I can’t say that I am finding London life that exciting except possibly for today when the weather was lovely and lunch at Keu, the new banh mi place next to me, sitting at the window counter was even lovelier. Other days, when the weather is dull and I am trying to work, I cheer myself up by looking at my pictures of China, wondering when I will go back to eat jian bing again and my latest discovery, a Mongolian hotpot.

I had never been to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant before. The principle is very simple. You have a bubbling pot of broth in front of you (a rather beautiful one as you can see from the picture above) with a fire heating a chimney in the middle which keeps the broth boiling. Then the waitress brings a selection of meats (different cuts of pork, veal, chicken or lamb), vegetables (sweet potatoes, cabbage, greens, etc.) and noodles (different types) which you cook by dropping into the broth (the noodles always at the end) and letting them cook until done to your liking at which point you fish them out with your chopsticks to eat, taking care not to burn your tongue.

We chose lamb, and Steven, our wonderful guide, explained to the waitress which cuts we wanted. Well, we let him decide and he chose beautifully, two different cuts of lamb. I think the cut in the picture above was from the shoulder, which was sliced thicker than  the cut in the picture below which I am not sure quite sure which part of the animal it came from. Both were incredibly good and we polished off both plates.

I was in China with Jenny, my gorgeous friend and publisher and we had an enormous amount of fun cooking our own food in a restaurant and watching the waitress bring over a huge kettle to top up our, and other people’s broth whenever the levels dipped.

I kept my meat on my chopsticks as I dipped it into the broth because I hate overcooked meat and I didn’t want it to be more than just saisi. It worked really well, with the bits between the chopsticks remaining raw. The noodles were a little tricky to fish out but our lovely Steven came to the rescue and fished them out without any problem. An absolute must if you happen to be in Beijing!

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I can’t say that I am finding London life that exciting except possibly for today when the weather was lovely and lunch at Keu, the new banh mi place next to me, sitting at the window counter was even lovelier. Other days, when the weather is dull and I am trying to work, I cheer myself up by looking at my pictures of China, wondering when I will go back to eat jian bing again and my latest discovery, a Mongolian hotpot.

I had never been to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant before. The principle is very simple. You have a bubbling pot of broth in front of you (a rather beautiful one as you can see from the picture above) with a fire heating a chimney in the middle which keeps the broth boiling. Then the waitress brings a selection of meats (different cuts of pork, veal, chicken or lamb), vegetables (sweet potatoes, cabbage, greens, etc.) and noodles (different types) which you cook by dropping into the broth (the noodles always at the end) and letting them cook until done to your liking at which point you fish them out with your chopsticks to eat, taking care not to burn your tongue.

We chose lamb, and Steven, our wonderful guide, explained to the waitress which cuts we wanted. Well, we let him decide and he chose beautifully, two different cuts of lamb. I think the cut in the picture above was from the shoulder, which was sliced thicker than  the cut in the picture below which I am not sure quite sure which part of the animal it came from. Both were incredibly good and we polished off both plates.

I was in China with Jenny, my gorgeous friend and publisher and we had an enormous amount of fun cooking our own food in a restaurant and watching the waitress bring over a huge kettle to top up our, and other people’s broth whenever the levels dipped.

I kept my meat on my chopsticks as I dipped it into the broth because I hate overcooked meat and I didn’t want it to be more than just saisi. It worked really well, with the bits between the chopsticks remaining raw. The noodles were a little tricky to fish out but our lovely Steven came to the rescue and fished them out without any problem. An absolute must if you happen to be in Beijing!

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