Wei La hot pot, spice level 0.5. On a chill winter night, there may be no better food in the world than hot pot. You sit, you order, and within minutes, a cauldron of flavorful broth is brought to your table, along with generous platters of meats, innards, seafood, and vegetables. The pot sits on a low flame, bubbling merrily throughout the meal, and you get to decide how and when you'd like your food - tossing in some napa cabbage first so it simmers over the course of the meal to a melt-in-the-mouth tenderness, sliding a plate of shrimp in so the broth takes on a delicious, oceanic brineyness, and giving some thinly-sliced lamb a quick, five-second swish...
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OK, so as a visual spectacle of hot pot cooking, nothing beats the world's largest hot pot I posted about last month, but this 1.5 mile-long hot pot table that sat 100,000 people is still pretty amazing, especially when you consider they "ate about 30 tons of tripe and 20 tons of duck intestines." I do not envy the clean up crew!...
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From China View: "Local residents dine around a huge hot pot in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, Feb. 16, 2007. The huge hot pot measures 12 meters (39 feet) in diameter, and 4 meters (13 feet) in total height. The maker of the pot has applied for a World Guinness Record as the world's largest hot pot." (What's a hot pot anyway? Wikipedia to the rescue: "It consists of a simmering pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. (...) Meat or vegetables are loaded individually into the hot cooking broth by chopsticks, and cooking time is brief....
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