Beijing Hotpot

After meeting Buboli, we headed out to the car where his father was waiting to take us to my first meal in China. We picked up his girlfriend as well on the way to the restaurant so there was four of us in total. On the way there I was looking out the window at the various buildings. There were so many apartments everywhere and they were all so tall. Many also had LED lights on them that made them look very planned and futuristic. I don’t think America has the same number of highrise apartments as China does. It just felt like I was constantly seeing so many high up buildings, all throughout the trip. Even in the more rural areas buildings like this seemed very common.

I was told that the hotpot place we were headed to was popular with Beijingers. One of the reasons it is so cool to visit a new place with someone local is that they can show you what people who actually live in the location like to do. I find it much more interesting to go to places that reflect the daily lives of those in a location rather than tourist attractions and restaurants of global acclaim.

Once we sat down, in the middle of the table sat this cool "witch hat" shaped hot pot. It uses actual fire underneath to boil the water, which makes this a less common method of doing hotpot in larger cities. Buboli explained that because of the open flame, you rarely find this traditional style in the more central parts of Beijing anymore.

Buboli was explaining the origin of all the food to me as every dish came out. Buboli is a botanist so he knows random facts about almost every vegetable, fruit, and dish that arrived at the table. I was reminded of my friend Poly in America who is also a botanist and does a similar thing when we go out to eat or discuss plants. This made Buboli such a fun person to travel with because he somehow knew so much about so many things, even beyond plants. I felt like I wasn’t just existing in a new place, I was really learning about it.

It was fascinating learning about what we were eating. For instance, I was told the mushrooms I really liked were apparently a recently cultivated breed. Buboli also explained to me that one of the dishes was called “Yellow Pea” and for a moment I had to figure out if he meant “Yellow Peas” or “Yellow Pee”. These are the kind of translations that are great for making jokes but at the moment I was still trying to gauge everyone’s english level so I let it slide.

The various vegetables were almost all new to me and tasted very good. I remember the salad being one of the best I’ve ever had and being a bit jealous of how good it was in comparison to the ones I’ve had in America. Something about the freshness of the greens along with the sweet dressing made it taste so satisfying. This would be a recurring theme in the trip as China has some amazing vegetables and fruits.

The dipping sauce was a unique sesame paste. Buboli explained the creation process of this but I don’t remember it at all. Sometimes all of these new things are just information overload. We tried different tofu types, including fried tofu and a specific kind made by skimming the dried skin off the top of the soy milk and rolling it up. I'm not sure what it's called exactly, but the texture was great!

Since Buboli’s birthday was recently, they ordered a "cake" to celebrate. This wasn't a normal cake though, it was a pulled meats "cake"! The meat was adhered to a plastic mold to keep the shape. It was very cute and I had not really seen anything like that before.

The restaurant was extremely loud, more loud than I’ve heard American restaurants be. It made the restaurant feel a bit familiar in a way that restaurants in Japan do not feel. Everyone is so quiet in Japan and this was my first time experiencing such a loud boisterous place in Asia. The table in the room next to us also had one of the members with his shirt pulled up to his chest exposing his rather large belly. I guess this is something men in China do sometimes, which I was not aware of and is definitely not common in America. After doing a little research I found that this is called the “Beijing Bikini”. I think in America people would either wear their shirt, or take it off completely. I didn’t see this phenomenon often, but I did see some youtube videos mentioning how it’s a common thing to see in China and Vietnam. Since I’m here in winter, I think that prevented me from seeing it more frequently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_bikiniRead more