Hot pot is kind of like fondue in dining style, with a pot in the middle of the table and a bunch of meat and vegetables. You cook the food yourself and its best to eat it with a group of friends or people you’re close to, since you’ll be sharing everything. Chef Liu is from Chengdu, and according to A Fiery Feast: Sichuan Hot Pot, hot pot is a Sichuan institution. It’s especially an important cooking technique in Chengdu, because the weather is frequently damp, so the hot pot helps natives withstand the bad weather. The experience in Chengdu is much less sophisticated than in Mala Tang, where it’s eaten as a street food and also in large and chaotic dining halls. Also, the food is extremely spicy, while the spiciness at Mala Tang is toned down.

What makes Sichuan (or Szechuan/Szechwan) cuisine different from other regions of China is that it is famed for bold flavors, spiciness, strong tastes and the usage of garlic, chili pepper, peanuts, sesame paste, and ginger. The four best known regional sub-styles are Chongqing style, Chengdu style, Zigong style, and Buddhist vegetarian style. Mala Tang follows Chengdu style.

We ordered dumplings and spicy cold noodles for our appetizer. The spicy cold noodles are apparently another famous and ever present piece of Sichuan culinary tradition (a recipe is featured here). We thought they were really delicious, although we recommend stirring them since we didn’t realize there was a lot of sauce on the bottom of the bowl. The dumplings were also delicious. Unlike typical Chinese restaurant dumplings, these were thinner and more crescent shaped with a thinner wrapper. They were also served with lots of chili oil, scallions, and spices.

Our waitress was incredibly helpful and advised us that we should have on mala style hot pot and one mild kind, so we could try both. She lit our hot pots and we picked sirloin and tofu for our meat options and broccoli, potato, bean sprouts, and enoki mushrooms for our vegetables. She brought us bowls of soy sauce along with several other condiments we could add to our soy sauce, like chili paste and a barbecue sauce. The meat and vegetable platters were huge – there was no way we could come close to eating all that we were served.

A Fiery Feast: Sichuan Hot Pot has this to add about hot pot style:

Whatever can be boiled, can be thrown into the pot to augment the basic chili pepper oil foundation. Standard ingredients include: all parts of the pig, chicken and cow; various freshwater creatures, such as river eels, snails, frogs and fish; any and all vegetables, including but not limited to potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, lotus root, bamboo, leeks and onions and a variety of gourds and tubers for which there are no English translation.

Hot pot is the pinnacle of all culinary experiences for Sichuanese. Hot pot is a social event, a bonding experience and a rite of passage. Courage is measured in a man’s ability to eat hot pot repeatedly and vigorously, while drinking as many beers as possible. Acceptance into the heart of a Sichuanese woman requires several demonstrations of hot pot eating prowess. Business deals and marriage proposals alike can be sanctified before the hot pot altar.

We really had fun with the hot pot style. Our waitress brought us bowls and served us broth from the hot pots themselves. After cooking meat and vegetables in the hot pot, the broth becomes a soup. The meat curled up as we cooked it, which we read is because they slice it frozen so it curls up while cooking. Every so often the waitress would add more water to the pot. The tofu was a little difficult to pick up because it became slippery. We had a lot of leftover food we couldn’t cook and eat, and our waitress was kind enough to put all of it into our hot pots, cook it for us, and then package it all as a soup we could take some. She was so nice!

For dessert we had the sesame balls and the pumpkin pie. Sesame balls, or Jin deui, are round balls coated with sesame that are chewy and filled with a sweet paste. Wikipedia states that they are very common and very old. The pumpkin pie was a round disc and served warm. It wasn’t sweet at all, but was still kind of nice to eat. It’s rare that Chinese restaurants have traditional desserts. This dessert is also traditional, but we couldn’t find a lot about it.

