# Hot pot

Author: Zhenzhao Tu

I grew up in Guangdong. The family is Chongqing. This is a known conflict. Guangdong wants the food to taste like itself. Chongqing wants the food to argue with you. At a table I am not a diplomat.

Proper hot pot, for me, is a well of oil that has been convinced to carry chili, Sichuan pepper, and enough other things that the first spoonful is a fact, not a suggestion. Numbness is not a side effect. It is the point. If the broth is “spicy” in the American way — a red color that does not follow you home — it is soup.

Seattle has tried. I have also tried, which is not the same as succeeding. If you know a place that does not apologize for the heat, you should [tell me](/contact/). I will take the recommendation more seriously than most emails about neural networks, which is saying something.

This page exists so that the word [hot pot](/) on the homepage has somewhere to go. It will probably stay this short. Some subjects do not improve with theory.