Not long after paying a visit to the hot pots at Element, I went to essentially the opposite sort of hot pot at Lu Gi. Now when I say opposite, I don’t mean in terms of the food itself, but the general setting. Here, the stoves weren’t built into the tables, but were portable and brought out to each table after ordering. It felt like eating hot pot in someone’s home, except for the whole paying of money and whatnot.

Per usual, I went spicy and my companions went mild. When I went to make my sauce, it was once again evidence that this was more like home-style hot pot because instead of nicely organized sauces there was just a tub filled with various bottles of sauces to mix together. Fortunately, this meant there was a variety and I made myself quite the mixture.

I got my usual mix of meats and potato-like vegetables and was very happy with the results. The spice level was solid and I can’t emphasize enough how good it felt to dip that meat into a concoction like that. It may not be luxurious or any degree of fancy, but it sure tasted good.

It’s really hard to get enough of hot pot, especially when you live in a place with a ton of hot pot options. Element is a shiny and semi-new spot in Alhambra that offers all-you-can-eat and the divided hot pot that almost always seems necessary when I am eating with people who can’t handle heat.

Element offers all the usual options and while I spent time with taro, lotus root and other acceptable non-meat foods, I naturally found myself enjoying most of the meal with the beef and lamb. Of course, these meats would have been great on their own (after being cooked in the spicy broth), but Element offered some delicious sauce options that are crucial to any successful hot potting.

As hot pots go, Element tasted like a cut above most in terms of quality. The meat was tender after being cooked and again, I can’t emphasize how nice it is when you can make a tasty sauce. For a higher quality hot pot experience, Element has what it takes.

The world of hot pot is a divided place. I am not simply referring to the fact that most hot pot spots support the idea of dividing the pot into two broths, but also to the fact that some offer all-you-can-eat and some go a la carte. Hot Pot Hot Pot, a ridiculously named restaurant in Monterey Park, is on the a la carte side of the pot, but I did not let this get in the way of checking the place out.

We split our pot, as all good lovers do. She went with the rejuvenation broth and I chose spicy. Then it came time to order the meats. We went with sliced beef and sliced lamb, as well of a slew of other random ingredients that are made for hot pot, like taro, lotus root and a bunch of vegetables I had no need for.

The spicy broth was as delicious as expected, and went perfectly well with the meat. Then, of course, there was the make-your-own dipping sauce, which had all of the usual ingredients (sesame paste, garlic, etc.), but nothing especially unique. At this point, Hot Pot Hot Pot did a good job of meeting my hot pot expectations, but nothing beyond that. Yet, what surprised me was when I had myself a taste of the rejuvenation broth. Unlike the usual plain and empty non-spicy broths, this was rich in flavor and yet refreshing at the same time. If there was any differentiator here, the rejuvenation broth was it.

Hot Pot Hot Pot is a solid place to cook your own meats in a broth, but didn’t offer much that felt special to me. Nonetheless, if you’re in the neighborhood you won’t be disappointed.

Compared to the Chengdu-style hot pot, Mongolian hot pot looks like it came from another planet. Or at least a much older planet. Differing from most other hot pots, this one still uses hot coals rather than an electric stove. It also looks nothing like a pot and looks more some obscure ancient brass ware you might find at an antique store. The broth, which is essentially water flavored by ginger and scallions, fills a moat that surrounds the central silo. This silo contains the coals that boil the hot pot.

Mongolian hot pots can be found all over Beijing and depending on where you are, they can range in price and selection. In general, I have found Mongolian hot pot to offer fewer options and I have never seen one offer a sauce bar like those in Shanghai. In my recent visit to Beijing, we found a little hot pot place not far from Tiananmen Square and settled in. We ordered some lamb and beef for our meats and winter melon as well. If you don’t know what winter melon is, it is essentially a giant gourd (I’m talking like 3 feet long here) that has next to no flavor, but does a great job of taking on the flavor of whatever it is cooked in. Perfect for hot pot.

