龍門陣四川火鍋
Longmen Zhen Sichuan Hot Pot is located on Section 4 of Bade Road, with the nearest MRT station being Nanjing Sanmin. The exterior of the restaurant is very extravagant, and the interior decoration is also full of fun.
Today, I enjoyed a yin-yang pot with various ingredients, totaling NT$2893. I'll just mention the notable ingredients.
Yin-Yang Hot Pot:
The red pot is a classic beef tallow spicy hot pot, while the white pot features grandma's sour radish old duck soup. The spiciness of the beef tallow is quite strong; those who can't tolerate spicy food will have to stick to the white pot. It’s quite therapeutic to watch the beef tallow cubes slowly dissolve into the broth. Overall, the red pot is more numb than spicy, but even so, the heat is still challenging for those who are not accustomed to spicy foods. The duck meat in the white pot is very flavorful and tender, but remember to ask the staff to add broth; otherwise, the red pot will get spicier and the white pot will become saltier the longer you cook it.
Nine-Grid Set Meal:
A very luxurious combination, with nearly every section adorned with little flags indicating the cooking time. Besides the peculiar taste of the luncheon meat, the remaining ingredients are quite fresh and delicious. Today’s selection includes: "Yellow throat (pig heart tube), fresh beef tripe, multilayered tripe, tender beef, duck intestines, squid, quail eggs." It seems that it may slightly change depending on the daily ingredient availability.
Peanut Sprouts:
A very unique texture, it has a crisp bite, and when added to the red pot, it becomes even sweeter. It looks like oversized soybean sprouts, quite interesting.
Seaweed:
Commonly referred to as telephone wire, but here it is not served as such. Once cooked through, it has a very rich seafood flavor. However, cooking it thoroughly is not easy, as its buoyant texture keeps it floating on the water. But if not overcooked, I quite enjoy its chewy texture.
Fresh Brain Flower:
A rare item, the soft, jelly-like texture of the brain combined with the strong flavor of the red pot is a perfect match.
Wolf Tooth Potatoes:
Potatoes are cut into a wave shape and deep-fried, then sprinkled with various seasonings and spices, often referred to as fried potatoes elsewhere. The wolf tooth potatoes here use fewer toppings, yet the flavor remains balanced and delicious.
Tender Beef:
If you know there’s tender beef in the nine-grid set, you wouldn’t order extra – it’s very tasty but also quite plentiful. Just blanch it for a few seconds, and it’s ready to enjoy; the meat is extremely tender.
Braised Beef:
Think of it as ready-to-eat braised beef; the texture of the chunks is different from that of sliced meat, offering a more substantial meaty satisfaction.
Ice Jelly:
There are brown sugar ice jelly and bayberry ice jelly; we chose one of each, with two bayberries included in the bayberry ice jelly. Ice jelly is a common Chinese dessert made from stone flower tree seeds, with a texture similar to aloe vera jelly, and the smooth ice jelly combined with various toppings like taro balls and crushed peanuts can actually fill you up.
Finishing the spicy hot pot with ice jelly as a palate cleanser is quite fitting, but we ordered a bit too much, and almost couldn't finish the ice jelly.
Overall, it’s a very authentic Sichuan hot pot. Since we ordered too much to finish, we ended up packing everything. The containers used for takeout are also quite exquisite.
Although the meal cost around NT$2800, if you take the red pot home and freeze it, that exquisite spicy beef tallow can last a long time. Buying more ingredients to cook hot pot is also very cost-effective.
As long as you don’t mind spiciness (it’s really spicy), I highly recommend it to everyone!