Chengdu style heart warming hot pot for winter

Before they had the Chengdu hot pot, I found out about this place from photos of the Beancurd with shrimps and salty egg yolk.

I was so lucky to be invited by Isaac to try out the Chengdu hot pot as well as the beancurd.

For the Chendu hot pot they had two broths, one which was not spicy and the other was spicy.
I used the spicy broth as a dipping sauce so I got the best of both worlds.

We sampled some dishes before starting the gourmet hot pot.
Most of the dishes were my first time trying them except for the chicken in wine.
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Sliced pork served with garlic and chili sauce:

 

The pork was thinly sliced and rolled up and put on a bed of chili oil topped with garlic puree.
The chili oil was quite spicy but manageable and with the garlic it tasted really nice.
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Jelly fish marinated in spring onion oil

This was my favourite because the texture of the Jelly fish was quite crunchy and the crunchy texture is similar to Octopus mouths. I was later told that the Jelly fish here was also the mouth part.
The spring onion oil they used was really fragrant, it had been pre-cooked giving it that delicious flavour similar to the spring onion oil used for dipping chicken.
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Huadiao wine marinated “drunken” chicken

 

The wine the chicken was submerged in was nice and strong and chicken meat had fully absorbed the wine.
The texture of the chicken was lovely and silky too.
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Bean curd with shrimps and salty egg yolk

 

This was the highlight of the starters because I have always wanted to try this Thanks to Isaac.
It is best eaten hot while the egg yolk is most flavoursome.
The combination of delicate beancurd and salty egg yolk was delcious and the peas gave it some sweetness as well as visual contrast.
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Deep-fried marinated fish

 

These were pieces of deep fried fish which were surprisingly crispy and the bones were edible too.
Even though the texture of the fish was crispy, it was not fibrous nor bitter.
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After finishing the starters, we moved on to the great hot pot!
There were two broths and lots of sauces and condiments for dipping.
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Fresh Water Herring with Dried Date and wolfberry Soup:
Tried the soup before putting the items in.
The soup tasted really delicate, especially the taste of the fish.
Visually you could also see the apples and tomatos in the broth.
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Spicy Sichuan Style Soup:
I used this was a dipping sauce and it was not as spicy as I imagined it to be but it was quite nice because it had so many herbs and spices in the soup.

 

 

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Hotpot items:
Sichuan Vermicelli

 

Chicken testes

 

Dried beancurd sheets
US oysters
Luncheon Meat
Sliced Japanese Pork
Sliced Supreme Beef
Diced Angus Beef
Prawns
Mushroom and Minced Pork Balls
Sliced Lotus Roots
Mushrooms

 

 

 

The most memorable one was the luncheon meat because it absorbs all the soup flavouring, and the pork and beef were thinly sliced which made it easy to cook and the texture of the meat was nice and tender too.
They had chicken testes which people either hate or love. I actually like them because they taste like the fish roe of dover sole fishes. They are slightly rubbery and spongy!
The sichuan vermicelli looked very different after it was cooked, it was transparent and jelly like.
One of the meatballs had mushroom and pork filling inside and it was a nice surprise.
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Lastly for dessert there was this pudding made with glutinous rice and this is the first dessert I have tried that has meat in it.
When I saw it, I thought it looked like a Christmas pudding.

 

Fried glutinous rice with red bean paste:
The glutinous rice in this dessert was soft and gooey with granulated sugar sprinkled on top.
It was actually quite nice because the glutinous rice was really soft and the outer layer was panfried so that it was crispy and the sugar gave it some depth and texture.
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