[川婆婆 Chuan Po Po] A Stylish hotpot place

Chuanpopo is located on the 8/F of Gala Place among other restaurants.

Gala place used to be just a commercial building but now they have restaurants on the 8th floor.
All the restaurants there are good so Chuanpopo has to be just as good to be in competition. In terms of decor, it was pink and stylish but in a different way. It was like an office with pink swivel chairs and tables arranged like a conference room.

On the other side, you have the comfy seats.

While I was looking around, I saw the dragon sculpture which was really familiar. I always used to see the guy sculpting this in Central and sometimes in MK.

I'm glad the owner at Chuanpopo likes his stuff and therefore got him to do the pandas. Moving on to the hotpot, we had the dual hotpot so one was non spicy while the other one was spicy.

In the sauces and condiments section, the choice was impressive as they had cumin, turmeric, galangal puree etc so the options were very different.

For drinks, they had the avocado banana smoothie which is not so boring compared to sugar cane and smoky prune drinks. The crab was recommended and it went really well in the non spicy pot as the flavours of the crab came out well in the soup which had morel mushrooms.



For vegetables, they had healthy options like Kale so I ordered that as well as my favourite Chrysanthenam garland..



My friend loves meat so we had meatballs and beef slices which he said were good.



Finished with the potato starch noodles which were thick and chewy.

Definitely a good and spacious place for hotpots.
As well as hotpots they also offer delightful lunch options like pickled fish and other Sichuan dishes.

A great hot pot experience in Macau

Went to Macau for the weekend and it was someones birthday so decided to celebrate it here as it was close to the hotel and the place is new and spacious.

This is the beauty of Macau, everything is spaced out with tall ceilings and tables well spread out.

To begin, everyone gets to mix sauces from the sauce tray.

I was impressed with the choices as there were more options than Hong Kong and they had the English name for each sauce.

There were a few sauces that were really tasty such as the Thai Chili sauce which went well with the lobster.

For the non hotpot items, there was soy sauce fried rice and salt and pepper lobsters.

Eating the rice and lobster together was so satisfying.
The lobster was impressive as the coating was crispy and light.

As for the fried rice, every grain was fragrant and evenly coated in soy sauce.

Moving on to the hotpot, we had the tomyumkung broth and the pork broth.

Streaky pork with Sake:
The pork was quite unique because it was just like bacon but not cured.
You get a side of sake which you either dip before you put in the hotpot or dip after it is cooked.
I think it tastes better dipping in the sake after it has cooked in the pot because if you dip it before the sake gets diluted in the pot but overall delicious because the pork is tender.

Ferris wheel meatballs:
There was a good assortment of meatballs and my favourite was the one filled with salted egg yolk.

Dumplings:
The dumplings were neatly wrapped like tortelli, after they were cooked the prawns inside were nice and bouncy.

What appears to be fish shaped pudding is actually squid paste which you break up into smaller pieces into the pot.
When it is cooked, it is springy with delicious pieces of squid in it.

For beef, we had two types: Angus and Fresh beef slices with egg.
I liked the fresh slices of beef as they were tender and silky.

To finish, we had this light Chinese soup which had pieces of peach and egg which was soothing.

Our friend also got a free birthday cake because you get a free birthday cake if you book a birthday dinner a day in advance within the birthday month.
Will definitely be going again as Macau is always a good getaway.

[Seasons Hot Pot 春秋火鍋]
1/F, Harbourview Hotel, Macau Fisherman’s Wharf, Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Porto Exterior

Healthy Hot Pot at [雲長小龍坎老火鍋]

Went here with a friend to check out this new hotpot place which used to be some other Sichuan restaurant.
When we arrived, we were greeted with this huge ceramic dragon, on the left was this animated image which was actually powered by a fan.

雲長小龍坎 is opened by cantopop singer Jason Chan and TV celeb Chiu King Ho so you might bump into them there!!

Inside, there are mini cans of oil which are used for dipping the food on each table and neatly stacked by the window.

Started with some spicy chicken feet and crispy pork.

The Salt and Pepper Sweetcorn was really addictive as the sweetcorn was split into four vertically which made it really easy to eat for people with small gobs!

We had two broths, one signature spicy broth and the non spicy herb broth.
Before we ordered anything for the pot, the guy kept recommending the meat balls and saying how good they were.

So we got some Celtuce slices, Premium beef, meat balls and the Ferris Wheel.

The Ferris Wheel was a real working one because when I took one of the carriages out, it started moving due to the weight imbalance!!

The guy didn't brag about the meat balls as they turned out tasty.
The reason they were good was that it was made of mostly grounded pure meat which you can taste otherwise the texture would be bouncy.
So far so good!
The next exciting thing was the fish gas bladders which I have always wanted to try as not many places serve them puffed up.

I loved the stickiness and you really do need to tug it as it was very elastic to withstand the pressures beneath the sea!! The only thing you have to becareful are the random sharp bone fragments. Duck's blood is becoming popular these days and the texture of the duck's blood was like tofu which disintegrates in your mouth as it is really delicate.
It definitely tastes better placed in the spicy broth.

Overall, I was really satisfied with the hotpot as everything was tasty and didn't need the condiments.
The way I eat spicy hotpot is use the non spicy broth to blanch it first and then a few drops of the spicy broth to make it tasty so that I can control how spicy it is.
On the way home, I noticed that I was not feeling thirsty after the hotpot.

[雲長小龍坎老火鍋]

[Thai Bin Lo] Thai style hot pot

If you like Thai food, I think this is a great place for hotpot because the appetizer, dessert and drinks cabinet is all you can eat including chicken, Thai salad, etc.

For the main hotpot broth, you get a choice of Thai style soups such as tom yum kung, coconut chicken, curry etc.
I chose two because it was only $10 extra for two different pots.

For me, the best bit were the noodles because they have Thai Mama noodles and Cambodian noodles which I had first before the broth get oily.

With the Cambodian noodles, I like the way, the softness of the noodles is up to me.

It was nice eating out of bamboo bowls for a change.
Both noodles were good but I prefer the Instant noodles.

After having the noodles, it was time for the beef and seafood.

You get half a grey mullet which goes nicely in the tomyumkung as the strong broth balances the strong flavour of this fish.
I put the pandan leaves in the coconut pot which were used to garnish the seafood platter and it enhanced the coconut broth even more because pandan and coconut always go well together.

The huge oysters didn't shrink in the hotpot and they had a very strong taste to it.

For drinks had the fizzy cucumber which was refreshing and soothes the spicy food.

As well as the hotpot I was really satisfied with the appetizer bar so I hope to come again soon.
+++++
[Thai Bin Lo]:
9/F, King Wah Centre, 628 Nathan Road, Mong Kok
23678876