China - Hot Pot Brings the Heat

There's nothing colder than a northeastern winter, and in a country where indoor temperature control is dubious at best, there were days when I thought I'd never be warm again... 

Until it was time for dinner. Nothing gets my blood boiling like a steaming soup waiting to steep the meats and veggies of a high-end hot pot. 

Start light with wasabi Chinese broccoli-esque balls and build up to savory sausage and luxurious lamb. 

Need a break from meat? Freshly fileted black sea bass can be briefly boiled or eaten as sashimi. 

Burly cuts of beef are next, and this is only one of several servings of see-through slices of delicate short rib and ribeye. The bean curd comes after the beef. These porous triangles will soak up all the soup, which has become a hearty, meaty broth by now. 

After your broth has been blasted with sweet seafood and umami meat, throw in some hand-pulled noodles into the mix. These wider flat noodles cook perfectly al dente, and like the tofu, they soak up all the savory soup.

This isn't the first time I've blogged about hot pot and it certainly won't be the last. With the endless variation of ingredients and prevalence of possibilities, hot pot is the classic that never gets boring and all always remain on my radar.