Sunday, December 21, 2008

How To Eat Hot Pot

Either you love it or you hate it…or you just kind of like it. Perhaps you’re simply not that keen? Whatever your feelings about Hot-Pot it’s erm…well, it’s hot. And it comes in a sort of pot, if you’re not too fussy about your definitions.

There are a lot of intricacies in successfully completing consumption of this most local of delicacies, and I felt it was the right tie to guide you carefully through the thousands of social faux pas* available for you at the local Shabu Shabu, all of which I have at some time tried to tiptoe around, some of which I’ve collapsed headfirst into with an unfortunate disregard for anyone sitting nearby, or the crowds of people watching through the window. Please bear in mind while reading this that I am a paranoid hypochondriac with acute something-wrong-with-my-stomach syndrome and a lump in my foot that everyone keeps looking at.

There’s no right or wrong way to enter the hot-pot shop, that would be taking things too far*, so let’s get straight to the nitty gritty: If there’s any nitty gritty in your hot-pot, walk out, this clearly isn’t the kind of establishment you’re accustomed to.
Firstly, unless you’re extremely pretentious and go for seafood, you have a choice of meats to accompany the basic set of vegetables, do-pi, do-fu and possibly an egg. Choose what you want – what do I care? After it’s been boiled to death and slathered in sauce, it all tastes the same anyway. Just make sure that after you use your chopsticks to transport the semi-frozen raw meat to the pot, you dip your utensils in the boiling water for a moment rather than transferring the bacteria-laden juices straight to your mouth.

If you are already eating, then you’ve either:
(a) forgotten to go and get sauce, or
(b) found one of those wonderful places where they do it for you – well done.
The sauce is a mixture of barbecue sauce, garlic chili and various other condiments that dip everything in before you eat so that it doesn’t taste like something semi-frozen that’s just been inexpertly boiled by someone so bad at basic food preparation they spend all their evenings in a hot-pot shop. If you’re anything like me, the exact proportions are a frustratingly well-guarded mystery, and so I you should get someone else to do it unless you want to spend the whole meal waving you hand in front of your mouth and making strange hooting noises*. If you’re like me, and let’s hope you’re not, this saucing of the food is an extremely messy business, and it’s worth knowing that the tissues are kept at knee-height under the counter. I suggest securing two packs before you start. Finally, if you’ve got it right the sauce should taste rather divine – that’s because it’s laden with more calories than the whole of all the food in front of you put together and will eventually kill you.

Don’t get obsessed with one type of food. For me it’s do-pi, for you it could be anything. Obviously. But probably not chicken testicles. You can order extra portions of anything, and they’ll bring you a big plate of it which looks good for about ten minutes, when you’ll have eaten so much of it that if you ever see any of that particular type of food again you’ll throw up. Which is unfortunate, because there’ll still be three-quarters of a plate full in front of you. Whatever you do, don’t throw up into the eponymous hot-pot, this is considered bad form.

If you’re going with a local person, for god’s sake don’t order rice. We Westerners have a tendency to want to fill up quickly, usually with potato or bread based substances, but rice will do the trick too. Ordering rice will mean that after half an hour you’ll be sat, feeling completely full while your friend, like the Energizer bunny just keeps eating and eating and eating. Three hours later you’ll have lost the will to live and be obsessing about that lump in your foot again. If you’re going with more than one local person, cancel any engagements you might have thought you were going to have that week, because it’s going to be a looooong meal. Do bear in mind, though, that ex-pat bosses generally don’t accept “we’re still at the Shabu Shabu and someone’s just ordered more lamb” as a reason for missing work the next day. Local bosses would probably come along and join in the ‘fun’.

After an indeterminate amount of time, during which you may or may not have considered tearing out your own eyeballs, all the food will be gone.
“Ah,” you might think, “thank the heavens and all the little baby angels – check please!”
I’m afraid you’re sadly misguided, and have forgotten to consider that having had all manner of rootsy, festery, carcassy things bubbling around in it for the last week and a half, that liquid left in the pot will make a darned good soup. Etiquette insists that you now spend a good hour transferring it to a bowl and drinking it. If you survive this, do not desire month-old ice cream scrapings or burnt popcorn and have the whereabouts of three or four hundred NTD upon your person, why you’re home free. Well done.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Video Promo for New Show

Is now up at:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UXASJ0zmrdY