Shan Ding Lu

The weather is cooling down now and with the season change comes a change in the menu. The duck pond farms that have been plumping up the ducks over summer and now being emptied to fill households and restaurants with the delicious flavour of ginger duck hot pot.

This is a wonderful soup dish made by boiling large quantities of ginger in rice wine with pieces of duck, green vegetables, blood rice slice, mushroom and fungi of all sorts, tofu and anything else that might be handy. The pot sits in the middle of the table and is kept on the boil with a heating element, small stove or burning charcoal embers.

The ginger gives a lovely spicy bite to the meal, clearing the head and warming the stomach. It helps to have a beer or rice wine handy to make the meal a real pleasure.

There are a number of franchise restaurants that are suddenly filled as the cool weather arrives. This one we went to recently is still open air as it never gets too cold down south.

A rather nice touch is the coal based charcoal stoves that sit under each table. They keep the soup bubbling, warm the underside of the table and provide a very faint smell of sulphur. An oddly pleasant association with the hot pot experience.

A very enjoyable meal for when the weather turns cool.

Tags: Around Da Liao //