The Mongolian Hot Pot Experience

Andy Hill

For several days, I had been braving the freezing hutongs, reading every historical plaque in Beijing and living on practically nothing with this French guy I’d met at my guesthouse. We were both, to say the least, on a budget and our diet of instant noodles was beginning to sour our attitude and weaken our ability to see and learn as much as we possibly could. 

We were walking around the area just south of Tiananmen Square and went past a cheerily neon-lit Mongolian hot pot restaurant. On the front, there were pixelated images of a cowboy riding carefree across (presumably) the steppe, and the inside looked particularly cheery when compared to the nearly empty, dark streets around us. 

We assured ourselves that we had earned it as we jerked the door open and stepped inside, were ushered to a table and seated with I Ching-sized menus. There was so much to choose from! 

We ordered freshwater shrimp and a couple of vegetable dishes (the other guy was a pescatarian) and, since we’d been so frugal, a couple of large Nanjings. 

A couple of tables over there was something of a party happening, and a long-haired, red-faced guy had a traditional stringed instrument he was trying to delicately pluck and follow with a falsetto melody. The others at the bottle-covered table knew not a word, but nodded and smiled the way drunken people do while listening to someone play a song they don’t know.

Soon, he noticed us and when our food arrived, rose to shepherd us through the complexities of the Mongolian hot pot experience. We ordered some more Nanjings, and he brought over some of the hooch that he and his friends were drinking, and we began throwing shrimp and green onions and chilies into the broth. 

Long Hair, it turned out, was the owner of the restaurant, and knew how to make his guests feel welcomed. He kept ordering stuff from the kitchen, and we kept throwing it into the broth (after explaining several times we were too broke for the additional plates, to which he smiled, laughed, and poured more liquor for us). 

After we had largely sated our appetites, and were just sort of picking sentimentally at what was left, nursing the Nanjings, we were serenaded by the owner on his little instrument. He came over to the table and actually put his foot up on one of the chairs and sang with his eyes closed and his head tilted back. It was nice, even though we were the only ones there at that point in time, except for the kitchen staff who obviously wanted to go home, and Long Hair’s daughter who watched embarrassedly from the counter. 

We paid up for what we ordered (he gave us much more free food than that), killed the rest of the Nanjings, and shook hands with the guy about one hundred times before stepping back onto the sidewalk as he assured us that the cowboy in the pixelated picture on the front of the restaurant was definitely and absolutely him.