Mr. Meat Hot Pot and Butchery
I’d never been a fan of hot pot until several years ago, when a friend in Taipei introduced me to fermented cabbage hot pot at a restaurant called Lao Zhou. Eighteen months ago Han Chen, a native of Taichung, on the country’s Western coast, who managed Lau Zhou for his uncle, struck out on his own and opened Mr. Meat, where he melds a passion for fermentation and a reverence for Taiwan’s “grannies” (Chen’s term for small producers of traditional ingredients) with a pure love of meat.
“Fermented ingredients have sourness without acidity and combine well with meat,” he said. “The fat smooths the ferment while the ferment brings out the meat’s sweetness.” Diners choose from a selection of broths made with seasonal ferments (cabbage in autumn, garlic in winter, kimchi in spring, tomato in summer). The individually sized hot pots come preassembled, ready to cook at personal burners.
Fermented garlic soup sounds stinkier than it tastes; on a cool December day it was salve for the soul, bracing, reviving, appetising. Packed with vegetables (taro, bamboo, radish, white cabbage), bean curd three ways (skin, frozen, preserved), meatballs, dumplings and flavourings like red dates and wolfberries, it made a fine base for a selection of thinly sliced meats.
Taiwan produces little beef or lamb, so Chen imports some red meats from Europe, the United States and Australia. But there’s also gamy cherry duck (a Taiwanese breed), gui ding chicken (tastier than your average bird) and Taiwanese black pork. It would be unwise to pass on a side order of Granny’s Braised Carrot Minced Meat, an insanely luscious pork ragu made according to a recipe provided by Chen’s grandmother-in-law, served over rice.
Before opening his restaurant Chen travelled Taiwan in search of exceptional ingredients. In Meinong, a centre of Hakka culture, he found a husband and wife making tofu skin with soy milk heated over a wood fire; in Tainan, a woman making fine fish dumplings filled with pork. Some are named on the menu, like Master Wu of Tainan, a classical painter-turned-fermentation specialist.
“I see the restaurant as a platform. I love the ingredients and I want you to know who made them,” Chen said. “Make the grannies happy, make the grannies proud.”
Mr. Meat Hot Pot and Butchery, rear entrance No. 85 Lane 31, Dunhua South Road Section 2; 886-2-2703-5522; www.mrmeat.co. Average meal for two is NT$1,800.