Combining British-style afternoon tea presentation — a hot pot you can enjoy all by yourself!

Photos and text byPurple Smile

Taiwan is perfect for hot pot all year round. In summer, eating hot pot helps sweat out the chill from air-conditioned spaces, while in winter, it’s the ultimate weapon for keeping warm!!! This time, I visited Hong Jiu Jiu Individual Hot Pot, which uses an ancient Sichuan secret recipe for its numbing-spicy broth — mildly spicy, pleasantly so. To be precise, it’s more numbing than spicy, making it ideal for enjoyment in any season. Plus, the setup of the restaurant is perfect even for solo dining!!!!

Upon being seated, the staff immediately handed me a fragrance-testing tube!!! This is a rather novel service, letting you sniff out which broth suits you best. Just catching the rich aromas of ingredients like Sichuan peppercorns~~ stimulates the senses, gets the saliva flowing, and whets the appetite right away. Haha, no need for appetizers when this works so well!!

In the highly competitive dining scene of the East District, where rents are sky-high, having a unique selling point is key to standing out. This Hong Jiu Jiu Individual Hot Pot offers an industry-rare single-portion hot pot experience, perfect for one person. Of course, it’s great for small groups of friends too.

Most hot pots emphasize spiciness, but before visiting this place, a friend told me their secret recipe is made with a blend of traditional Chinese herbs. The highlight? It’s numbing without being aggressively spicy, mild and easy on the stomach, and not overly stimulating or heating — no worries about spending half the next morning in the bathroom.

It was only after the staff pointed it out that we noticed the paper on the table indicates the recommended order for enjoying the meal: taste the broth first, then the meat slices, and vegetables last. Starting with the broth is brilliant!! It shows confidence in their own broth!!! You can tell the quality of the broth with just one sip, and serving vegetables last ensures the broth isn’t diluted.

You can order à la carte or choose set meals. There are two broth options: spicy or a yin-yang (double-flavor) combination. Set meals include Shu Chuan Hot Pot, Braised Shu Chuan Hot Pot, and Japanese-style Vegetable Hot Pot. Shu Chuan and Japanese-style cost 388 NTD, while Braised Shu Chuan is 488 NTD. The Shu Chuan set includes: a mixed vegetable platter, seafood combo, meat platter, and side dishes. The difference between Shu Chuan and Braised Shu Chuan is the addition of a braised meat combo (pork intestines, beef tendons, beef tripe). The Japanese-style Vegetable Hot Pot also has a mixed vegetable platter, seafood combo, meat platter, and side dishes.

Even if you’re dining alone, you can go for the yin-yang pot and enjoy both broths (spicy and Japanese-style) at once — super convenient!! And of course, you can adjust the spice level to your liking.

We ordered a yin-yang pot plus the Braised Shu Chuan set and added a la carte spicy hot pot!!

Important fine print: broth base, duck blood, and tofu can be refilled unlimitedly!!!

These are the à la carte options!! For set meals, it’s like the store’s pre-arranged “golden ratio” — no need to think hard, just enjoy the highlights. À la carte lets you pick whatever you like — meat lovers can go all out and order ten plates of meat if they want!!!

The set meal ingredients are presented in a British afternoon tea style, which is actually quite nice. Firstly, it looks good, and secondly, it saves space without overcrowding the table.

The spicy hot pot features duck blood and tofu in the pot!! The other side has a broth made from vegetables and fruits. As everyone knows, duck blood and tofu are essential elements of any good hot pot. The duck blood here is house-made, absorbing the flavors of the broth while staying delightfully Q and tender. The yin-yang pot’s broth, made from fruits and vegetables, has a sweeter taste, and by the end, after soaking up the essence of meats and various sides, it becomes even richer.

The first sip of the broth really gave a numbing sensation on the tongue but wasn’t very spicy, with the aroma of Sichuan peppercorns bursting through!! It’s not greasy either — warming you up nicely as it goes down in the winter!! So comforting!! The delicious broth is truly top-notch!!

This four-tiered plate has a mixed vegetable platter on the top layer

A mixed mushroom platter

A braised meat combo: pork intestines, beef tendons, beef tripe

The preparation of these ingredients looks quite labor-intensive. The pork intestines are prepared using white braising, with no fishy smell!! The beef tendons come from the hoof tendons, giving them a Q texture that’s soft but not mushy.

The meat platter features freshly sliced wagyu beef

For sides, we chose instant noodles (Prince Noodles)

À la carte clams

Hey, when eating hot pot, how can you miss out on youtiao (Chinese crullers)?

Fresh shiitake mushrooms

Squid paste + fish cake

These two may look simple, but one comes from the north and the other from the south. The fish cake is made from fresh, just-caught fish from Keelung, while the squid paste is crafted from carefully selected fresh squid from Qijin, paired with exclusive seasonings — no artificial additives at all!

Mushroom-filled meatballs

I heard this is also one of the top ten souvenirs from Hsinchu — the taste must be amazing.

There’s also the store’s highly recommended chicken thigh meat!!! This type of pork is raised using live probiotics instead of antibiotics, with seaweed and binchotan charcoal added to the feed, making the pigs much healthier. As a result, the meat is naturally sweeter and has almost no gamy taste!! I heard it’s so delicious that some customers have visited several days in a row just for this!!!

Whew, what a hearty meal!!!!

The slightly tangy dipping sauce and chopped scallions are also prepared by the store!!

Wow, as soon as this chicken thigh meat hits your mouth, it’s really bouncy and delicious!! The texture is amazing!!!! I was just thinking the store might be a bit overconfident earlier, talking big, but unexpectedly, after just a few seconds in the hot pot, the meat slices are truly scrumptious!! This slicing method and thickness are absolutely perfect for this chicken thigh meat.

The beef tendons in the braised platter are pre-prepared ingredients from the store. We accidentally cooked them a bit too long in the pot, but when we fished them out, the texture was still bouncy yet tender, smooth and delicious—amazing!!

Our favorite way to eat the youtiao (Chinese cruller) is to leave half of it crispy and let the other half soak up the broth. That way, it’s both crunchy and soft—absolutely top-notch texture.

The squid paste is also great, nice and chewy, and you can even taste bits of squid in it!

The wagyu with marbleized fat is also excellent!! Just a few quick swishes in the broth preserve its texture; if you cook it too long, it becomes tough!! And then it’s not as enjoyable.

The beef tripe is also very bouncy and elastic, plus quite easy to bite into, which shows the store really did a great job prepping the ingredients.

This meal was truly satisfying and joyful!!! The broth is absolutely unbeatable. Even the final leafy greens were lightly blanched to absorb the essence of the broth—refreshing and delicious.

Dessert: purple rice and red bean soup

Because the broth here is so popular with customers, they’ve also launched a base that customers can take home!! But then you wouldn’t get to enjoy the delicious chicken thigh meat!!!! Haha

They often run promotional events. Fans of the place should probably check their Facebook page for updates.

Hong Jiu Jiu’s individual spicy hotpot offers a solo dining option, allowing customers to enjoy the deliciousness of spicy hotpot even on their own. The strong aroma of Sichuan peppercorns brings a slight numbing sensation—this numbing but not overly spicy, or rather not very spicy at all, is truly a delicacy for the taste buds!

Hong Jiu Jiu Individual Spicy Hotpot
Address: No. 7, Lane 131, Yanji Street, Da’an District, Taipei City, Taiwan
Phone: 02 2772 3938
Business Hours: 11:30 AM – 1:00 AM
FB: https://www.facebook.com/red9999

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