True Love Hot Pot Restaurant, Burwood
“Hotpot, aye?”
This is my message to Minh after noticing her Gtalk status of “craving hotpot”. We’ve tentatively started doing fortnightly dinners and our Italian plans for dinner are blown away in a hotpot craving instant. We’re headed off to True Love Hot Pot Restaurant tonight, a relatively new restaurant on the Burwood Rd strip, drawn by the promise of $25 all you can eat.
All you can eat y’all.
Minh’s directions are wonderfully vague as usual, “Kind of near Canton Noodle House” and Sydney’s usual crap traffic mean that F and I are an hour late before meeting up with Minh at 7pm. Thankfully finding parking isn’t hard and despite the crowds doing their late night shopping we’re ushered quickly to a table.
Half Chicken, Half Chilli Hot Pot
While it is all-you-can-eat for $25 per person, the soup base is an extra $10, depending on which mix you choose. My lack of chili tolerance is well documented so Minh ordered a half chicken, half chilli soup, though she added that the “normal” chilli soup is quite spicy (even for her!) so the half-chicken would be a “good break” from the chilli. Hectic.
The mere sight of the chilli side sends a small shiver down my spine – it just oozed spicy. Its looks were not deceiving and within minutes, she and F are hissing in an attempt to cool down their furnace-burning mouths. It was kind of funny to see them this way, as it’s usually the other way around!
Om Nom Nom Nom
Throughout the night the wait staff would top up both halves with chicken soup with one top up raised the chilli soup to a dangerously high level, more so it started to boil. “Nooooooooes!!!” I wailed, as I noticed the chilli soup bubbling over into the chicken soup side of the pot. I quickly turned the heat down, but the damage was done.
For the rest of the dinner, I pushed through the spiciness and had to down quite a bit of water (though it wasn’t, admittedly, too bad – it’s just the chilli build up that is the worst). Minh and F naturally scoffed at this and told me to stop being a pansy. Sigh. If only I could… I’m beginning to suspect perhaps I’m an exception to the rule of eating spicy food to build up one’s chilli tolerance – it doesn’t seem to be working!
Hot Pot Ingredients
Using the order form provided, we ordered beef and lamb slices, a whole range of beef/tofu/fish balls (and bizarrely, no matter if we chose the same ball in the next round, what arrived at the table would be different to the one prior), quail eggs, cucumber salad, button mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, potatoes, bok choy, watercress… and lettuce.
No matter how much I love and adore potatoes, I have to admit that they just do not have a place in hotpot. That goes for the radishes too that fooled me in thinking they were potato slices.
Round 2 baby
I was a bit surprised at Minh’s lettuce choice, but I thought what the heck, everyone’s entitled to what they want to eat – I mean, I ordered the rather bland tasting potatoes! Who am I to judge? Anyway, it was quickly evident that it wasn’t what she intended to order at all when she was surprised at the half lettuce head that arrived at our table. It turns out she was thinking of Chinese cabbage when she ordered the lettuce! Yes, I mix them up all the time too… well no, I lie, I don’t hehe.
A whole range of sauces are available for dipping and are located at the back of the restaurant. Minh swears by the creamy peanut sauce – not only is it delicious, it aids in soothing the fire-y burn of the chilli. The peanut sauce was quite nice, but I can’t go past good ol’ hoi sin sauce!
Corn in Bee Nest and Banana and Apple Pie
Despite having at least three rounds of hotpot, the desserts piqued our interest. I mean, what exactly is “Corns in bee nest”?! And how will these Banana and Apple Pies turn out? These questions had to be answered and I have to say, they were totally left-field to what we were expecting.
The “Corns in bee nest” wasn’t as exotic as it sounded, being basically loosely made corn fritter topped with an added sweetness from the desiccated coconut. It was still quite tasty though and sat in between savoury and sweet.
The “Pies” were the biggest surprise, as I was half-expecting pie slices and not deep-fried segments of battered apple and banana! Though I must say, it was a scrumptuous surprise with the sweetness of the fruit seemingly intensified by the savoury batter. They went down like a treat with our bowl of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate or strawberry – you sadly can’t do half-half even though it’s clearly from a Neapolitan ice cream tub).
