Hot pot — Sichuan, Chongqing, Beijing styles

The three main styles

• Sichuan / Chengdu style — mala broth, red oil floating on top, Sichuan peppercorn perfuming everything. Less heavy than Chongqing.
• Chongqing style — heavier, oilier, and substantially spicier. Often comes in a divided pot — clear broth on one side, mala on the other (yuanyang 鸳鸯锅).
• Beijing / Mongolian style — clear broth (sometimes with red dates and goji), thinly sliced lamb or beef, sesame-paste dipping sauce. Donglaishun is the institution.

There are also Cantonese hot pot (clear broth, lots of seafood), Yunnan mushroom hot pot (40+ wild mushroom types), and tom-yum-influenced southwestern variants.

How a meal works

1. **Order broth** — clear (qing tang), mala (la tang), or yuanyang for both. 2. **Order ingredients** — meat (lamb, beef, pork belly), seafood (prawns, fish balls, tofu skin), vegetables (lotus root, mushroom, bok choy, potato slices), starches (noodles, rice cakes). 3. **Mix your dipping sauce** — sesame paste plus chilli oil plus garlic plus scallion plus coriander. 4. **The pot heats up; you cook the food piece by piece in the boiling broth.** 5. **Eat with rice or just by itself.**

Dipping sauce

• Sesame paste (麻酱) — northern style. Mixed with chive flower, fermented tofu, oil.
• Garlic + sesame oil — Sichuan / Chongqing style.
• Vinegar + chilli + cilantro — light, southwestern.

Most hot pot restaurants have a self-serve sauce bar; mix to taste.

Etiquette

• Serve others as well as yourself.
• Don't cook for too long — the broth gets too rich.
• The host orders the meat; everyone shares.
• Tea (lemon iced tea is popular as a chaser) is a natural mid-meal palate cleanser.
• Eat the meat first; the noodles or rice cakes go in at the end when the broth is concentrated.