Foxy Pot

I haven't been a big fan of hot pot ever, and since the last time I had it in Beijing, I promptly got sick and spent the next week with the bandage the size of my face taped to my chin, I haven't had the best associations and thus haven't sought it out. But it's good for groups, I guess, so I can forgive our outgoing Korean class rep for organizing our class lunch around it.

To their credit, they tried to keep the meat out of one side (why the spicy side?), but it all basically ended up together. Nicely rolled goat meat strip pyramids were the restaurant's specialty.

Meat pyramid goes in the broth. Other things that can be cooked in the hot pot: lettuce, napa cabbage, rice noodles, glutinous rice noodles, glutinous rice strips, wavy french fries, slices of lotus root, mushrooms, tofu skin, shrimp balls ("For Hester! Oh, you don't eat those either? Would you mind telling the whole class why you are a vegetarian?"). Once the items are cooked, you can dip them in a sesame paste sauce, to which you've added, hopefully, cilantro, peanuts, x-tra aged stinky tofu, vinegar, soy sauce, and broth from the hot pot. An additional non-hot-pot-specific item also came to the table: a basket of rolls, some of which had been worked over in the deep fryer to a golden crisp, which you could then dip in sweetened condensed milk, which they called honey. (china's poor man's...)