Global roaming: Chengdu

“I’m real local Chongqingnese, so I have to eat hot pot every week. I start craving it if I don’t,” declares Cao Jifeng, a construction material salesman, as he fishes out a cooked slice of yak tripe from the bubbling cauldron in front of us.

I’m gathered on this hot summer night with Cao and his friends Leon Zhao, a sales manager, and Verona Long, a local teacher, at Fuxi Hot Pot, a popular eatery in the Yubei district of Chongqing, the south-western megacity of 30 million inhabitants and home to China’s spiciest cuisine. It is a source of great pride for Cao that hot pot was first created in this ancient port city on the Yangtze. “It originated down on the docks,” he explains. “It’s cold and wet in winter and we ate it to keep warm a thousand years ago. Now we also eat it in the summer, but with cold beer.”

Chongqing hot pot is not a dish for the faint-hearted. The real deal is boiling, bright fiery-red, loaded with floating dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns. These lip- and mouth-numbing peppercorns are a signature spice in south-western Chinese cuisine, reportedly even used as an anaesthetic by rural dentists.

Flavour is paramount in traditional Chongqing hot pot. In what would be considered a questionable practice in Australia, the soup base of beef tallow (rendered beef fat) and pork bone is reused and topped up with stock when necessary. Tonight, Cao, Leon, Verona and I have bucked tradition by ordering yuan yang hot pot, which has the explosively spicy broth divided yin and yang-style with a mild chicken stock with floating vegetables.

This decision was partly made because Verona, unusually for a local, shies away from spicy food. The other reason is that my dining companions worry that as a laowai (foreigner) I will not be able to take the heat.

I also have my doubts. Extremely spicy food can have the alarming and amusing effect of making me hiccup uncontrollably. Fortunately, I keep my hiccups at bay while I exclusively use the spicy red broth to cook a variety of offal I have never before encountered: crunchy pig throat; rubbery red duck gizzard that spikes out like a sea anemone when cooked; duck intestines that become crunchy as they curl and swallow peppercorns like little constrictors; and, of course, the yak tripe. This is accompanied by sliced yam and tomato, black bean tofu and oblongs of pumpkin.

“You need experience to know when things are cooked,” Cao instructs as he dredges the pot with his chopsticks. “See – this yak tripe has shrunk and the edges are curled up.” Even more important than the broth is a bowl of sesame oil to which one can add brown vinegar, spiced salt, crystals of MSG and fresh minced garlic, which is in ample supply. “It’s where you really decide the flavour,” says Leon.

As I decide to go all in with the condiments plus the spicy broth, the meal becomes a carpet-bombing of my tastebuds. The local Shancheng beer proves a godsend as the cold, watery brew repeatedly quells the fire in my mouth, which intensifies as my little bowl of dipping sauce comes to resemble the flaming red, hot pot broth. Dousing the spiciness with beer seems to be a popular strategy. As our meal progresses, the tables around us become increasingly raucous. 

“Hot pot should be eaten in a place like this: noisy. Bang! Crash! It’s not supposed to be elegant,” laughs Cao. Elegant is one thing that Fuxi Hot Pot is not. Men at neighbouring tables are shirtless. A crowd of university students in the far corner are constantly standing to clink their glasses with loud yells of “gan bei!” (“down the hatch!”). “People from Chengdu think that people from Chongqing are barbarians,” adds Verona with a hint of embarrassment.

Indeed, an intense rivalry exists between Chongqing and Chengdu, the capital of neighbouring Sichuan province, which Chongqing left to become its own municipality in 1997. While Chongqing is the undisputed origin of Chinese hot pot, Chengdu, with 14 million people, is at the heart of sophisticated Sichuan cuisine: one of the most-loved and influential foods in China. In 2011, Chengdu became the first Asian city to be named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy. Kung pao chicken and mapo tofu are world-famous, yet these are just two of more than 5000 Sichuan dishes. Although similarities exist between the two cities’ food cultures – in seasoning, an embrace of unusual cuts of meat and a strong street food culture – one area where Chengdu excels is in fine dining.

Chengdu is home to the prestigious Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine that boasts an enrolment of 2500 each year.

A week after my Chongqing hot pot baptism, I am a guest at a lunchtime banquet at the Shang Palace at Chengdu’s Shangri-La Hotel where a range of classic dishes have been prepared by chef Mike Lee, a graduate of the institute.

According to Mike, Sichuan cuisine is often misunderstood outside of China. “People think it is all spicy, but there are many mild dishes – it is important to have balance within a meal.” One of the most unusual offerings in Shang Palace’s private dining room is fish bean curd soup. “There’s no soy bean in it at all – just fish – but it tastes like tofu,” Mike explains. Rather than a potential cruel joke on vegetarians, the appeal of this dish is in its artistry. “The recipe is hundreds of years old and the process is long. It’s about imagination.”

Food, perhaps more than anywhere else in China, is an obsession in Chengdu. “It’s normal for people to travel two or three hours on the weekend just to try a dish in a suburb or the countryside,” explains Tang Tang, the food and travel editor for local newspaper Chengdu Daily and guest at the lunch. “We have a word for these people: chihuo.”

The centrepiece of Mike’s Sichuan banquet is ma la ji kuai (marinated chicken in spicy oil). This dish features a whole chicken, including the head, sliced and arranged in a bowl crowned with fresh green peppercorns. My first taste impression is that, although it’s fiddly to eat, the meat on the bone enriches the chicken flavour right up until a delayed detonation of Sichuan peppercorns sends me into an embarrassing convulsion of hiccups.

The hitlist

Eat

Fuxi Hot Pot

Not for spice novices: Fuxi 

Hot Pot is a local favourite all through the year. In winter, the fiery hot pot is believed to ward off colds while in the humid summer, it is thought to quell ‘internal dampness’. 13 Zhigang Ave, Yangjiaping, Chongqing, +86 23 6156 2955

Stay

Shangri-La Hotel ChengduCentrally located on the Jinjiang River near the 1200-year-old Hejiang Pavilion, this luxury hotel sets the benchmark for service in the Sichuan capital. Its kitchen is led by ex-Sydneysider Peter James Trewenack. 9 Binjiang East Rd, Chengdu, +86 28 8888 9999

See

Ciqikou Old Town

Chongqing’s ancient ‘porcelain village’ is one of the last remnants of the city’s old town. It is a great place to try street food favourites such as suan la fen – spicy handmade sweet potato noodles. Chengdu also has a faux old quarter, which features Jinli Street, a 100m stretch of diverse snacks.

Photography Dave Tacon.

As seen in Feast magazine, October 2014, Issue 36.