Bashu Dajiang Hot Pot Chengdu: Excellent Cuts of Meat and Lots of Veggies
Since I love hotpot, I decided to go to Bashu Dajiang Hot Pot in Chengdu to try some (back in Chongqing, I also had hotpot at Zhoushixiong and at Testbed 2, Erchang Culture and Creative Park). There was a small counter and kitchen and I could see the staff all hard at work. There were Chinese paper lanterns hanging around the room and I couldn’t wait to start eating (You can also read about my dining experience for the first time at the Tao De Casserole in Chengdu.).
There were lots of wooden chairs and tables scattered around the room and a lot of customers were already seated. I knew at once that the food must be good. People were serving themselves at one of the counters. There were families with children as well as young adults in the restaurant.
The kitchen looked very mysterious even though it was open. The chefs were all working and there were baskets full of what looked like bones in front of the kitchen. I quickly found a table for myself.
I ordered two different kinds of soup for my hotpot. There was a spicy soup that was filled with chilies and garlic. It was a bright red color and looked very spicy indeed! The other soup was a colorless mushroom soup that had a lot of umami flavor. Bits and pieces of mushroom floated inside the soup.
There was also a large array of other items that I had ordered so that I could add them to my soup. My table quickly filled up with different kinds of food.
There were bamboo shoots that were kept in ice to keep them fresh. They looked very chewy and thick but I knew that they would become much more tender in the hot soup.
I also had sheets of bean curd. Some of them had been cut into thin strips and some of them were in thicker strips. All the food had been served in little cane baskets or plastic tubs.
There was also a dish of Chinese cabbage.
I had ordered another plate of greens and veggies to dip in the soup.
A large ball of shrimp was served on a piece of shell. The shrimp was raw and uncooked when it was brought to my table. I would need to cook it in the soup. I thought it would taste really good with the spicy soup.
The crab sticks were also served on a bed of ice. They were kept in a tub so that the ice would not melt. They had been separated into strips so that I could pick them up and cook them easily.
Other than all these dishes, I had also ordered some strips of Augus beef. The beef had been sliced very thinly and was a deep pink in color. I could see some fat on the side. I knew that it would be delicious.
Another wooden tray held more beef slices from different parts of the animal. It was really a lot of food!
Finally, there was a bowl of some Chinese vegetables. I wasn’t sure what the name of the vegetable was exactly but it had been sliced into long, thin strips.
