the concept of hotpot is simple: dump food into a boiling pot of seasoned broth for minutes at a time, and then fish it out when it's ready to eat. dip it in as many sauces as you want to (generally you stick with satay sauce, garlic sauce, and other Asian creations) and shove it into your mouth. repeat until you are stuffed!
for $25 per person (plus tax and tip), all 11 of us ate the all-you-can-eat hotpot buffet at Lao Sze Chuan, a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown that has grown rather famous for its dishes. i've blogged about it previously in my old food blog twice - the first time was amazing and the second was crap. i was hesitant to go there because i wasn't sure if i wanted to pay for a bleagh meal again, but i was happily rewarded with good food and good service this time!
the hotpot option came with a spicy pot and a regular pot (i obviously chose the spicy pot and only used that one).
it comes with 2 plates piled high with sliced lamb and sliced beef; a bowl of sweet potato flour noodles, as well as a massive platter of veggies, fish, various seafood (like squid and mussels), fish balls, beef balls, tofu, and shrimp. they offered to refill the plates as often as we needed, which was nice because everyone freely dug in as soon as the pots started boiling. they definitely gave you a lot of food for your money - i don't necessarily think that it was worth the $32 / person that we ended up paying, but at least you don't have to clean up afterwards!
look at all this stuff ready to get dumped into hot boiling water!
i was especially excited for the lamb because i generally eat a LOT of that at home, but i was rather disappointed. the meat was sliced at about 5 mm, which was incredibly thick for shabu shabu. generally it's supposed to be super thin - at most 1mm so that the meat is tender when you cook it.
it also had a lot of fatty parts on it, which was good for flavouring, i suppose, but slightly stringy to chew on.
i didn't really try the seafood; i focused on the meats and veg for the most part, and my bowl was never empty throughout the entire night!
look at the platter that got completely demolished! (refer to earlier pictures..haha!)
the night was incredibly fun, festive, and just an overall good time. i think it's nice to come here once in a while; it's a "healthy" way to eat lots of fresh veggies and cook meat to your own liking with friends. like i said, the best part is avoiding cleanup..haha. the only problem i had with the place is that with 11 people (and 2 pots) we still had to stand when cooking the food in the pot. it would've been nice to be seated at a table where we could all cook while seated, which makes me think that the ideal amount of people to go with lies at around 4.
Lao Sze Chuan
2172 S. Archer Ave.
Chicago, IL 60616
