A couple of months back, my good friends and I had one of our all too rare get togethers, this time at Little Sheep. During the conversation, "Xian Jiao" and I mentioned that even though hot pot is very enjoyable here in the states; it pales in comparison to what you'd get in China. Xian Jiao should know, she spent over half a year in Beijing…….
Which leads me to Mocuomen…….well actually it was Mr.D who led us to Mocuomen. I'd mentioned Mr.D in a previous post. That was the first meal of the night…….only Mr.D would make hot pot a dessert!
The front of Mocuomen really doesn't look like much….at least to me, just another shop on a street.
Like many other places, the restaurant was located upstairs and looked very modern, sleek, and very clean.
I told the Missus to have Mr.D go easy on us, because, heck, we'd just finished off a pretty hefty Xinjiang style dinner…full of lamb, bread, rice, etc……
So while Mr.D did order hot pot…….
So while the sauces seemed to be routine….instead of the usual "yuan yang guo", split hot pot that most folks here are used to, this was a milky, lightly herbal, "bone-soup" style broth that was quite luxurious, coating your mouth and tongue……
It did quite nice as the "broth" managed to coat whatever you dipped into it as it did you palate. It also allowed all the flavor of whatever you let take a short bath in the huo guo come through.
We had shiitake, tripe, intestine, bean curd sheets, and a bunch of other items……..
This was really quite good, but the clincher was when this arrived.
I agree, doesn't look like much, minced shrimp, bound with some starch…… But then, Mr.D called one of the servers over. With two spoons she proceeded to created little shrimp dumplings for us……the shrimp flavor was distinct and quite good, but the texture is what made this stand out.
These basically just exploded in your mouth……then melted away….into a shrimp flavor ether. The Missus and I are still talking about this…..
The last item to arrive topped everything else. It really didn't look like much…….in fact, they call this "ugly fish" and it is indeed fairly…well, fugly.
It's more well known as Wushan Kao Yu…..the fish is first marinated, then I believe deep fried…finally it is probably roasted. There was an amazing amount of flavor going around, Sichuan Peppercorns (indeed Wushan is a county famous for its three gorges in Chongqing), chilies, a bit of sweet, and bit of guaiwei("strange flavor"), that savory-spicy-sweet-sour-mildly nutty, amazingly delici-yoso flavor. The fish was veyr moist with a nice bit of oil to carry all the flavor along. The version here had won some kind of award…..and I could see why.
This was an epic ending to a fun night of eating…..Mr.D kept the Missus in stitches all night long. And even though I don't understand Mandarin, laughter is contagious. And unlike the cousin of a friend of mine who used to crack jokes in Illocano to his family, then punk out on the folks who laughed along who didn't understand the language to feel superior ("tell me what are you laughing for…tell me what I said, ha?")….Mr.D understood.
I wish I could tell you where Mocuomen was, but I wouldn't know. You can however ask Xian Jiao. You see, I recommended this place to her before she left for Beijing. I guess she really enjoyed it, since we're still talking about it to this day.