Tropicana Eatery conveniently has its own parking lot wifi, and decent hours (11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. most days), with great lunch deals. The restaurant resembles a typical fast food restaurant and has an large menu. Jamaican cuisine is distinct and evolved through influences of many other cultures to Jamaica. The original inhabitants were the Arawak and Carib Indian tribes. Jamaican Food states that the Caribs “are known to spice raw meat and seafood using chili peppers, a staple in Jamaican cooking. Arawaks, on the other hand, devised a slow-cooking method of meat by placing it on a makeshift wooden grill over open fire. Food historians believe that this method is what pioneered barbecuing.” Foreign immigration from Spain, Britain, African, India, and China influenced Jamaican cuisine. In fact, breadfruit, a staple of Jamaican cuisine, was introduced to the island by settlers. Of the influences in traditional Jamaican dishes, African settlers are thought to have introduced the use of okra, callaloo (a leafy green vegetable similar to spinach that plays an important role in Jamaican cuisine), and ackee. Chinese and Indian settlers brought different cooking methods to Jamaica and are thought to have introduced the use of rice. The Indian immigrants pioneered curry goat, a very traditional Jamaican dish, but has been modified from a typical Indo curry; for example, curry goat’s main pepper is the Caribbean scotch bonnet, a cousin to the habanero, but with a different flavor. The Cantonese and Hakka immigrants from China are are thought to have led to the Jamaican patty, a yellow meat-filled pastry similar to an empanada and eaten as a full meal. These have become so popular that we see them as a regular item at 7-Eleven, available in both hot and mild. The Spanish are responsible for escovitched fish. Additionally, since Jamaica is an island, seafood is also popular. We ordered Jamaican jerk chicken, ackee and saltfish, fried dough, coco bread, ginger beer, and fried plantains.

The jerk chicken was really well seasoned and came atop rice. The rice was not plain white rice, but was seasoned and contained beans. According to Jamaicansfood.com:

The term jerk is said to come from the word charqui, a Spanish term for jerked or dried meat, which eventually became jerky in English.

Another origin is linked to the jerking or poking of the meat with a sharp object, producing holes which were then filled with the spice mixture. The origins of jerk pork can be traced back to the pre-slavery days of the Cormantee hunters of West Africa through the Maroons, who were Jamaican slaves that escaped from the British during the invasion of 1655.

However, we also found some contradictory information on the history of jerk chicken. Wikipedia states that:

Christopher Columbus visited Jamaica multiple times towards the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, once even shipwrecked off the north coast for two years (1503–1504). During these visits he described a way the Arawaks (the indigenous inhabitants of Jamaica) preserved meat by adding peppers, allspice and sea salt to make what is now known as Jamaican jerk spice.

We were very excited about trying ackee and saltfish, which is considered Jamaica’s national dish. Ackee is a fruit native to West Africa and thought to have been brought to Jamaica as early as 1778, probably on a slave ship ("Ackee"). The plant spread throughout the Caribbean, but is consumed only in Jamaican cooking. The entire plant is important to Jamaican life. The oil is important to the diet, the seed is thought to have medicinal properties. The fruit also has a dark side. Apparently it has to be prepared carefully and when ripe, otherwise it can cause serious damage and a disease known as Jamaican Vomiting Sickness. The saltfish component of the national dish is cod, which has been an important part of the Jamaican diet since the 1700s when people from Newfoundland brought dried cod (or saltfish) to trade. We found the ackee and saltfish to be delicious. The ackee is yellow in color and has a mild and almost negligible flavor. The texture and appearance is like a scrambled egg. The saltfish, on the other had, gives the dish a delicious flavor and texture. We recommend ordering it with dumplings instead of rice, because we think it tastes better and is more interesting than the seasoned rice. The dumplings are large, dense, boiled, bland, and go well with the dish. The saltfish is not a large piece of fish, but are small boneless pieces mixed in with the ackee like a curry.

