TongRen SiJi Coconut Chicken 同仁四季 @ Shenzhen

They called this a hotpot from South East Asia, but we never have this in Singapore. And then they called it Hainanese, and again my Hainanese friends have no idea. But coconut chicken 椰子鸡 hotpot is very popular among the ladies.

The concept is exactly like hotpot, where everything is boiled in a broth or stock. In this case the stock is plain coconut water. You order from a list of fresh ingredients, from sliced meat, seafood and dumplings, to vegetables and noodles. The main condiments are chopped chilli padi which they called “heaven pointing chilli” 指天椒 in Chinese, and chopped galangal.

You dumped in the main ingredient of the stock, in this case fish maw and chicken, and then you wait for the time to run out before you start cooking the rest of your ingredients.

And then you add whatever you fancy. The stock is sweet (HORROR!!) and you need the soy sauce to get rid of that sweet filling. Because it’s sweet, I lost appetite quite quickly as I do not have a sweet tooth.