Hello my loves,

One of the things I love about Sydney is the array of different experiences on offer here, many of which have the ability to make you feel like you’re somewhere else. On Wednesday, I indulged in just that kind of afternoon, with a trip to Haidilao, a Chinese hotpot restaurant in Chatswood. I’m an absolute sucker for an interactive food experience, and Haidilao delivers that in spades, alongside being super delicious and seriously so much fun. And you know what’s really great? Having fun!!! Something for which one might say there have been rather less opportunities than usual over the past couple of years, but fear not: we have Haidilao.

On arrival we’re tucked into a booth whose table features the sunken vessel that will hold and heat our hotpot broths. The incredibly friendly staff furnish us with full-body aprons along with an explanation of how it all works, and an iPad from which we order. Firstly, you select up to four different broths to enjoy. You then order anything and everything you’d like to cook in them from a gorgeous array of options including meat, seafood, veges, tofu, dumplings and noodles. You can also order accompanying dishes like sticky rice cakes and mantou buns (with which I am now obsessed - more on those later). You tap it all into the iPad, and a few short moments later, it all starts to happen.

Huge kettles of broth arrive and are poured into our table-top cauldron (we chose two flavours - extra-super-spicy chilli, and non-spicy mushroom). The broth-serving gentleman fires up our cauldron's heat with a practised flick of his wrist, and the deep pots start to bubble and simmer in the most mesmerising of ways. I probably would have paid just to sit there and watch the chillies and mushrooms swirl elegantly in their rich broths, but there was much, much more to come. As our food selections appear, we’re furnished with all the hotpot ware we could ever need: long tongs for lowering items into the broth, solid and slotted ladles for fishing things out, a myriad of plates and bowls, and plenty of tissues for brow-mopping (although this doesn’t have to be a spicy time if you’re not into that - the mushroom broth was not spicy at all and there are plenty more options that do not feature chilli).

And then there is the condiment bar. I’ve never seen such an abundant selection of sauces, toppings and sides in all my days. This thing is loaded with every single option you could ever want to accompany your hotpot. The idea is to take the small bowls provided and mix your own dipping sauces, along with loading up on other accompaniments like pickles, fried soy beans, marinated black beans and many, many more. To say I was a kid in a candy shop is the understatement of 2022 thus far. Back at the table, we start to cook, lowering thinly sliced wagyu, Chinese cabbage, noodles and squid into our broths. They cook in a trice and we fish them out, ladling them into waiting bowls, topping liberally with pickles and sauces, and getting everything into our mouths, which triggers moans of glee from my end of the table. It’s so good. As I alluded to earlier, we’ve ordered a couple of non-dipping items: sticky rice fish cakes and mantou buns. These are both exceptional, with a particular piece of my heart belonging to those mantou. They’re crisp on the outside, soft and pillowy in the middle, and served with condensed milk. It may sound unusual to be enjoying a sweet condensed-milk dipping sauce in the middle of a savoury meal, but this turned out to be the absolute perfect foil for the spiciness of the hot pot. Sometimes an unusual combo like this just works, and this combo definitely works.

*The mantou and sticky rice fish cakes are nestled next to our fiery broth* 😍

But it’s not just delicious and very fun food that’s on offer at Haidilao. Oh no. There’s so much more. Firstly, you can order ‘dancing noodles’, which are pulled at your table by a deft and skilled attendant. From Thursday to Sunday you can have a free in-house manicure in between rounds of hotpot (I am not kidding, they really do this), and there are also roving Chinese opera performers providing entertainment as you dine. For bonus points, there’s a free photo printer where you can print happy snaps of your hotpot experience. And apparently they also have a robot!!! Who was not on duty while we were there but I believe does provide some of the table service during certain shifts. As we leave, we’re given a complimentary pot of their tomato broth base, which we’ve been enjoying at home ever since.

This was honestly such a fun and delicious experience, and I will definitely be returning for more hotpot, a manicure and hopefully an encounter with the robot! I have one tiny word of caution, which is that when they say spicy, they mean it. We ordered the spiciest possible broth, as we’re both heat-fiends and are rarely bested by any level of chilli. However, Haidilao’s kind of hot almost bested me, and next time I’d probably order the next level down in terms of spice. I highly recommend you book if you’re planning to go as they do get very busy (I think you may need to book for the manicures also but I will leave those logistics to you).

And so my loves, I’m sailing into the weekend still dreaming of noodles, spice and pillowy sweet mantou. I’ll be spending my time with wonderful friends who we haven’t seen for ages, and I’m so looking forward to it. I hope your weekend also features plenty of opportunities for some summer fun. Until next week my loves 💛

Love, Rachel xxx