Previously, in a Wandering Eats post, we raved about the famously delicious traditional beef hotpot 牛肉火鍋 we had while in Chaoshan 潮汕. Omgosh, so good...
More recently, whilst again on a wander, we got to try another type of traditional and unique hotpot from Chaoshan 潮汕 and boy-o-boy is it every so scrummy! What the heck, so much yumminess, amirite? This Soy Sauce Braised Hotpot 滷水火鍋, instead of using the typical clear or spicy soup base, uses a soy sauce based braise broth infused with spices like star anise, cinnamon, ginger, chilli peppers and garlic. This is the same braise that is used for Chinese method of 'red cooking' or 'hong shao' 红烧!
This Soy Sauce Braised Hotpot is served with many small dishes of fresh raw ingredients that you then cook by immersing in the aromatic braise broth. The spice infused soy sauce braise infuses the raw ingredients with the braise flavor as it cooks. We'd never tried hotpot this way and we were delighted with the experience!
The quaint restaurant where we discovered this hotpot gem is so cool. 'Cai De Hao' restaurant 蔡得好 is located in Chaozhou's Old Town 潮州古城, an ancient Chinese city within the wider Chaoshan 潮汕 area with over 2000 years of history and much of its ancient architecture still preserved. It still has the remnants of the original city wall!
Thus it is that this hotpot restaurant is actually housed in a hundred year old Chinese residence. Imagine our awe when we stumbled upon it!
We arrived at the restaurant just at the twilight hour so the warm and inviting traditional mood created was most charming: red paper couplets pasted about a carved stone threshold, lit by traditional hand painted lanterns swaying slightly in the night breeze. And, of course, there was the quintessential modern Chinese touch: can you see the foldout chair piled high with power bank rental stations? Lol, amirite?!
The interior walls of this ancient residence turned to restaurant are beautifully textured with age, canton tiles line the floors while the ceilings are hung with hand painted Chinese lanterns that light up the aged wooden walls that divide the rooms. There are even old style Chinese wooden benches used as seating at the tables. Oh, it's so picturesque, no?
Having a hotpot dinner here is an experience that, besides providing good food, can also transport you, perhaps, back to another time and place!
The Soy Sauce Braised Hotpot 滷水火鍋 as it arrived at our table. Look at that! The soy sauce braise in the pot is chock full of all sorts of aromatics: chilli peppers, cardamom, cilantro roots, shitake mushrooms, cinnamon, star anise, ginger, garlic, spring onion. It's all been already cooked together for a long time, allowing for the hot pot braise broth to be totally infused with flavor. It's ready to be used to cook your hotpot raw ingredients in!
And here they begin, the raw ingredients to cook in the pot. I love hotpot, there's so many types of food to try out and it's so much fun!
The first to arrive at the table were the Four Happiness Meatballs. Four types of freshly pounded meat paste: shrimp, beef, goose and chicken, each decorated with a felt 囍 or 'double happiness' Chinese character. So pretty a presentation, no? The spoon provided is used to scoop little balls of the meat paste to dunk into the broth to cook. So fresh and yummy!
Next a plate of that glorious Chaoshan raw beef! Their hotpot raw beef is thinly sliced, super fresh, so juicy and ever so tender when briefly cooked in the braise broth. Yummilicious!
Next up, a plate of 九肚魚 also known as 孟買鴨 and bombay duck* (it's not duck, it's fish!). This mild tasting fish has a most delicate texture with soft and edible bones. Once dipped into the hot pot the fish cooks quickly, soaking in the flavours of braise of the hot pot right away.
*Note: The interesting name of 'bombay duck' comes from the period of the British Raj in India when these fish were first dried and then transported from Bombay to Calcutta by the mail trains, which are called 'daak' in Hindi. Thus the fish became known first as 'Bombay Daak' which then, over time, became Anglicized to 'Bombay Duck'.
And then came the most wonderful mound of...geoduck 象拔蚌! Geoduck are the largest burrowing clams in the world and their meat have a wonderfully sea sweet taste and a firm, slightly crunchy texture. It is usually served thinly sliced and eaten either raw or very briefly cooked. Seafood lovers, geoduck is to die for so if you haven't tried it you totally should!
The presentation of geoduck at this restaurant was most delightful, the thinly sliced raw geoduck slices layered over a mound of ice and elegantly presented on a raised porcelain dish.
A plate of thinly sliced fresh pork liver. Pork liver has a mild taste and tender texture. It also has the ability to take on the flavors of the braise, so yummy!
This is a plate of traditional Chaozhou fish skin dumpling 魚皮餃: minced pork (flavored with sole fish powder) filling wrapped into a delicate skin made from fish paste mixed with flour. Oh, I love fish skin dumplings! When fish skin dumplings are good, they are sooo good! And these were pretty darn good, deliciously savory with a delicately chewy texture.
The green balance! Veggies balance out the meats. Here we have a bowlful of 真珠花菜, also known as white mugwort or pearl vegetable. These greens have tender, fragrant leaves with a distinctly aromatic, pungent and ever so slightly bitter taste. Grab a bunch with your chopsticks and tuck em down into that hot braise! The veggie is ready to eat after a brief dipping and offers a refreshing and light contrasting note to the meat dishes.
More greens! This time a bowl of 枸杞菜 or Chinese wolfberry leaves. These veggies are popular for hotpot. They have a sweet, herbal and slightly bitter taste as well as being chock full of minerals and vitamins. The greener the merrier!
Time to fill up the corners! We've had all kinds of meats, cooked DIY in the braise of the hot pot. Then we balanced out the meatiness with veggie-ness by dunking raw veggies in for a quick cook bath before consuming.
Finally, to fill up any left over corners in our tummies, we added a plate of fresh tofu. Actually, let's roll that back a bit. You should totally order the tofu early cuz the best way to eat it is after the tofu has had a long hot bath, really soaking in all the flavors of the braise. So order early and cook it long!
Another tummy filler! Rice noodles are smooth, tender and slippery in texture and have a neutral, slightly ricey flavor. However that neutralness allows these noodles to soak in the flavors of whatever they are cooked in. Once cooked in the braise pot it's time to sluuuurrpp up some noodles! Tummy corners filled!
But wait, this charming restaurant had a wee bit more for us! Did you know that some traditional type Chinese restaurants will treat diners with a free desert? Cool, amirite?! It's usually some sort of traditional Chinese sweet soup like red bean sweet soup, green bean sweet sooup, sesame sweet soup, etc.
This time we were most pleasantly surprised when the waitress brought over little bowls of sweet soy bean dessert Tau Foo Fah (or Douhua) 豆腐花. Omgosh, these puddings. They used to be sold on the Hong Kong streets by hawkers! These silky tender tofu puddings were served with a warm sweet syrup and a sprinkling of nuts and shredded coconut. Just the perfect finish to a most charming dinner!
Wandering Eats at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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