A necessary attempt in eating at Beijing

Hot Pot Restaurant	Hot Pot Restaurant

The hot pot (huoguo) has a long history in China. It originated in the north, where people have to fend off the chill early in the year. It spread to the south during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906). Later, northern nomads who settled in China enhanced the pot with beef and mutton, and southerners did the same with seafood. In the Qing dynasty, the hot pot became popular throughout the whole area of China.
The pot is made of brass with a wide outer rim around a chimney in which the charcoal burns to heat the soup. When the soup is boiling, dinners dip thin slices of frozen raw meat in the soup where it gets quick boiled and then put them into a kind of sauce like sesame or soy sauce, chili oil, and vinegar. The meat can be beef, mutton, chicken, fish, prawn, lots of things but not pork if you are in an Islamic restaurant. Vegetables such as mushrooms, bean curds can be quick boiled as well. Of course, you can also try whatever you like.
At present, there are three styles of hot pot, Mogolian style, Sichuan style and Cantonese style. There are mainly two kinds of hotpot restaurant in Beijing: Mongolian and Sichuan style, the staple of both being mutton. The most famous Mongolian hot-pot restaurant is Donglaishun Hotpot Restaurant. Established in 1903, it becomes popular domestically and abroad for serving mutton hot pot with unique national feature and gradually develops into a Muslim dishes system with 4 big series of cooking, frying, quickly frying, and roasting, and over 200 kinds.