January 30, 2009
松江自助火鍋
Wife's been having cravings for hot pot in the latter stages of the pregnancy. Makes sense since hot pot cooks up plenty of hot, nutritious food without being overwhelmingly rich. Perfect for helping the baby to grow. Her sister and cousins are more than willing to accommodate, so they chose this hot-pot place which they visited all the time when they were little. It's the perfect option for a drizzly wintry evening.
The modern shabu-shabu resturants offer individual-sized pots of broth bubbling away on sleek inductive hot plates, with the food coming as all-you-can-eat or as set-meals. However 松江 has remained old-school family-style, with a big heavy communal pot full of hot broth sitting in the middle shared by the whole table. Anyone can walk over to the fridges to grab plates of meats, veggies, or sides and dump them into the pot. In the end, the experienced waiters count up the plates and multiply out the final check in their head. So you don't have to stuff yourself trying make all-you-can-eat worthwhile, and you get exactly what you want unlike a set meal.
The restaurant itself has seen better days, but it's still clean and there's still enough turnover to keep the food moving along freshly. One can imagine not so long ago when it would've been packed with multi-generational families, groups of classmates, etc. That would've been about the time when we moved to the US, so it's nice to have an echo of that experience in the present-day. Unfortunately the location is not convenient for us, so it'll most likely remain a nostalgia trip.
松江自助火鍋城
台北市中山區松江路315號1樓
02-25012064