As for the sauces, there wasn’t much to choose from, so we went with the garlic and the bean curd sauce (which is nothing at all like cheese curds). Then we started cooking. Although winter melon takes some time to cook, we thought it would be a good idea to wait until some meat was cooked and the broth had more flavor. We started cooking some meat and it tasted great. Rather than being covered in the flavor of the broth, the light broth of the Mongolian hot pot really brought the taste out in the meats. Then, of course, we could douse it in our two sauces if we wanted to. The garlic sauce was incredibly potent, but not in a bad way. The bean curd sauce is an almost indescribable taste, so I won’t waste any time describing it except to say it works well with hot pot.

After a good amount of meat had been cooked, we threw in the winter melon. It took a while to cook through, but eventually we got the melons to a good gelatinous state that tasted great. And when topped with the sauces it tasted even better.

Mongolian hot pot is a must-eat for any visitor to Beijing. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, because hot or cold it is a hot pot that is hard to find anywhere else and when you eat it you can almost imagine being on the other side of The Great Wall, camping out in the Mongolian Steppes, eating hot pot and wondering when you will get a chance to bring your delicious food to Beijing.

After spending some time in China, you will find that the Chinese people are very prideful, and not simply prideful about their country, but about their regions as well. It seems like if you go anywhere in China, you will hear that whatever region you’re in has the best tea, best dumplings, best noodles and really anything else you can think of (best dog?!). The same goes for hot pot. So if you may think hot pot is simply a bot of boiling water to cook food in, you are wrong.

While in Shanghai, we went to a Chengdu-style (pronounced chung-doo) hot pot joint on Huaihai Road called Hot Pot King. Like most hot pot, the Chengdu sort is family-style, with a big pot in the middle of a table. But the Chengdu-style hot pot is unique in that the pot itself is divided in half. On one side goes a spicy broth, while on the other side goes a more plain broth. Although only one side is spicy in the hot sense, both have a good amount of spices and oil added for flavor. So if the spicy side gets too hot for you, you can always cool off on the other side without losing too much flavor.

Unique to Shanghai (as far as I know) is that hot pot joints like this have a huge selection of sauces to choose from. You serve yourself by grabbing a small dish and ladling out the various sauces. They vary from peanut to spicy sesame to crazier options like hot hemp oil (whatever that is). After mixing a personal concoction, you can finally start boiling some food.

There is typically an order in which foods should be tossed into the pot and most local Chinese will ensure that things are done in the right order. Even if you don’t know the exact order, you can pretty much assume that thick foods like potato and lotus root will need to be cooked first. These guys simply take longer. Vegetables and things like cilantro should also be added in the earlier stages because they also take a while and in the case of cilantro, they add flavor to the broth (whereas the vegetables simply steal flavor from the broth). The last food to go in is always meat, so you have to be a patient unvegan to truly enjoy hot pot. Meat only takes a few seconds to cook in the boiling broth and although you have to wait a while to put it in the broth, the payoff is nearly immediate.

Hot pot meat is some of the most tender meat around and is thinly sliced for easy cooking. The broth adds great flavor to the meat that would make it taste great on its own, but if you succeed in mixing a delicious sauce, the meat becomes even tastier. Lamb and beef are the most common because of the short cooking time and you can find these either frozen or refrigerated. The frozen strips are made into thin rolls for easy cooking, while the refrigerated meats are thicker strips. In trying both, I can’t really say I have a preference, because so much of the flavor comes from the broth and sauce, rather than from the meat preservation style.

For sheer variety, Chengdu hot pot is hard to beat. While most offer only one broth flavor, Chengdu gives you the option of spicy or mild. On top of that, if you’re going to get it Shanghai, you should get a nice selection of sauces to customize your meal even more. No matter your preference, Chengdu hot pot is a great way to eat some hot, boiled meat in Shanghai.