Evelyne&Jeff’s Excellent China Adventure Series. Months spent traveling the back roads of China. Short videos with transcripts, captioned photos, articles and critical commentary. The REAL Chinese people you do not know!
Shenzhen
Note: I lived and worked in Shenzhen, 2016-2019. Amazing place!
Introduction
The hotpot restaurant below is in Shenzhen, but it could just as easily be in thousands of cities in Korea, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan Province, Thailand and due to its growing popularity, in all the other East/Southeast Asian countries.
The most hotpot crazy place in Asia is undoubtedly Taiwan Province, where it is practically the national dish. Taiwanese love the best pork in Asia, as meat and hotpot go together like a faithful marriage. It is such a passion that I wrote a whole article about it (https://radiosinoland.com/2024/12/27/adventures-in-asia-with-ladyb-and-gonggong-story-13-taiwanese-are-n-u-t-s-about-hotpot/).
Why is hotpot so popular?
First, hotpot is convivial. Doing it solo does not work. There needs to be at least two persons and the more the merrier.
Hotpot is very interactive and social. Everybody is putting a variety of ingredients into the boiling broth, from a common selection of meats, vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, etc. In Taiwan, it is popular for each diner to have their own bowl of boiling broth. There can be one big one, like below. Some have dividers, so that diners can taste different broths, from hot and spicy, to veggie, to meat, to cheese. The common pot can have three, four, up to nine different sections, each with a distinctive taste.
Of course, part of the fun is deciding on which broth or broths everyone wants to cook their ingredients in. As well, choosing which ingredients to order is also part of the social ritual, especially with larger groups, with plenty of discussion and diplomacy, since not everything on the menu can be ordered.
Traditionally, the hotpot is heated up with charcoal or firewood, but for practical reasons, more and more outlets are opting for electric or gas burners. When it is cold outside, hugging close to the heat source is nice and comfy and you can hold your hands above the rising steam.
Hotpot is not fast food. It takes time for the broth(s) to reach boiling temperature, then all the ingredients need to cook, batch by batch, as they have to slowly be added after each round, as they cook and get eaten. A good hotpot dinner can last an hour or two.
Every region and country has their own local particularities, so wherever you travel in Asia, there are always surprises. The Shenzhen hotpot below is Hunan Province style, which is different to Beijing, Dongbei (Northeast) or Guangdong (Cantonese), etc. Go to a Korean hotpot and it changes.
Not only is there the creative process of choosing the broth(s) and ingredients, but hotpot always has a condiment table, where you take a small bowl and can freely pick whichever dried spices, fresh herbs and sauces to mix and match. As you add this and that, you can create an infinite spectrum of flavors to dip your ingredients into, after taking them out of the hotpot. Don’t like what you concocted? No worries, grab another small bowl and try again.
Enjoy our hotpot with us, vicariously, until you have the chance to do the same!
Photos
#1: you can see the huge variety of ingredients we ordered, with meats, veggies, mushrooms, tofu, dumplings and noodles on offer.
#2: Evelyne is having a grand old time adding fresh cabbage and silver needle mushrooms to our meat broth. She cannot eat hot peppers, so we always have to make it point to not add any at all. Sometimes the goal is only half a success, because for Chinese, “no hot pepper” can still mean a little. We also have to insist they not use good old fashioned black pepper, since being deprived of adding red or Sichuan pepper, they will compensate by loading up with black pepper.
Since I love hot pepper, after the food is served, I ask for a small dish of the red stuff to satisfy my fix.
Wusu is a new beer brand that has become very popular in China. Interestingly, it is brewed in (Wusu City) Xinjiang, China’s most populous Muslim province. That’s a 620ml bottle and it only costs a euro.
#3: under our hotpot is a charcoal pit. The servers will come by to check on how the broth is boiling and will add more if needed. When finished, they will remove the hotpot and put a cover over the fire, to kill off the heat.
My chopsticks are pointing to my condiment bowl that I created. Evelyne’s is just poking up from the bottom of the photo. The other dish next to me is pickled vegetables and tofu, which Evelyne cannot eat, because it is spicy as hell. Eating hotpot is not an elegant affair and can get quite messy. It’s part of the fun!
The lady in the background is leaning over the condiment table, deciding what she wants to create. Grab a little bowl below the cart and go for it.
#4: think twice if you believe I can do this every time with broad noodles using chopsticks. There were a couple of more that fell to the floor!
#5: we got four kinds of meat: a mixture of chicken livers and gizzards, chicken on the bone and pork fillet. Be it Taiwanese or Mainland, the best pork in the world is in China. There is nothing like it elsewhere.
We marveled at how they kept the egg yolks intact. After letting them cook in the hotpot, they were really delicious.
#6: to compliment the meat, we chose fresh Chinese cabbage, dumplings, broad noodles and silver needle mushrooms.
#7: after cooking an ingredient, it is dipped in your condiment bowl, like the broad noodle above. The yellow balls are roasted soybeans.
#8: hotpot is very convivial. Here are three buddy-bonding with two bottles of maotai (https://radiosinoland.com/2025/11/29/evelynejeffs-excellent-china-adventures-6-all-about-chinese-liquor-with-some-great-anecdotal-booze-stories-told-five-photos-two-graphs-free-booktable-and-critical-commentary-show-the-real-ch/) and offering each other cigarettes.
The Chinese are very ill-disciplined about smoking anywhere and everywhere 24/7. Since I am allergic, Chinese smokers are my bête noire. As a result, I usually get a good sinusitis and/or bronchitis every time we travel here. They simply do not want to admit how much it bothers everyone else and refuse to go outside the said venue to smoke, in spite of the fact that there are NO SMOKING signs in all the restaurants and it is the law. Such is life.
#9: Chinese speaking foreigners in local restaurants attract attention everywhere we go. Thus, it is not uncommon for other diners to come to say hello, take pictures and propose a toast. This gentleman, Mr. Sun has become a friend over time, as we always say hello when we stay in the hotel, situated in the property his company manages. The hotpot restaurant is right next door.
His is holding a small shot glass for Maotai. My glass is bigger for beer.
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Jeff’s many articles about Taiwan Province
Evelyne&Jeff’s Excellent China Adventure Series. Months spent traveling the back roads of China. Short videos with transcripts, captioned photos, articles and critical commentary. The REAL Chinese people you do not know!
Frans Vandenbosch: Final reflections on an extraordinary voyage
https://yellowlion.org/asia-trip-2025-part-11/
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