Wednesday, April 12, 2023

City Hot Pot (旺爐), Guoco Tower

City Hot Pot (旺爐), Guoco Tower

Been wanting to try City Hot Pot (#B1-04/05 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street, tel : +65 6721 9501) for some time after walking past them more times I can recall. How this place works is that everyone gets a little pot of their own broth. It's slightly less communal than regular hot pots.

Now that I have, I recommend against the booth seats against the walls. Ventilation was really bad 🥵. Judging from the gap between the seat and table, they also looked like they might be prejudiced against....people with wider girth?

City Hot Pot (旺爐), lamb leg

We had sliced leg of lamb. Not bad.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), beef short rib

Short rib was decent tasting but not great. 

City Hot Pot (旺爐), scallops

Scallops were small. But they were also sweet.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), fish

Very decent sliced fish.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), frozen tofu 冻豆腐

Frozen tofu was okay.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), tofu skin 百叶豆腐皮

These tofu strips were also okay. I don't think there are much variations to these things.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), sauce

I thought I managed to alchemy a concoction of flavour I normally prefer with sesame sauce, sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, garlic, spring onions and vinegar. The combination appeared sound.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), sauce

I had obviously misjudged the wet to dry ingredient ratio here.

City Hot Pot (旺爐), fish soup with milk

Tried a few broths. Laksa was okay-ish and the bak kut teh was very peppery. My favourite of the lot was fish soup with milk. Personal pick. Flavour's not super intense but it had enough savoury milkiness which was pretty good as a profile that didn't mess with the food's natural flavour. The broth kinda got a bit better after all the cooking. 

Note to self : They don't top up the broth with the flavour that you have picked. It's a generic 清汤 so if you don't want dilution, keep your broth from evaporating fast by controlling the heat.

Standards here are comparable to Shi Li Fang so they make a pretty decent casual hotpot.

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