Lẩu - Simmering Soup

Sushi, in its simplest form

Sooner or later, a great idea comes along. And then, someone steals it. I'm talking about the greatest idea that ever happened to the glutton of sushi--the kaiten-zushi conveyor belt restaurant. Customers take seats near a moving belt that snakes through the restaurant delivering plate after delicious plate of endless sushi varieties. You simply snag a covered plate, eat the contents, stack your empty plates, and grab more. You're awarded with immediate gratification and are afforded every opportunity for overindulgence.

Truth be told, the genuine sushi experience is to savor and appreciate the delicate flavors from the sea. Sushi was not meant to be wolfed down. The conveyor belt totally defeats the sushi experience. But someone stole the idea of the conveyor belt and applied it in the most positive way to that wonderful savory simmering soup meal. It is known by many names. The Chinese huǒ guō. The Japanese shabu-shabu. The Thai suki. In Singapore, they call it "steam boat". In Vietnam, it's lẩu. Conveyor belts were meant for the simmering soup.

The setting for the simmering soup meal

This is family eating at its finest. At the center of the table is a metal or clay pot that rests on a heating element. Inside the pot is a soup broth, carefully regulated to poach, simmer, or boil. At home-cooked meals, the table is filled with plates that tower with piles of thinly-sliced meats, various vegetables, eggs, and noodles. The ingredients, both of the broth and of the items to be cooked in it, are different from region to region. But one thing remains the same. Each of these are plunged into the pot and cooked right there at the table. The cooked ingredients are ladled out into individual dishes and wolfed down. As the ingredients cook, the broth gets richer and more flavorful. While sushi isn't supposed to be wolfed down, this kind of food most certainly is.

In a typical restaurant, you and your kin may have wolfed down everything at your table besides the napkins, ladles, and plates. You're left to suffer moments of idle taste buds. You wait endlessly for a server to pass near your table to deliver more ingredients from a cart, or to take your order so you can wait some more. Waiting for food completely defeats the experience. The conveyor belt solves the problem of idle taste buds. Everyone grabs whatever they fancy as it passes by. It's a veritable belt-driven cornucopia.

Saigon has a chain of conveyor belt lẩu restaurants. To the best of my knowledge, it's a Vietnamese enterprise, although there is at least one affiliate restaurant in Singapore. We dropped in there for their fixed price, unlimited food buffet. I didn't know exactly what kind of restaurant it was until I recognized the simmering soup pots sunk into recesses in the table. Where we sat at the bar, each person got their own small pot. I ordered the mushroom. Mike and Lữ had the hot and sour. Our broths arrived, and once they reached a boil, we began to feed.

The conveyor belt brings the goods

When eating simmering soup, I find there's a certain order to the procedure. The first ingredients I grab are the things that cook the longest, like carrots and corn. Also, I like to grab things that give the broth good flavor, like chives, seaweed, and wafer thin slices of fatty beef. By this point, I'm ravenous, so I want something that cooks quickly and fills me up. I might hold a shrimp in the boil, long enough to cook through without turning to rubber. Same with squid. Then I'll throw in a nest of noodles. Once the noodles are perfect, I pick them out and place them in a bowl, and drizzle some broth on top. While I chew on that, I dump in dumplings, chuck in some chicken, or toss in some salady greens. Fish out some fish. Mash in some mushrooms. Egg an egg into the boil. Steak a claim on... well, you know where this is going. By the time I start feeling full, the carrots and corn are just about done. I wash the last few bites down with a bowlful of the richest broth in the world. Now that's a meal.

When you're sharing a hotpot, there are a couple common courtesies to follow. Keep your own chopsticks out of the communal pot. There will be a set of cooking chopsticks that you use to snag food. You can cook a small piece of food, like a shrimp or dumpling, by dipping it in the broth with your ladle; just don't bring the ladle to your mouth. When you pull your ladle out of the broth, make sure not to drip a trail back to your bowl. Try to match the pace of everyone who is eating. Be courteous about the ingredients; there might be a few, particularly shellfish, that other people don't want in the pot until the end. Finally, the simmering soup is a time consuming meal. You'll be there for a while. The point is to spend time eating with the family. And thanks to a conveyor belt, you can be sure you'll all spend more time eating together and less time waiting to eat.