CLOSED! hotpot/taiwanese: ASIA-MILAN HOTPOT

ASIA-MILAN HOTPOT 東方米蘭精緻鍋物

No. 2, Xinsheng S. Rd, Sec. 3 大安區新生南路三段2號

(02) 2365-7777 ‎

CLOSED!

MRT: Taipower Building

website: Asia Milan's FB page

$$ (about NT$300/person)

hours: 11AM- 12midnight

kid friendliness: roomy atmosphere

visit reviewed: 4/6/2012

Sometimes you pass by a place so many times, crowded with diners and make a mental note to try it sometime. After the Cranberries concert in Taipei at NTU Sports Center (yes! the Cranberries from the 90s of Linger and Zombie!), we wanted to find somewhere in walking distance to eat that was open at 10pm and ended up at Asia-Milano, a two story hotpot restaurant on the corner of Xinsheng and Heping, near Daan Park. All of us had always passed by, but none of us had ever eaten there before.

Asia-Milan Hotpot offers up hotpot sets with various types of soup base, including spicy mala, sour cabbage, coconut curry and Chinese herbal soup. In the back, there's an array of sauces to mix up to your liking, thankfully all labeled in both English and Chinese. I ended up with just sesame sauce and some scallions.

With the set, each person gets a small appetizer, choice of starch (udon, vermicelli or rice), choice of meat (pork belly, lamb, sirloin or duck), vegetables, dessert, drink and choice of soup base (NT$288-388). There are also seafood sets available (NT$888), as well as ala carte add ons. I chose the Japanese shabu shabu broth, the lightest (and blandest) of the bunch and udon, which came in a frozen puck. Different people can choose different soup bases and share with the dual sided hotpot. The appetizer seemed like a dried out ham wrapped around something- skipped it.

The veggies are fresh and the pork slices were plentiful as well as came with a small bamboo spoonful of fishcake to self scoop in, so I could see how Asia Milano could be popular with Taida students or families. With so many hotpot options in town, I wouldn't venture out of my neighborhood to come here, but it might be a roomy late night option for those looking for a last minute dinner spot....

Unless you're a fan of this soap opera, which I found a screenshot posted on Asia Milan's Facebook page, which shot a scene at the restaurant. I don't watch Asian soap operas so I have no clue, but maybe some readers out there are fans?

hotpot/chinese: i strongly recommend WEI LU

WEI LU 圍爐酸菜白肉火鍋
No. 35, Alley 4, Lane 345, Ren Ai Road
台北市仁愛路四段345巷4弄36號
(02) 2752-9439

MRT: ZhongXiao/DunHua

hours: 11:30 AM - 2 PM; 5:30 PM - 9:30 PM

$$ (around NT$400-500/person)

Kid friendliness: family style hotpot

Visit reviewed: 1/16/2012

Hotpot seems like such an easy thing to make at home, why eat it at a restaurant? When the hotpot base is a lot more than plain water, like at Wei Lu where it's full of sour, shredded cabbage (or hsuan tsai) and pork even before you order, and there are special side dishes like sweet red bean pancake dessert and flaky sesame bun sandwiches.

Wei Lu's decor and food is more old school Chinese than the zen Japanese shabu shabu places that have been popping up. 

Order extra meat to swish around the hotpot.

The distinctive pot with a tall chimney in the center works like an upside down funnel for the smoke. There are different size pots and pricing for different size parties. For a 2-3 person hotpot NT$580, 4-6 people $980 and 7 or more people $1400- essentially paying for the pork and cabbage soup base and free refills.

Be sure to browse the sauces and condiments, which include chopped green onions, minced garlic, cilantro, chili sauce, vinegar, peanut sauce and even sugar. I always am unsure of what to do especially when things are not labeled, so I just followed what my friends did (or ask the waitstaff).

If you order their lunch set (which we did), it also comes with a sesame bun hand stuffed with a moo shu type pork and cabbage, which is like an oversized sao bing sandwich.

Wei Lu's hotpot is quite hearty and the sour cabbage has a distinctive flavor for anyone that likes vegetable stew.

The dessert set also comes with red bean sesame pancake and mochi.

Yum, save room for dessert.

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hotpot/taiwanese: i recommend TAI HO DIEN

TAI HO DIEN 太和殿麻辣火鍋
No. 315 Xinyi Road, Sec. 4 大安區信義路四段315號
(02) 2705-0909

MRT: SYS Memorial Hall

$$ (about $500-700/person)

hours: 12 PM - 3 AM

website: www.taihodien.com.tw Chinese only

visit reviewed: 3/3/2011

Tai Ho Dien is a spicy mala hotpot restaurant on Xinyi Road, which is kind of hard to spot with all the MRT construction going on. But it's roomy with two seating sections and easier to get a big table than the more popular mala joints in town. But it's just as good, and a proclaimed favorite of a few of my friends.