We also ordered coco bread, plantains, and fried dough, and ginger beer.  The coco bread was like a hamburger bun and slightly sweet. According to Wikipedia, coco bread does not actually contain coconut. The plantains, which are an important part of the Jamaican diet, were very ripe and similar to other friend plantains. Finally, the fried dough was a round ball that was very dense and similar in texture to a hush puppy, except not made with cornmeal and it was not sweet. The ginger beer, which was Jamaican, was delicious and very spicy. We thought that ginger beer was from Jamaica, but Wikipedia states that ginger beer was developed in Britain during the 1700s, so it must have come to Jamaica from British settlers. Jamaicandrinks.com tells the story of ginger in Jamaica:

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) is thought to have been introduced into Jamaica about 1525. By 1547 though, it is reported that the export of ginger amounted to over 22,000 quintals (1.2 million Kg).

Prior to 1740, the ginger was associated with the Parish of St Ann, where it had first been planted by the Spanish. After that the Christiana region took over when it was recognised that the soil and climatic conditions were especially suitable for the growing of ginger. In 1980, a survey by the International Trade Centre reported that 1,100 acres of ginger were planted in Jamaica in the central range areas of Clarendon, Manchester and Trelawny.

Between the 1930′s and 1960′s, Jamaica was listed as one of the three largest producers of ginger in the world, along with India and Sierra Leone. A 10-mile radius around Christiana was identified as the region which grew the finest ginger in the world. Since then the production has fallen significantly, from close to 2 million kilogram of ginger in 1953 to around 0.4 million kilos in 1995.

Note: Bring your own bags, as they may charge you for a plastic bag if you carry out.

We didn’t get to try any of the other traditional dishes, including fricasseed chicken, callaloo, oxtail, snapper, or any of their desserts. We found the food to be extremely filling and rich.

TOTAL: $15.60 including tax for a small ackee and saltfish, 1 fried dumpling, 1 order of plantains, and 1 ginger beer

The Russia House is a strange restaurant suffering from an undiagnosed multiple personality disorder, somehow caught between a European (eurotrash?) club, expensive high-end restaurant, mixology bar, and an overcrowded house party taking place in someone’s grandfather’s row house. The owners of the restaurant were (on the phone) very responsive and accommodating, but the restaurant itself on arrival was strange and disorganized. Upon entry, there was no host in sight (just a clueless bouncer) and we had to figure out how to get to where we were being seated (the piano lounge), which was upstairs. The restaurant is tall and multi-leveled, situated in a row house downtown. However, it was unclear how the different sections (or levels) of the restaurant operated. It seemed akin to a nightclub with tons of people packed in all different levels free to mill around. We were seated upstairs at a large table with leather backed chairs near the front of the restaurant. Our reservation was for 8 p.m., but by then the music was so loud that it was difficult to even talk to the person sitting directly across without yelling. The music was of the European variety, loud, and repetitive. The actual restaurant was very dark, as well, especially since the wallpaper, carpet, floors, are dark wood, wine colored, and heavily draped. We were a little thrown off by this loud and chaotic atmosphere because the website stated that:

The Russian-European elegance of the Russia House offers a uniquely warm and comfortable meeting place for anyone appreciative of its friendly and intimate coziness.

Moving on to Russian cuisine, according to Way to Russia:

Russia is mainly a northern country with long-lasting cold winter. The food should give us much energy and warmth to survive during the winter time. So, the essential components of Russian cuisine are the ones, which provide more carbohydrates and fat rather than proteins. Fresh fruits and vegetables are rarely used in food. So, the top five components of a Russian meal are potatoes, bread, eggs, meat (especially beef) and butter. Other popular foods include cabbage, milk, sour cream, curds, mushrooms, lard, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, berries, honey, sugar, salt, garlic, and onions.

Appetizers, as in any cuisine culture, and Russia is not an exception, serve as small snacks before main course. Russian appetizers (in Russian, they are called “zakuski”) were meant mainly not to provoke keen appetite but to have them with strong drinks. So, most favorite Russian appetizers were all kinds of pickles and cold meats which go best with ice cold vodka. But not only vegetable pickles were used in Russian cuisine, the abundance of sea and river food provided cooks with a wide range of various fish appetizers.

