March 2005 Best of Chinatown

This is a welcome alternative for diners who find the long-format Chinatown menu daunting: Here the only two dishes offered are Mongolian barbecue, with ingredients selected by the diner, then passed to chefs who quickly cook it on a massive grill, and the Mongolian hot pot, an Asian counterpart to fondue, in which diners cook their meal by dipping components in a bowl of boiling stock.

The expansive dining room, packed to capacity every weekday lunch, reveals the differing tastes of Chinese and Occidental diners: The Chinese patrons likely order the hot pot, while Occidental patrons often choose the all-you-can-eat $15.95 Mongolian barbecue. Either meal begins with complimentary nibbles of salted peanuts and a platter of pickled Napa cabbage scattered with dangerous-looking whole red chilies.

The boiling Mongolian hot pots are no longer brought to the table in impressive brass pots with chimneys venting the smoke from the charcoal that fired them; those have been replaced by stainless-steel bowls of stock on gas-fired burners. The best incentive for trying the hot pot is that it can yield the most delicious shrimp feast at a bargain price.

Served for two or more, the hot pot costs an initial $5 per diner for the boiling stock and a plate of vegetables, bean curd, and noodles, meant to be added to the pot after other ingredients have been cooked and eaten to provide a final course of soup. Small plates of the raw ingredients to be cooked cost $5 or less for each portion of seafood, chicken, meat, fishballs, or fish dumplings with a stuffing of minced pork, which are delicious.

Good as the rest of the ingredients are--a hot pot without the fishballs and fish dumplings is a waste of a visit--start your introduction to the pleasures of the hot pot with just the shrimp. Finicky eaters can order peeled shrimp, but anybody who can eat Maryland spiced shrimp should order the unshelled, head-on shrimp. The intensity of flavor is the reward for the trouble of peeling them at table. Place them in the boiling stock for two minutes, then retrieve them to your plate. By the time they cool enough to be peeled, they will be perfectly cooked. A number of sauces are provided with the hot pot, but to appreciate the true flavor of the shrimp, eat the first few unsauced. After you have finished cooking as many plates of shrimp as you want, add the vegetables, noodles, and bean curd to the pot. The broth, now reduced and enriched by the ingredients cooked in it, will yield one of the most delicious soups you will ever taste in Chinatown.