Outside True Love Hot Pot
I realised that although going out to have hotpot isn’t as epic as having our own, it really does hit the spot on a cold and rainy night. We’re on the verge of having to be rolled out of the restaurant, feeling quite satisfied and warmed from within, but somehow managed to fit in a Korean ice cream each (which definitely put us over the edge).
True Love Hot Pot Restaurant
65 Burwood Rd,
Burwood, NSW, 2134
Ph: (02) 9744 8218
Author
By squishies
Follow squishiesInformation
This article was written on 24 Sep 2010, and is filed under Chinese, Dinner, Sydney, Inner West.
Current post is tagged
Recent articles
- The Winery, Surry Hills16 May 2012
- Al-Aseel, Greenacre09 May 2012
- Sugaroom, Pyrmont02 May 2012
- Coco Chocolate High Tea, Middle Head25 Apr 2012
- Easter Long Weekend, Gerrigong17 Apr 2012
- Food Friends, Parramatta04 Apr 2012
- Torque Bar & Grill, Concord30 Mar 2012
- My sister’s baby shower feast & my “sciatus”26 Mar 2012
- Jeep Wrangler King Island Experience, Tasmania21 Mar 2012
- TOYS Collective Issue #9: Blood, Bones & Butter, Otto Ristorante15 Mar 2012
Recent comments
Who Are We?
Search eatshowandtell
Share
Sponsors
Categories
Creative Commons
Eat Show & Tell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.
All you can eat is still pretty epic!! I am so there mmm. Hee hee keep at it! Kill those nociceptors!
Eh! I dunno ffichiban =T When I eat too much chilli I get a headache. It’s not nice. haha We’ll see how I go…
Perfect time to squeeze in a hot pot before it gets warmer. An “All You Can Eat”, you can’t lose!!
Shanks´s last [type] ..Cupcakes for Food Bloggers
that spicy is SPICY!!!!!
i challenge anyone to eat from it the whole night
I forgot you were in Sydney. I read Burwood and my heart leapt for joy. I love hot pot, and I LOVE all you can eat hot pot.
Then I read it was in Sydney.
I shall go have a little cry for a bit, and maybe plan a little Sydney eating road trip soon.
Celeste @ Berrytravels´s last [type] ..Mooncake making- Happy Mid Autumn Festival!
Awww, sorry =(
I’m surprised that Melbourne doesn’t have hotpot restaurants… surely they must? I think I might have walked past one in the CBD last time I was there – don’t know if it is any good (or if it is all you can eat! hehe).
We’ve walked past this place a few times now, we just keep forgetting it’s there when deciding where to eat!
Zina @ tastedbytwo´s last [type] ..Taste of Melbourne 2010
Cute restaurant name. The bees nest sounds odd but alluring and you have to push through the pain if you want to build your tolerance! lol. It will come!
Helen (grabyourfork)´s last [type] ..Freebie Friday- Win two tickets to a Molecular Gastronomy Dinner Class at Chefs Armoury
How can you not like radish in hotpot? though Potatoes are definately bit iffy! But surely your chili tolerance level has improved slightly since Ms Pansy? Lol
A must try! thanks
I have a problem with my spice intolerance too
. lol corn in bees nest might try that if I ever visit!
Julie´s last [type] ..Momofuku Kimchi stew
I quite like how radish will suck up the hotpot juices but I don’t really understand potato either…Actually, the first time I discovered people had potato in hotpot was only last year at a friend’s place!
mademoiselle délicieuse´s last [type] ..Epicure Recipe Card 48- Triple Chocolate Cake with Truffles
Haha I agree with you 100%! I gave Squishies the weirdest look when she ordered those potatoes
Which I pointedly ignored haha
hot pot is such a great fun night. I love it, but I don’t get to do it too often.
My Restaurants Melbourne´s last [type] ..Twisted Vine
What $25 all you can eat? So there!
Forager @ The Gourmet Forager´s last [type] ..Tomislav- from lab bench to the kitchen and back