Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page B8

December 24, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Hangzhou hotpots packed with heat and flavor

By Wu Huixin | December 24, 2015, Thursday | Print Edition

WITH the arrival of cold and windy weather, nothing will make you feel as homely and warm as plunging fresh seafood or meatballs into a simmering hotpot.

Winter is the hotpot season in China, and across the country, this classic dish is found in different styles, from fresh seafood in south China to savory slices of meat in the north.

The basics are the same, even if new techniques and ingredients have added variety over time.

Shanghai Daily has picked four of the most succulent Chinese and Korean hotpot restaurants in Hangzhou, so gather your friends and family to share the communal hotpot spirit by sticking your favorite ingredients into one big bowl of soup.

Maocai

For most diners, the hotpot soup is used simply to cook fresh ingredients, but is seldom enjoyed on its own as it’s rather pungent. Maocai soup is different: After hours of simmering pork bones and herbs, the broth is tasty and nutritious, and often slurped by diners after they finished eating classic hotpot ingredients.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, such herbal soups can strengthen the spleen and stimulate the appetite, and time-honored brands attract patrons by virtue of their broth recipe.

The process of cooking maocai is also different from a traditional hotpot as a large bamboo ladle is used to immerse ingredients into the soup until they are boiled. While your food is being cooked, mix up seasonings in a bowl so that the seasoning is ready to be poured over your ingredients once they are boiled.

Maocai is said to have been created during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) when the country was at war. The dish was created as a dietary therapy by military doctors to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and strengthen soldiers’ bodies. It turns out that the remedy also makes for a yummy get-together.

Where to eat:

• Sangu Maocai

Address: 223 Huaxing Rd

Tel: 188-5156-6268

South Korean army pot

The army pot is said to date back to the early 1950s, when Korea engaged in a war. Armed forces deployed by the United Nations were stationed in Seoul and brought Western instant food. Canned and preserved sausages or lunch meats quickly became popular with locals.

Koreans started to cook the instant ingredients with traditional pickled cabbage, noodles and chilli sauce, which in turn created a new hotpot variant that is today known as army pot.

Le Bo, a franchise from South Korea, serves this Korean delicacy in Hangzhou with seafood, beef or “original flavor soup.”

Sausages imported from overseas can be added to enrich the taste.

Where to eat:

• Le Bo Army Pot

Address: 98 Yan’an Rd

Chuanchuan

Unlike some hotpots that can look at a more than 1700-year-old history, chuanchuan is a relatively modern hotpot invention that only dates back to the mid-1980s when small-scale vendors started cooking on portable stoves along the roadside.

They quickly became popular due to the somewhat novel eating method — classic ingredients are skewered on bamboo sticks, stuck into a spicy broth and boiled, then dipped into a pungent sauce before eating.

The bamboo sticks made it easy to buy chuanchuan snacks along the road while walking, rather than having to sit down for an extensive meal.

The concoction quickly spread around Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality and today, chuanchuan is one of the signature dishes of Sichuan cuisine, famous across the country.

Chuanchuan restaurants only sprouted up in the past few years in Hangzhou. In order to cater to the taste of locals, ingredients include different seafood and red meats as well as a variety of vegetables and soybean products.

A typical chuanchuan features different foods that are arranged according to flavors and color in order to present a pleasing arrangement, but sticklers say that the broth remains the key to a perfect Chuanchuan.

Where to eat:

• Shuqian Chuanchuan Xiang

Address: 753 Moganshan Rd

Tel: (0571) 2833-7785

Dongbei luandun

This dish is a hotpot variant that originated in northeastern China, where locals cooked vegetable, soybean products and meat together and served them in a large pot.

In order to cut back on daily necessities, nomadic people would bring only one large pot when they were on the move. Once they settled down, all they needed to do was to make a fire and mix their food in their pot.

The north’s chilly weather also required locals to not only cook hearty dishes, but to cook them in large quantities that would take longer to cool down than small dishes served in individual bowls. Potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, mushrooms, pork, green peppers and green beans are typical ingredients of Dongbei luandun that will provide a good serving of vitamins and proteins.

Where to eat:

• Northeastern China Hometown

Address: 108 Henanta Rd

Tel: (0571) 8615-8110

Hangzhou


 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend