service section.  

While one of the staff was tallying up our bill, we looked at more of the weird and wonderful ingredients  available to be barbecued.  I did see some brains, but the winner were some wrinkly grey balls,  These were in fact sheep eyeballs!  Maybe next time.....  All-in-all we had a massive feast that worked out to be about $5 each.  

Outside in the cold, was a super chonky French bulldog chained up which let me pat it.  A perfect ending to a delicious meal.