1: This is the hot pot itself - a stock with cabbage, carrots, Daikon, and bean curd. All of the other "stuff" is dipped into the hot pot briefly and cooked.
2: Sliced beef. This was brought out before the hot pot so my first thought was, "This tartare looks a touch bland." Well, it wasn't tartare, and fortunately, my hosts saved me from food poisoning.
3: Salty pork fried with scallions. It's already cooked so doesn't need the hot pot treatment. There is no shortage of scallions in Asian cuisine - I love it.
4: Cow tongue with a ginger, red pepper, and scallion slaw. Very good.
5: From left to right: heart, liver, tripe, and pancreas. Tripe has an interesting texture. The heart is pretty dense meat. The pancreas was my favorite. However, I don't think that the hot pot is ideal for preparing sweetbreads. Blanched then grilled or fried is the ticket. (Reminiscing: Argentine mollejas and Malbec) Prior to the pancreas, I've only tried the thymus gland. In the future, I would like to compare them, ceteris paribus.
6: Fish paste. This is pulverized swordfish, ginger, and scallions. The raw paste looks like mayonnaise and has a similar viscosity. After being cooked, it has a rubbery texture (wikipedia says it's because of myosin polymerization). I liked the fish balls.
I really liked the hot pot experience - it's tasty and interactive. I'm going to carefully work the hot pot into my culinary repertoire. Carefully being operative.
After all, my coworker didn't get the same impression. He shook his head and bemoaned the time his girlfriend made him hot pot: "We sat around for a few hours boiling vegetables. It was awful." Haha, I hope things slanted more towards interactive for him.
Fact: sometimes wine pairs better with spankings than coq au vin.
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