Hot pot-kets

There was a breakthrough in my China experience ... my two American co-workers and I willingly AND on our own tried a Chinese restaurant. Aren't you proud?! We've lived in fear of most of the places around here because the reality is you just can't quite tell what you're getting yourself into. A few times we've gone places where the menu items were disturbing, meat is sitting out in the open-air or that didn't have English translations (and I'm not about to eat something that I can't identify). So we've largely played it safe. We felt adventurous and took a recommendation for a place called Hot Pot King.

The next obvious question is did we sing the Hot Pockets theme? Of course. A few times on the way to dinner. And we also talked about our appreciation for Jim Gaffigan and his Hot Pocket skits (see you in Orlando!).

Hot pot is a dining experience here ... you order a "broth" I guess, some raw meat, veggies, noodles, etc. They bring you a boiling hot stainless steel bowl with the broth, then you cook up everything at your table. The best part of hot pot is that you get to make your own sauces to then dip your cooked items into. I made two - one was a soy/garlic/onion/coriander sauce and the second was a peanut/satay/sesame seed creamy sauce. Both were amazing, and it was fun mixing up your own.  Super cheap, super fun, super delicious. We'll be going back.

Here's a picture of Brian and Holly after our items were served:

Here's the hot pot:

And don't be fooled ... the red side with all the red chili peppers was HOT!