The hot pot is one of Asia’s oldest methods of cooking and is still a popular choice for a night out in the city. Time Out gets to grips with the many different regional varieties and shows you where to find them.
Hot pots in Beijing offer a massive variety of flavours, many unknown outside of China. The cooking base is the most important component – it’s the foundation of the flavour, and versions include fragrant Thai curry, fire-spiced Sichuan chillies and peppercorns, raging hot oil, and the lightest drinkable broths.
Our new favourite uses zhou (congee, or jook), that warming rice porridge, as a delicious base. The best part is that all of these flavours can be found within the city rings.
Cooking with fire is a primeval act of survival. The concept of huo guo, or fire pot, couldn’t be more simple: a single pot, liquid, some vegetables, possibly meat or anything locally available, and fire.
