Chinese New Year may have come and gone, but you don’t need the festive season to gather with family and friends around a steaming hotpot.
If you’re in the vicinity of Sunway Velocity in Kuala Lumpur, it is recommended you pop in for a special hotpot dinner at Hong Kong Kool Chicken Pot.
Why is this dinner special, you ask? Well, the pandemic has robbed Malaysians of many opportunities to get together, catch up and laugh over good food. Also, this hotpot restaurant has a couple of tricks up its sleeve!
Firstly, instead of the conventional hotpot filled with soup, you start here with a dry pot.
For the chicken option – which takes up to 20 minutes to be served – marinated meat and vegetables are stir-fried directly in the pot by the wait staff while you go through the menu and pick other ingredients you’d like to enjoy.
The chicken packs quite a punch with fragrant mala, the sweetness of onion and coriander complementing the fiery spiciness perfectly.
The party trick here is that when you’re done with the dry pot, the server will pour in soup to turn it into a mala hotpot. What an idea!
For the steamboat portion of the meal, there’s a wide selection to choose from, including lamb slices, Iberico pork collar, premium Angus beef, Japanese clams, and the restaurant’s special homemade fried beancurd roll.
While waiting for the soup to boil, try some of the BBQ items, too – luncheon meat, grilled beancurd, mushroom balls, and grilled eggplant.
For offal lovers, there’s chicken liver, pork kidney, chicken hearts, and much more. The seasoning on these can be quite strong, but that’s the overall theme of the food here anyway – 100% full-flavoured!
When it comes to the hotpot, the Angus beef is absolutely lovely. Dip the tender strips of meat into the boiling soup for four to five seconds, and it is ready. You can even eat them without any condiments – it is that good!
The lamb and pork will not disappoint, either. And if your dipping sauces aren’t awesome, you only have yourself to blame, as there are over a dozen different types for you to choose from and mix together.
In the end, the meal is a “three-in-one” experience comprising a dry pot, grilled dishes, and a steamboat. Quite a unique experience.
To top it off, you have to order the watercress honey drink. You might be surprised to know this vegetable works well as a beverage rather than a soup, with its tangy, refreshing notes balancing out the strong-flavoured dishes.
Hong Kong Kool Chicken pot is located on the second floor of Sunway Velocity Mall, with a smaller branch in Mont Kiara.
Hong Kong Kool Chicken Pot
V03A-02-02, Sunway Velocity,
Lingkaran SV, Maluri,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
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Trying to influence your cravings since 2005, Kar Yeong was Guest Judge on Versus 1001 Rasa Baba’s 2018, R.AGE Food Fight Judge 2015 and NTV7 Foodie Blogger 2014. To read more about Kar Yeong’s food journeys, visit his blog at KYspeaks.com.