My friends can eat mala hotpot all year round, which is perfect for tagging along, and of course, when they discovered I'd never tried Tai Ho Dien, reservations were made.

What I love about mala hotpot places in Taipei is that they come with the dual sided hotpots, so that you can stick to the non-spicy side, or flirt with the tongue numbing heat as much as you feel comfortable. You pay for the soup base and then for the additional dishes- sliced meats, vegetables, tofu, intestines.. Just give me some red meat to swish around and some you tiao to dunk and eat and I'm pretty happy. I like to soak it for just a few seconds to soak up the spicy broth, but not long enough for it to get soggy.

The broths also get continually replenished, so the blood cubes, tofu, chinese cabbage are all-you-can-eat. For mala beginners, you can get xiao la or low spicy, which is already pretty fiery.

Be sure to try the fish and shrimp fishballs which are freshly made and scooped into the hotpot.

We had some sunshine over the weekend, but it's getting cold again - perfect weather for hot pot! There are also locations outside of Taipei in Taichung, Jhongli, Hsinchu, Zhubei and Kaohsiung. Do I have any readers there? Hungry in Hsinchu? Hahahaha.

hotpot/late night: i recommend SHIMIN DA DAO SHUA SHUA GUO

SHIMIN DA DAO SHUA SHUA GUO
or CIVIC BLVD HOTPOT
No. 50, Yanji St.
(02) 2577-8747

MRT: Zhongxiao/DunHua or SYS Memorial Hall

hours: 5PM- 5AM

$$-$$$

Kid friendliness: individual hotpots embedded in table;

Visit reviewed: 12/11/2010 (all photos with iphone4)




There's something to be said about a place that has a half hour wait at 11pm. Granted, we were a large group of 10 people, but it's impressive that this two-floor hotpot place seems to be a hotspot for those wanting a late night meal. Shimin Da Dao Shua Shua Guo is on the corner of Civic Blvd (or Shimin Da Dao) and Yanji Street, with an electric blue neon sign highlighting its entrance (and weirdly, the other hotpot place across the street is nearly empty).



Each person gets their own hotpot, a plate of veggies (with tofu, corn, mushrooms, fishcake and lots of cabbage) and a moment to look at the paper menu for meat options- the cheapest being choice pork at NT$280 to the most expensive-Kobe beef at NT$1880, or nearly US$60. There's also vegetarian and seafood options, like tilapia or scallop & prawns, as well as ala carte add on items (which is in Chinese only on the menu) like this make-your-own fish ball paste..



I decide on the prime pork (NT$320) which is tender enough, though I did enjoy the bite of my friend's boneless short rib. After ordering, the server will bring you the dipping soy sauce, which you can request to be spicy or not, as well as rice, vermicelli or noodles. My other friend ordered the snowy tender pork, and I didn't think it was considerably better than the prime pork even though it was more expensive.



It was my first time having midnight hotpot and hopefully not my last... it's great to have good friends to drag out my homebody self and the meal isn't too heavy that you'll regret it the next morning.



Complimentary sweet red bean soup to finish off the meal.



As we leave, the place is still full (with a few tables with kids!) and the taxis line up outside to offer up rides to take us home. It's pretty insane that they are open until 5AM, but I guess you'll know where to go the next time a late night craving for kobe beef hits you.


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hotpot/taiwanese: BINGE HOTPOT

BINGE HOTPOT
No. 98, GuangFu N. Road, 2Fl
(02) 2578-9696

website: bingepot.com

hours: M-Sat 11AM- 3AM; Sunday 11AM-12midnight

$$-$$$

Kid friendliness: one non-spicy broth offered; no high chairs spotted

Visit reviewed: 5/12/2010



Binge Hotpot isn't a get down and dirty all-you-can-eat hotpot place like the name suggests. Instead it's a dressed up version of mala spicy hotpot- with an art gallery-like space and stark white ceramic place settings.





There are a few other things that set Binge apart from other mala hotpot places I've been to- besides the spicy mala broth with duck's blood and tofu, they also have a Thai curry broth or a plain broth. You can adjust the spiciness of the broths to your preference.




