6 of the best places to go for hotpot in Hong Kong and Macau
From J Pot and Quan Alley in Hong Kong to Lotus Palace and Ping in Macau, we found the coolest restaurants with the hottest deals in both places
Asians have been developing, reinventing and localising hotpot for centuries. In Japan, there is shabu-shabu, in Korea, hotpot is known as jjigae and in Thailand, jim jum, which usually has a sweet and savoury pork broth with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves as its base. In China alone, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of different versions ranging from the famous chilli-laden mala hotpot from Chongqing, to the heavy seafood style in Guangzhou.
What we do know is that the ingredients used in the hotpot usually reflect the culture and class of the diners. Historically, everyone – from the most impoverished villager to the emperor of China – would use hotpot as a medium of feasting, the former for sustenance, the latter for savouring delicacies. This is perhaps another reason hotpot is so popular: it crosses class boundaries and is accessible to all in one form or another. But given a choice, we would all be gorging ourselves on Kobe beef slices, lumps of fresh lobster meat and tender pieces of geoduck.
Macau