Lunch at The Hero Hot Pot

Basics
Location


Per Person
2 sauces, 2 mixed platters, 4 beers.
22 € each
Gratis: A Mandarin

In not so many words
Hopes?
Something authentic on, by chance, Chinese New Year.
Reality?
Everything feels entirely authentic. Heading, in fact, towards uncompromising.
First Impressions?
My, but it's steamy in here. And a bit stark, despite the New Year/Christmas decorations. It could be cleaner.
A USP?
Your table's got a huge, galvanised steel gas ring in a hole in the middle.
The food in three words?
All steamed up.
Can they get the staff?
Eye contact, scanning the room and checking the customers not on the agenda. They're not the heroes of this lunchtime.
Service with a smile?
Service. Nothing more, nothing less.
Would you take your friends?
Either agree clearly on the dietary/ethical needs in advance or take a big group.
Rating for a dating?
Not a place for a meal that might influence if there'll be another one for most proto-couples.
Tip?
No.
If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Better planning and more thinking on our part.
Going back?
.......yeeees. We can't say We don't need another hero. But should try an alternative and get a sense of where it sits in the bigger picture.

In not so few words


The hot pot. Brits should put aside visions of Lancastrian pub grub. It's a prosaic name for a dish which is perhaps better called an experience. It goes by other monikers elsewhere in the world. In parts of Malaysia for instance, it's rather more poetically known as the steamboat.

The point - a vast bowl of broth is delivered to your table, stuck on a gas burner of one kind or another and, like a giant multi-ingredient spicy fondue, you boil up your choice of gubbins in it with sauces on the side to add oomph.

So, did our steamboat, the SS Honestly, navigate safely to a harbour - fragrant or otherwise?

Truth be told, the journey was a bit choppy, but such is the way with a voyage of discovery. And yes, there was lettuce. And you know the danger that can pose at sea. Iceberg, ahoy!

Those sauces got full marks. A sesame oil one was powerful. The peanut next door was much milkier in texture than any satay, but worked well. The two cooking broths were equally successful. Tomato-chilli combined is recommended. Both have decent, uncompromising spice, but the tomato one's not overwhelming and more nervous palates may well find they can graduate to the chilli from time to time.

But in the end, it's the platters that matter. We fell down here and can only blame ourselves. We didn't think it through or ask the staff - not that we were instilled with much confidence to do so. That said, yes, caveat emptor. So, the meatballs were tasty, but these UFOs - unidentifiable floating objects - caused some disquiet. And I wondered how half a frozen octopus sneaked onto a meatball platter at all. Meats were largely OK, aside from some tripe which neither of us would have wasted our time with.

So, how much info do you need about your dishes? Are you comfortable taking pot luck (literally) with what's in there? If so, crack on to the para which starts with "Of course,". If not, do what we didn't. Be precise in choosing your meats or vegetables so everyone knows what's coming. My fault, and has nothing to do with the quality of what's on offer, which frozen and fresh, was good.

But our experience is low on the learning curve, and would have climbed more sharply with more interaction with, or some spark of interest from, the staff. Should they though? Is it up to us? Is there a right answer? Aside from a trite - if true - who's paying?

Of course, part of this experience is it must have a learning process - cooking  the stuff right (clue, if they float, the pre-frozen ones are getting there). And that's fine. That's jolly good. Hunting boiled quails eggs with a ladle in a babybath-sized bucket of thrashingly hot spicy tomato water is no bad way to spend Saturday lunchtime. It's just that, for some, too many uncertainties induce stress, which takes away from the experience.

It's good. It needs to be repeated. Partly because we didn't make the best of it, and partly because we didn't get much help doing so.

So if you need a hero. Take heed. Not from a white knight on steed. You've got to be sure, you've got to be fast and you've probably got to order things with real names rather than generically-titled platters.

Then you could be heroes. Just for one dinner.

新年快乐

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