By Lindsay Anderson

Special to The Post

 

I recently dined at Cattle Hot Pot on Alexandra Road - my last hot pot meal of 365 was shared by my buddies Ethan and Dana, and we truly feasted.

The restaurant is comfortable and cool – they really crank the air-con!

They also emphasize thoughtful ordering and discourage food waste, which I liked.

We decided to split the pot between free range chicken broth and spicy Szechuan, then ordered our little hearts out.

For $18.95 each (all you can eat), we had:

• Beef balls, pork balls, two kinds of dumplings, and black fungus,

• Sliced beef rib-eye and sliced lamb

• King oyster mushrooms

• Mussels, pumpkin, and taro

• Lettuce (which I discovered I LOVED cooked in broth!)

• Watercress, and Chinese spinach

Greens cooked in the hot pot are such a nice way to finish the meal.  We also had udon noodles, which were wonderful when tossed in a mixture of our various condiments.

The broth was very tasty, and the quality of all the ingredients was good.

One thing to note, however, is that you pay extra for all of your condiments and sauces, so if your favourite thing about hot pot is perusing a free condiments bar, you’ll have to go elsewhere!

I felt very satiated by the end of our meal, and Ethan took this awesome photo of the aftermath.

We thought it looked epic and artistic, and we dubbed Dana – the messiest of the three of us – the Jackson Pollock of Hot Pot.

 

Lindsay Anderson is dining out at 365 Richmond eateries in 365 days for Tourism Richmond. The Asian Pacific Post is featuring excerpts from her blog each week. See www.365daysofdining.com for Anderson’s blog.

 

 

Cattle Hot Pot

8391 Alexandra Road, Richmond  |  604-248-4345

Cash only

Vegetarian and vegan options available

 

 

Big Crazy Discount Store

4955 No. 3 Rd, Richmond

 

After we left the restaurant and were headed back to Lansdowne, we couldn’t help but have a peek in The Big Crazy Discount Store.  Over the last year the questions “is it really THAT big?  Is it really THAT crazy?” have been plaguing me. 

Well, now that I’ve seen the inside, I would call it big, but maybe only a little crazy - and mainly because they had Borsch-flavoured potato chips.

There were thousands of products, including big bags of bonito flakes, sauces/oils/vinegars galore, drinks, noodles, dried squid, literal bucket-loads of rousong, and mock beef jerky next to almond roca.  I still love going into these stores in Richmond, because there’s always something new to find.