If you're just more of a winter homebody than a summer spirit, it's likely that the noble art of hot pot is right up your alley. Being a rather large country, China has dozens of different regional hot pot styles, ranging from spicy Sichuan, double-tiered Beijing-style and coconut-flavored from tropical Hainan. We've even found a decent vegetarian hot pot. Here's a few tried and tested good 'uns from around the 'Hai.
1. Holy Cow
Chaoshan-style Beef Hotpot
Arguably one of the more healthy options on this list, Holy Cow boasts superior quality, never-frozen beef, and a pure beef bone soup base that you can drink by the bowlful. Meat aside, fresh vegetables are a highlight; think plentiful greens, mushrooms and root vegetables. The Xiaomuqiao Lu branch even has soup dumplings you can cook right in the broth.
Perks: never frozen beef, good choice of vegetables, drinkable beef broth.
Price: RMB100-200 per person
See listings for Holy Cow
2. Elixir Health Pot (鼎王无老锅)
Healthy, Taiwan-style
There's one thing you'll notice immediately about this place that sets it apart from others: the soup. More like a creamy tonkotsu ramen than the more commonplace angry red varietal, this super nutritious base is made from boiling animal bones for hours and is packed with anti-aging collagen, supposedly excellent for skin. As to whether that's true remains to be seen, but at least with this place you won't get shitty hot pot hangover the next day.
For those who can't give up the spice, Elixir lets you do side-by-side spicy and mild broths.
Perks: high quality meats and soup base, supposedly good for health.
Price: RMB200-250 per person
See listings for Elixir Health Pot
3. Ao House
Taiwan-style, Healthy, Late Night
A relative newcomer from Taiwan, Ao Hot Pot is similar to Elixir, but with arguably a better selection of vegetables. We particularly like the live pea shoots and mushrooms, which you can snip straight into the hot pot with scissors. The meat is also pretty good quality, as is the house fried rice and deep-fried mantou buns (accompanied by a sticky condensed milk dip for a decadent dessert.
Perks: good veggies, busy atmosphere, open until 4am.
Price: RMB150-200 per person
See a listing for Ao House
4. Yan Gege
Beijing-style Vegetarian Hotpot
Thought hot pot was just for the carnivores? Not so, friend. This place is operated by Hong Kong celebrity actor/animal rights activist Lü Songxian, and operates a strict no-meat policy. Being 'Beijing-style,' Yan Gege's hot pots are double tiered; the top layer is mushroom-flavored, and the bottom layer with a delicious tomato-based broth. Fill the bottom with veggies, tofu, tasty danjiao (蛋饺, egg dumplings), and maybe a plate of faux meat if that's your jam.
Perks: no meat at all, delicious tomato-based broth, excellent mushroom selection
Price: RMB100-200 per person
See listings for Yan Gege
5. Coconut Taste
Hainan-style Coconut Hotpot
Delicate, fragrant tropical flavors are the hallmark of awkwardly-named Coconut Taste, a Hainan-style joint on Huaihai Lu.
Down in Hainan, an island off the Southern coast of China, coconuts are pretty much the lifeblood of food culture. Coconut water goes into the hot pot broth, plump chickens are fed on coconut flesh, even rice is cooked inside hollowed out coconuts. You'll find all of those things at Coconut Taste, making it one of the milder-flavored hot pots on offer. Zhoosh it up with a zesty calamansi, soy sauce and garlic dip.
Perks: mild, non-spicy; good quality chicken, trendy atmosphere
Price: RMB200-250 per person
See a listing for Coconut Taste
6. Qimin Organic Hotpot
Organic, Upmarket, Taiwan-style
Designed to look like a bustling market inside, this Taiwanese export from Green&Safe focuses on impeccably-sourced organic ingredients, many of which come from their own farm. Add in meat, seafood and mushrooms to the broth, which comes in milder flavors like chicken or ginseng or richer varietals too. Every night at 8pm, they hold a 'lottery' that sees free dishes given out to participating customers.
Perks: high quality ingredients, smarter atmosphere
Price: RMB200-300 per person
See a listing for Qimin Organic Hotpot
7. Ru Chuan
Spicy Sichuan-style
So, you fancy yourself quite the spicy eater. Why not do an Eric Ripert and challenge your tastebuds to the mind-rearranging heat of Ru Chuan's hot pot broth? Here, a special kind of spicy butter is added as the pot heats up, melting into the broth and imbuing it with extra-rich heat. Mala (麻辣) is the predominant flavor thanks to the numbing, tingling sensation of Sichuan peppercorns (花椒, huajiao) and flamin' hot dried red chillies.
Ingredients range from the tame (sliced beef, tofu, mushrooms, pork belly), to the adventurous (bull frog, tripe). Duo spicy and non-spicy broths are available for the less masochistic diner.
Perks: perfect for spice lovers
Price: RMB100-150 per person
See a listing for Ru Chuan
8. Hai Di Lao
24-hour Hotpot, Home Delivery
Come on, you didn't think we could write a list of hotpots without including HDL, did you? For the uninitiated, this place sets the bar on hot pot. With its deliciously bad for you spicy red base, curls of frozen beef, noodle dancing waiters, free platters of watermelon and astonishingly accomodating service (so good the Harvard Business Review wrote about it), we might go ahead and say HDL's 15 branches are the happiest places in Shanghai.
Perks: open 24-hours, good value, good for drinking, excellent service (seriously, a toilet attendent once scrubbed an oil stain off my pants with a toothbrush)
Price: RMB80-120 per person
See listings for Hai Di Lao Hot Pot
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