The Russia House’s streamlined menu features small plates, which are small samples of Russia’s traditional dishes, and full size portions located under the large plates section of the menu. We ended up ordering borsch, pelmini, pierogis, wild game sausage sampler, pickled herring croquette, roasted garlic beet dip, and pan seared duck breast (large plate). Wikipedia notes that soups are extremely important in Russian cuisine. In addition to the the most well-known and featured soup on the menu, borsch, Russian cuisine also features several other traditional staple of soups such as shchi, ukha, rassolnik, solyanka, botvinya, okroshka, and tyurya.

Russian soups can be divided into at least seven large groups:

• Cold soups based on kvass (a fermented beverage made from black rye or rye bread) or sour milk (a.k.a. buttermilk), such as tyurya, okroshka, and botvinya.
• Light soups and stews based on water and vegetables.
• Noodle soups with meat, mushrooms, and milk.
• Soups based on cabbage, most prominently shchi.
• Thick soups based on meat broth, with a salty-sour base like rassolnik and solyanka.
• Fish soups such as ukha.
• Grain- and vegetable-based soups.

Wikipedia has some interesting facts about cold soups, the history, and their relationship to hot soups:

Tyurya is very similar to okroshka, the main difference being that instead of vegetables, bread is used. It is rather historical meal, that was consumed during rough times (WWII, WWI, Revolution) and by poor peasants. Also, due to its simplicity, it was very common as a meal during religious fasting. Comparing to other cold soups it is based on water and rarely on milk.

Botvinya is one of the most typical cold Russian soups. It almost became extinct because it is difficult to make. Some modern cookbooks list recipes showing how to prepare it “easily” by substituting some of the ingredients, but cutting corners tends to diminish much of the authentic taste.

A full botvinya consists of three parts:

1. The soup.
2. Boiled “red” (most prized) fish (salmon, sturgeon, or stellate sturgeon), that is served separately from soup.
3. Crushed ice, served on a separate platter or cup.

The name of the soup comes from the Russian word botva, which means “leafy tops of root vegetables“, and the ingredients are in line with the name: leafy tops of young beet, beetroots, oxalate sorrel, green onions, dill, cucumbers, and two types of kvass, then some mustard, lemon juice, and horseradish as spices.

It is eaten as the first course or right after a hot soup, before the second course as an appetizer. It is eaten using two spoons and a fork: the fork is used to eat the fish, the first spoon to sip the soup and the second spoon to put ice into the soup, so it stays cold for a long time. Botvin’ya is eaten with fresh rye bread.

We had a woman from Russia along with us, and she informed us that the borsch served at The Russia House tasted as she would expect it to and that there is a lot of variation in the preparation of borsch in Russia and Eastern Europe. Wikipedia notes that borsch is Ukrainian in origin, and owes its popularity in the U.S. due to Jewish immigrant populations. Borsch usually includes a stock made from beets, although there are some kinds of borscht that do not use beets (instead sorrell or tomato). Borsch is commonly served with sour cream and white bread and in other regions (like Lithuania) can be served hot or cold. In Poland “borscht” (barszcz) may include bacon or dumplings. Unlike borsch, which Westerners most likely identify as the most popular Russian soup, in fact, shchi (cabbage soup) had been the main first course in Russian cuisine for over a thousand years.

We were not able to try kholodets (not on the menu), which are traditional “jellied chopped pieces of pork or veal meat with some spices” or shashlyk (featured on the large plates menu), which is a form of Shish kebab (marinated meat grilled on a skewer). We did try one of the most traditional Russian dishes: pelmini. Ruscusine.com has some interesting facts and a recipe:

Most people associate pelmeni with Siberia, and many recipes and references to the dish call it “Siberian dumplings.” Pelmeni probably did originate in Siberia, where hundreds or even thousands could be made, and then frozen and stored outside during the long winters. However, the dumplings became very popular all over Russia. They are closely kin to “pot stickers,” “pierogies,” and other similar dumplings found in many cultures.

