Stuffed to my heart's content

I've loved Hotpot since Alvin a friend of my introduced me to Little Sheep Hotpot in Shenzhen on my first trip to China. Its my absolute favorite cusine ( as against the dish which happens to be Nian Yue - spicy cooked catfish).

Having authentic chinese hotpot available to me in Dubai is something I have always wished for , but Dubai hotpot restaurants somehow weren't the same flavor. Finally I got my wish fullfilled yesterday nd than again today.. here's how it came about.

I was damn happy with myself, having spent Eid night stuffing a 40foot container in oppressive heat, and gasping for breath at the lack of oxygen, pulling, pushing and shoving plastic gunny bags filled with clothes, to go to Pakistan for the flood victims. Lost my original bb hands free amongst the bags ( as against the duplicate one I  bought hence), got a cracking back ache... spoilt my favorite Sun'n Sand shirt.. but am extremely satisfied. This came about due to initiative by VolunteerinDubai website which I came accross via a Facebook 'Like' by a friend, who volunteers as a photographer for them. I shall be doing quite a lot more of volunteering in future I guess.. gives me a good feeling, and I hope to make like minded friends.

So, about 11 pm, when it was done, I was hot, drenched in sweat after 3 hours of manual labour, and hungry (no food whole day). These are the times, when I can't settle for next best thing. I wanted to try and find Sichuan Pepper, so that I could make Catfish (Nian Yue) as I mentioned above. Went to Dragon mart (cutting the story short, as one friend complained , my blogs are absolutely too long and boring), couldn't find what i was looking for, went to chinese cluster of international city, found some groceries but not what i wanted, finally found one grocery who did not have the pepper , but the owner became a friend (a chinese gentleman) and introduced me to lots of sauces and stuff to make HOTPOT at home. Rest as they say is History!!!!
Meanwhile also found URUMUQI restaurant ( My third best chinese chinese cuisine) although visit to it turned out to be dud as they did not have Kababs or Hand grab rice ( Pulao Xinjiang style) and I did not want to eat anything else.
So... almost 1 am... on the way back, was not satisfied that I did not have the actual hotpot, and just the ingrediants, still hungry and a lot more tired..went to mirdiff city center to try carefour. Entered at 1:30 almost at cuttoff time for entry, and 20 mins from the time they closed completely. Found the last remaining hotpot in their stock, and reached back home at 2:30 ( had parked at south entrace, carefour was at north entrace ---- bad GPS Bindi, u're right)

Went home and brewed an absolutely delicious hotpot by about 3:30 ( washed, put away the shopping, cutup the spring onions and toffu etc, setup the hotpot etc etc.. took time!!)....

Heat up the sauce (ready made satchet) in water, add raw meat and vegetables, remove and dip in soy sauce, eat! Fantastic

Yesterday the hotpot I cooked using the flame gel.. but wasn't very strong and took too long. Today decided to do it directly in Kitchen. Same thing, just better!! Bindi - My kitchen is spacious enough.. see I can even eat in it... if a kitchen can be used for dining, I can't complain!!