This is how Hot Pot is done!

So last night we visited the company Mark's company works with, and two of Mark's work associates took us out to dinner.  For hot pot.  And it was verrra niiiiice.  We had a private room with two hot plates built right into the table, and the food was delicious.

First of all, the dishes were beautiful.  So thin!  That's part of how you know it's classy.  I was so worried that Juliet would break one of them.

There were some little appetizers on the table when we got there.  The green (seaweed?) one was kind of spicy, but the peanuts were kind of salty and vinegary and very tasty.  The kids really liked them.

The first thing they brought out was this (below).  I'm not really sure what the white part was.  It was crunchy, not sweet, and had little tiny circles at the end.  It might have been some kind of root vegetable, but I can't be sure.  The berry sauce on it was really really good, though.  I wish I could have had more of that.  Over ice cream maybe.

Then they brought out the "pots," which were really big square metal pans with brothy stuff in them, and some leeks and tomato slices.  And then they started bringing out the food.

You can see that there's another rack like this one to the right.

Quail eggs, already hard-boiled and shelled.

Tasty tasty beef

I don't know what kind of veggie this is, but it was good, and I was glad there were vegetables.

Tofu strips.  I was surprised that the boys were so enthusiastic about them.

It may look like bacon, but it's beef.

My favorite mushroom.  They were best in the Japanese hot pot our friend Tamako made us, though.

Bamboo shoot.  Mmmmmmm.

So at this place they put the food in for you.

Eventually they added water chestnuts and brought some of the best fried rice I've ever had.

And then they brought dessert.  They called it ice cream (bing qi lin or bing ji ling), and it's pretty close, but a little different.  It was really good though.  There was peanut, mango, and strawberry.  The strawberry was my favorite, but the peanut was surprisingly tasty.  The mango was a little disappointing.  The flavor wasn't very intense.  The kids loved it, though, the kind-of ice cream.

We mostly had waiters, but here's one of the waitresses serving up the strawberry bing qi lin.

Tomorrow we head to Hong Kong for the day.  Expect dim sum and who knows what else in the near future!