The Russian variety traditionally is made of flour, milk, one egg, and salt. The dough is rolled out fairly thin, and cut in circles approximately two inches in diameter. The filling is usually a mixture of minced pork, onions, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Wikipedia notes that one theory about the history of pelmini is that they were brought to Russia by the Mongols from China. Pelmini literally “ear bread” in the native Finno-Ugric Komi and Mansi languages. The ones we tried more resembled and tasted like tortellini than the pelmini we saw in photos online.  Pelmini often are put in soups. Wikipedia also describes the difference between the pelmini and the pierogi:

The most important difference between pelmeni and vareniki and pierogi, is the thickness of the dough shell — in pelmeni this is as thin as possible, and the proportion of filling to dough is usually higher. Also, the feature of pelmeni is that they do not have a sweet filling, thus differing from Ukrainian vareniki and Polish pierogi, which do sometimes have sweet filling. Another distinctive feature is that the filling of pelmeni is usually raw or uncooked, while the filling of vareniki and pirogie is pre-cooked.

We also read that store-bought and machine prepared pelmini resembles tortellini, which may account for why the pelmini at The Russia House resembles tortellini rather than the pelmini we saw online. Although, these are a lot larger than traditional tortellini and the ones we ate were standard size.

We also thought the pierogi we were served were interesting, since they came in a puff pastry shell rather than the pasta-like shell of the Polish pierogi. We couldn’t find much information on the Russian pierogi, so we think that although they were listed on the menu as pierogi, they really meant this food item:

Pirozhki (singular: pirozhok; diminutive of “pirog” (pie)) are small stuffed buns (pies) made of either yeast dough or short pastry. They are filled with one of many different fillings and are either baked (the ancient Slavic method) or shallow-fried (known as “priazhenie”, this method was borrowed from the Tatars in the 16th century). One feature of pirozhki that sets them apart from, for example, English pies is that the fillings used are almost invariably fully cooked. The use of chopped hard-boiled eggs in fillings is another interesting feature. Six typical fillings for traditional pirozhki are:

1. Fish sautéed with onions and mixed with hard-boiled chopped eggs.
2. Chopped boiled meat mixed with sautéed onions and eggs.
3. Rice and boiled eggs with dill
4. Mashed potatoes mixed with dill and green onion.
5. Sautéed cabbage.

Online they appear to be more bunlike, but the ones we were served were in flaky pastry crust. In addition to these, the blini is also traditional (which we did not try as it was only available with caviar):

Blini are thin pancakes (very similar to French crêpes) which are often served in connection with a religious rite or festival in several cultures. The word “blin” (singular of blini) comes from Old Slavic “mlin”, which means “to mill”. Blins had a somewhat ritual significance for early Slavic peoples in pre-Christian times since they were a symbol of the sun, due to their round form. They were traditionally prepared at the end of the winter to honor the rebirth of the new sun during Maslenitsa (Масленица, Butter Week; also known as Pancake Week). This tradition was adopted by the Orthodox Church and is carried on to the present day, as the last week of dairy and egg products before Lent. Bliny are still often served at wakes, to commemorate the recently deceased. Blini can be made from wheat, buckwheat, or other grains, although wheat blini are most popular in Russia. They may be topped with butter, smetana (sour cream), fruit preserves or caviar.

Other traditional dishes include kotlety (a type of meatball similar to Salisbury steak), syrniki (fried curd fritters, garnished with sour cream, jam, honey, and/or apple sauce), and vatrushka (a kind of cake with a ring of dough and tvorog [cottage cheese] in the middle, often with raisins or bits of fruit, from about five inches to two and a half feet in diameter).

Fish is especially popular in Russia because Orthodox fast days prohibit the consumption of meat. Herring is also popular in Russia, especially pickled, salted, and smoked. Ruscuisine.com notes that “Russian brined herring is cured without any sugar or wine vinegar. The best herring is the one brined whole, with the head on and its innards intact. Cleaning it is actually easier than it looks. Unfiltered sunflower oil is available at Russian supermarkets. It should be dark yellow and slightly cloudy.” Our Pickled Herring Croquettes were large balls of pickled herring covered in fried breading. They still tasted strongly of pickled herring.

