Fruit today, please

Summer is coming. So last night, while it was still cool, we biked down to Chinatown and ate at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot. It was an experience.

This franchise is very popular in China, although reviewers say the food is not entirely Mongolian-authentic. The restaurant was filled with Chinese customers -- other than the two of us, there were two Russian guys, and a couple of Caucasian tourists who looked like they weren't sure their choice had been such a good idea. We had fun, but let me tell you, all I want to eat today is salad and fruit!

All the tables have a clever built-in flat cooktop; that's where your hot pot goes, full of a chicken-based broth "flavored with 60 special Chinese herbs and ingredients". You can have mild, spicy, or half and half, which is what you see in the picture above. I fished around in my bowl: in addition to about a dozen whole cloves of garlic and large slices of ginger, there was indeed a flotilla of unidentifiable roots, nuts, pods, seeds...whatever they were, from the very first sip the broth tasted delicious. The spicy one was VERY spicy, almost too much for me, and I like spicy food.

So once your pot of broth is simmering, the server brings two plates, one of very thinly sliced beef and one of lamb. You take a slice and cook it in the boiling broth, and then eat it; when you're tired of eating meat (they will keep bringing it until you tell them to stop) you go over to an all-you-can-eat buffet and bring back more ingredients: large prawns like the one I'm holding; fish; tofu; fish balls; seaweeds; all sorts of greens; noodles; lotus root; fried cuttlefish and baby octopus; shitake and cloud ear mushrooms; tiger lily buds; quail eggs...and many more things I couldn't identify. Everything you cook contributes to the flavor of the broth, which is eaten at the end as a soup. Our waitress cautioned us to eat the meat and then fish and then tofu and greens because it was much better for our health that way. So we did. But as we found, the greatest danger wasn't the food order, or the spiciness, but the actual heat of the cooked food -- we both burned our mouths repeatedly. There was lemon-flavored ice water, strawberry juice, orange juice, and very refreshing plum juice - that's what's in the glass by my hand. And for dessert: sliced melon, oranges, pineapple, little layered and frosted cakes, and sesame balls.

I don't think I'd go there often -- too much food, too heavy on the protein -- but it was fun, and would be even more fun to do with a bunch of friends. For a group, you can get a big bowl of broth, and everyone around the table shares it.

We biked home - uphill, and glad of it. I think one should be a Mongolian sheep herder to eat this sort of thing on a regular basis: as for me, I can't tell you how good a fresh peach tasted this morning!

Comments

[Mouse]

That post brings back happy memories of a similar meal at a place in Boston.
Sigh....

[Peter]

All that sounds tasty -- though I have never been able to eat hot-pot meals without dripping unacceptable amounts of broth from the bok choi into my beard. But here's the odd thing: My introduction to hot pot was at an expensive Japanese restaurant in Syracuse, NY (where the put an ordinary hot plate on the table -- this was 25 years ago). It wasn't called that, either.

I had always had the idea that MONGOLIAN hot pot must have something thick and lavalike, and correspondingly spicy, in the pot. Now that you've taught me better, I'll have to see how it works here.

The same place taught me to eat tofu in chunks with ginger and soy sauce, a summer appetizer I still love when the tofu is good.

[Fred Garber]

Looks and sounds very yummy! My only experience with hotpots is in Vietnamese restaurants. The hot pots there have hot coals in a little chimney with a circular moat of hot broth around it. One version is filled with various meats, chicken, seafood, vegis and pineapple. the other one that I have had only has catfish chunks(bones and all)and vegis swimming in a spicy broth. Rice on the side. The Vietnamese like to add red wine vinegar to the individual bowls.

[Lucy]

I rather wish I'd read this before dinner not after! But it looks good. How did you manage to bike uphill home afterwards?

[beth]

With difficulty, mainly because the meal made me so sleepy!

[Earl]

Sounds great - you should have invited ME!!! Where do you get the time to write all this up???? Cheers! Earl (Hope your pik nik went well!)

[Jean-Olivier]

Wow, nice. Next restaurant on my list! I love those culinary experiences! For those interested, here a map to get there, if you ever come to Montreal... ;)

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=48+Northern+Yunnan+Road,+montreal,qc&ie=UTF8&ll=45.498466,-73.800917&spn=0.03736,0.063&z=14&iwloc=A&om=1

It's in Roxboro, close to DDO, somewhat of an awkward place for a Chinese restaurant... ...I think anyway. ;p

I though I'd share a culinary experience, in the "same" family (unfortunately Chinese...):

Chez Gatsé Restaurant Tibetain, 317 Ontario E

This restaurant is admirable (in look and service) and very good. You can also try butter tea which is, surprisingly(!), good (yes, pretty much butter in hot water). And also momos, which are somewhere between dumplings and bread: also a very interesting experience. There's another Tibetan restaurant on St-Denis and I hear there's a very good one on St-Laurent, some say even better, but I never went, so you'll have to experience it for yourselves ;)

Hope you'll have a chance to try any of those Beth or any of you southern neighbors ;p

Tibétain Shambala, 3439, rue St-Denis corner Sherbrooke
Restaurant Tibétain Om, 4382, boul. Saint-Laurent

Enjoy, miam! (isn't great that our most important need is also one of our greatest pleasure? life is good :D)