The reason why my friend chose Binge was because she saw an assortment of yummy appetizers featured when she saw the news clip. But when we looked over the menu and asked the waitress, she replied that the hot, crispy fried things she saw featured like radish cakes, were actually not appetizers, but for cooking in the hotpot.



Despite our pleading, the waitress insisted that they couldn't prepare them as appetizers and we couldn't eat them as such since they weren't fully cooked. There were even handmade balls with shrimp and cheese inside (NT$240)... unusual and a strange combination with the mala and curry flavoring from being cooked in the broth.



As someone who likes the crispy and the soup separate- for example, I always request my shrimp tempura on the side of the my udon- who likes soggy shrimp tempura? This had sort of the same effect. Since it was our first time, we asked the waitress to order an assortment of stuff for us from the overwhelming menu, but mostly what came out was fried goodies that we couldn't eat until they were soggy.



So if I returned to Binge again, I'd stick to the basics- vegetable combo (NT$160), meat (NT$280-680) and you tiao or fried bread sticks (NT$60) which do stay crispy after being dipped in the hotpot if you don't bathe it too long. Or some of their other homemade dumplings or meatballs that aren't fried. There's also a large selection of seafood which might go better with the thai curry broth rather than the mala broth.




There's also also cantonese noodles or rice noodles if you need some starch. No packages of instant ramen here.



A complimentary sweet, Chinese soup dessert comes to the table, but I only have a few bites. The clear, crunchy jelly-like parts are called snow fungus and is supposed to be good for you.



One of the good things about Binge is it wasn't as crowded on a weekday lunch as the more well known Ding Wang Tripod King across the street, that we can spot outside our window seats. Binge is open late at night too, so you could come by for a late dinner and it's suitable for groups and a bit more spacious than other hotpot places I've been to.


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hotpot/taiwanese: i strongly recommend DING WANG MALA GUO

DING WANG MALA GUO
No. 251, Da An Road, Sec. 1
(02) 2704-4172

MRT: DaAn

hours: 12PM-2PM; 5PM-10PM

$-$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs spotted; non spicy hotpot and noodle soups available too

Visit reviewed: 11/30/2009 & 4/15/2010 & 5/2010



Recently, I found out that one of my friends who had moved here last year had never had spicy mala hotpot before. EVER! So I quickly rounded up some friends and we decided on this Ding Wang for her first time.



Not as frou frou or hard-to-get-reservations-for as that other Ding Wang (AKA Tripod King), but equally good, Ding Wang also offers noodles by the bowl in case you are dining alone or don't want to do a whole hotpot of mouth-numbing broth. The space is cozy and clean with maroon walls, dark wood tables and modern lighting, unlike some local places which can feel a little bit grimy.

Unfortunately all their menus are in Chinese only with no pictures, so you'll probably need a native reader to order.



The menu has all the basics, but definitely get the freshly made squid balls, which you scoop into the boiling broth to cook. The end result is fragrant and chewy, but not starchy like the premade kinds. We had to order two rounds of these- they always get devoured quickly.




I also love to dip the you tiao and instant ramen into the spicy mala broth to soak up the soup and eat it while it's still a little bit crunchy.




At an Indian restaurant, you might drink some mango lassi to cool off the tongue, but here it's coke and plum juice. I don't usually drink soda, but here, the bubbly sweet Coca-cola is a relief to the heat (temperature and spiciness wise)!



One of their specialties is their chicken feet- which I've yet to try. I just can't do it! It grosses me out. But my friends order it every single time, and gnaw on the little bones of the claw and wrinkly skin with contented smiles. So if you're a chicken feet lover, you should give it a try.



Those familiar with shabu-shabu might be looking around for sesame sauce or other sauces, but Ding Wang keeps it straightforward with only these two sauces- vinegar and sesame oil. Pour into your bowl and toss in a spoonful of green onion.



For the times I went, we ordered a bit of everything and it ended up being about NT$500-600 a person for lunch.



If you are a party of one and can't do a whole mala hot pot assortment, Ding Wang offers quick and cheap mala noodle soups by the bowl!



You can indicate how spicy you'd like it and a large or small bowl of mala noodle soup (NT$110) full of gelatinous duck's blood.




If you can't handle the spicy, they also have tasty beef noodle soup (NT$150) although the broth was more salty on my recent visit a few weeks ago than I recalled past visits being. I like it with ban zhou ban jing, or half beef, half tendons. I was thirsty all afternoon.



Don't forget to choose a few side dishes, like the tofu skin or cucumber.



You can walk in on a weekday for lunch, but if you have a big group, you should definitely call ahead for reservations.