LongQing Hotpot

Hadn't had hotpot for a long while. Dinner was unanimously decided to be at LongQing Hotpot (隆庆火锅) on Hong Kong Street. It has been open for three years and while the friends have been going there often, this was the first visit for me. We rarely hit up hotpot places since we don't often get a table of four for that, and not many of us are often in the mood for hotpot. Also, I really really dislike chicken in the soup base, which is why I always prefer pork or vegetarian, but not that many people welcome these soup bases either.

I love LongQing's decor and tables! It's old-school small-town 'glam'! Teehehehee. I could almost imagine I was in Kunming or somewhere fancy in Zhongdian having hotpot. Ahhhhh. It's probably a stretch but hey, since we can't travel, we're allowed to use our imagination a whole lot more. The menu was extensive. We also bought a bottle of hae bee hiam since there're two hae bee hiam monsters at this table. It came in a big bottle and D brought home the half left. This restaurant does fry up a great spicy shrimp paste.

We were lazy and took their set for four persons. $200 for a duo of soups and a truckload of raw food including a whole grouper and squid. AND THERE WAS SPAM. Sold. We were a tad skeptical of the seafood, but they were superbly fresh and tender after being boiled. Tasty! There were also pork dumplings (餃子) of which the kitchen already cooked it for us. Additional portions of beef and pig's stomach were ordered. The friends said the Angus beef shabu cut here was of a good quality. Indeed it was. We also had quail eggs and extra vegetables. 

F introduced a new-to-us vegetable tonight- wo1 sun3 (莴笋 or 窩筍), or the Chinese celtuce. Some call it the Chinese asparagus or stem lettuce. Only the stems are eaten. If you get fresh leaves, those could be stir-fried into 油麥菜. After I took a bite, I remembered where I had this and forgotten about — when I was in Yunnan. It's delicious! F buys it regularly from Tiong Bahru Market. I shall go there and buy a batch soon. 

I quite like that tomato soup base, but didn't dare to drink much of it- because they use chicken bones. The soup base of pig stomach and old cucumber wasn't great to begin with, and got slightly better at the end, of course, after all the additional meats, fish and vegetables went in. But it really wasn't as good as I had hoped for. It's super hard to find a good pig stomach soup base in Singapore. (Imperial Treasure Steamboat does it okay and peppery. But I’m not fond of its prices.) The last version I really loved was found in Shanghai at 捞王火锅料理. 

We merrily thought we had no carbs, so there would be less guilt. Then we saw our bottles of Qingdao beer. HAHAHAHA. Okay lah, a bottle each. Not too bad. As if the savory items weren't enough, another savory item was ordered for dessert- yup, a savory pumpkin cake. It was pretty much deep-fried in batter. To me, it ended tasting like... fried nian gao with egg (炸年糕, fried glutinous rice cake). Erm, I'm not hot about it. But wow! What a delicious dinner! I might have just found my favorite hotpot restaurant in Singapore!