Chongqing Hotpot
Chinese comfort food to blast away winter blues
- Arroios (Linha Verde)
- €€
- R. António Pereira Carrilho 18a, 1000-047
January sucked. We both caught cold/flu/covid soup or whatever has been laying out almost all of Lisbon and it took the best part of a month to shake it off. Taylor would not have approved.
Feeling better, there was only one desire: get out of the flat and eat something to make us feel alive. If you've arrived at this blog via Kuwazi and Da Wanmian, you already know that Chinese cuisine is the middle of our Venn diagram of comfort food and flavours. Despite having lived next to Chongqing Hotpot for 15 months, we hadn't been before, but Sichaun broth felt like it met the brief.
Entering into the restaurant we were met by the waitress, the delightful Carolina, who it turns out can charm customers in Portuguese, English, Mandarin, and possibly many, many more. Taking the restaurant name as a clear guide, we got the split broth hotpot for 2 at €16 per person. With one half traditional vegetable and the other half Sichaun tomato, we opted for the mid-range three of Carolina's five level spice guide.
Including a bonus starter of 10 fried dumplings, the mountains of food stretched between the meats (lamb, pork, beef), tofus, mushrooms, pak choi, radishes, seaweed, fishes and three types of noodles. All in all, a huge feast which we just about managed to see away half, with a couple of cold Tsingtao to take the edge off the level three spice. Carolina has challenged us to reach level four when we go back. Really we fear that level five even exists.
We loved it here, it was everything you want from Sichaun cuisine. Spicy but not killer, filling but not fatty and indulgently warm and addictive. We'll be back here many, many, many more times - there's an entire menu for us to try.
Don’t forget to order: Hotpot. One of us preferred the traditional broth, the other the spicy - go half and half to save your relationship, €16 pp.
