🍽️ Hotpot

Famous for spice, rich broth with varied ingredients.

Chengdu hotpot shares roots with its Chongqing cousin but tastes distinctively softer, balancing beef tallow and vegetable oil for a mellow, layered numbing-spice that never overpowers the ingredients. Beyond tripe and aortic wall, Chengdu tables favor fresh duck intestine, tender beef, shrimp paste, small fish and a wide range of vegetables, cooked to order. The sesame-oil-and-garlic dip is extended with oyster sauce and scallion as desired. Chengdu hotpot is about leisurely mood, paired with soy milk drink and iced jelly to cool the spice while friends chat around the pot. Spicy but rounded, fragrant and lingering, it is a lively social stage of Chengdu's slow life.