The Russia House also boasts a selection of caviar, including beluga, osetra, sevruga, and American sturgeon. We couldn’t afford any of this caviar, however, we did learn that Russians typically consume caviar on special occasions, despite its price. Although only fish eggs from sturgeon can be considered true “caviar,” Russians also eat black and red salmon roe. The Russia House serves all caviar with “blini, chopped Eff, minced red onion and Crème Fraiche.” We also read it is traditional to eat caviar with toast and butter.

Wikipedia has some interseting information about teh types of caviar:

This elegant and expensive appetizer is simply sieved and lightly salted fish roe (eggs). Sturgeon roe is premium and considered the “true” caviar. The four main types of caviar are beluga, sterlet, osetra, and sevruga. The rarest and costliest is from the beluga sturgeon that swim in the Caspian Sea, which is bordered by Iran, Russia and other ex-Soviet republics. Wild caviar production has now survived only in Iran as Russia maintains a self-imposed ban on caviar trade from wild sturgeon. Beluga caviar is prized for its soft, extremely large (pea-size) eggs. It can range in color from pale silver-gray to black. It is followed by the small golden sterlet caviar which is rare and was once reserved for Russian czars, Iranian shahs and Austrian emperors. Next in quality is the medium-sized, gray to brownish oestra, and the last in the quality ranking is smaller, gray sevruga caviar.

Russians doe consume some meats, primarily fowl, offal, and veal. We ordered the wild game sausage sampler, which included rabbit, boar, and venison. We found a reference to sausage in Russia as an upper-class dish. We also ordered the pan-seared duck as a large plate, which was tender and elegant. Although we did not try it, we decided to read up on the infamous Chicken Kiev (chicken stuffed with seasoned butter and then breaded and fried). All we could find about this is from Wikipedia, which notes that “This famous method of preparing chicken is probably not of Ukrainian origin as the name Kiev, the national capital, would imply. The Russian food historian William Pokhlebkin claimed that Chicken Kiev was invented in the Moscow Merchants’ Club in the early 20th century and was renamed Chicken Kiev (kotleta po-kievski) in one of the Soviet restaurants in later years.”

The Russia House has an emormous drink menu, as well. We did not try any of the many vodkas they serve, but we did try some beer, although it has only been open from 1990. One of the featured brands on their menu is Baltika Brewery, which is the largest brewery in Russia and the second-largest in Europe. Baltika is based in St. Petersburg and they also sell beer under the Arsenalnoe, Zhiguljovskoje, and Leningradskoebrand names. They also serve a variety of vodkas from a variety of countries. Other traditional beverages we read about where medovukha, mors, kvass, and sbiten. Medovukha is an ancient drink similar to mead and mors is a type of berry juice. Kvass is an extremely common Eastern European drink that dates back to 989 made from fermented rye bread. Originially it was served during the summer, but today it is commercially packaged, served year-round, and part of a multimillion dollar industry. Commerical kvass production is akin to the manufacturing of soda pop. There is a lot of variation in home brews. Sbiten is another traditional drink served hot, which sounds similar to a cross between mead wine and mulled wine. These traditional drinks were not served at The Russia House and not being inclined to drink straight vodka, we ended up sampling their mixology cocktails or drinking beer. We found their cocktails to be fancy and delicious.

NOTE/WARNING: We do not recommend going here as a large group, as we had a bad exprrience. Although they claim they will split checks, they won’t actually do this in the restaurant. They also won’t charge more than four credit cards per party. Because of the chaotic nature of the service, they may make mistakes on your bill. For us they insisted they were right and were openly rude when we disputed the fact that we were charged for drinks we did not order. Finally, they advertised drink specials on their website that were unavailable to actually order.

TOTAL: ~$500 (for 16 people) or $31 per person