People in Hong Kong love to hotpot. Even though traditionally, it is something that is supposedly eaten during cold weather, we continue to do so in summer time, even during 30 degree plus heat we just crank up the air con and go right on ahead.
Wanting to hot pot one evening, rather than going to our usual place on hillwood road, we decided to try Roast Pot up on the second floor of Carnavon plaza which is often frequented by Mr. C’s friends.
Thinking it would be very full since it was a Saturday evening, we called ahead to make a reservation, but surprisingly upon arrival there were only a few other tables occupied aside from ours.
Service was rapid, as soon as we were seated they had already brought over the condiments container as well as asking for our drinks order. We already knew what soup base we wanted so we ordered that first, before taking our time to tick the items we wanted off their brochure-like menu.
Our pot of collagen giant garoupa bone soup base soon arrived, steaming hot and full of ingredients such as chicken feet, red dates and links of garoupa spine. We were served the soup first, milky and slightly thick from the collagen it was tasty with a concentrated flavour. Really good~
We ordered sashimi, which nowadays a lot of hotpot places are offering, both salmon and scallops. The salmon was soft and luscious, sliced into thick slices with tiger stripes of fat running through it, while the scallops were naturally sweet with a delicate velvety texture.
And then to hotpot~
Top grade fatty beef. We ordered the small portion, but it was still very generous in size. Slices of tender beef with an even marbling of fat. The meat had a gorgeous beefy flavor and even when boiled to the degree of well-done it remained tender. Must order~
Coagulated pigs blood. Rusty red cubes of solidified blood mmm~ The ones here were quite good, a little chewy and left a slight sticky texture on the teeth.
Home-made ground squid paste. It arrived in a bowl with a small wooden paddle to scoop into the pot. Snow white with little chunks of still solid squid, we could taste its freshness, but it lacked a bounciness that we were both looking for.
Baby abalone and razor clams. Both were really fresh and nothing could really go wrong unless you overcooked it. Which unfortunately we did for the razor clams as they ended up too chewy, but that was our fault not theirs.
Vegetables (yau muk choi). Very green, crisp and fresh. Nothing can really go wrong with vegetables.
American oysters. Coming in a serving of at least seven oysters, they were nicely plump with quite a strong sea flavour. Only problem with adding oysters to the pot was that the essence of the oysters seeped into the soup and from then on after, the vegetables tasted like oysters.
Thinly sliced beef tongue. I loved this~ So tender with a slight sweetness to the tongue which is not often detectable. So so good and such a big serving too~
Lobster balls. Big chunky spheres of fresh ground lobster with a nice bounce to it. If you are a lobster lover, this is definitely for you.
We were so full afterwards! As usual I think we over ordered despite there only being two of us since we wanted to try so many things, but we managed, or Mr. C did, to eat most of it :p Aside from hotpot in the evenings they also do dim sum during the day so that may be worth trying, but I am sure we will be back for hotpot 🙂
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