Dolar Hot Pot Shop, Shanghai

I love steamboat especially so when the weather is cold. It is so comforting sitting around a hot stove surrounded by family and food. 

This is one of  Dolar chain stores that serves steamboat which in Shanghai, is called hotpot. The difference between this hotpot restaurant to the rest is that here each patron has the choice of his/her soup base which is served individually in a small pot with it's own small stove. Cool. Put in whatever your heart's desire and create a soup that is uniquely you. 

Seafood soup which actually has two baby hairy crabs about the size of a spoon. My choice, obviously.

A sour soup with preserved veggie, hum choi, Leanne's choice, obviously.

Heather had the mushroom soup which looked very yummy too, San San and hubby had mushroom and seafood too. 

This was also one of the very few places in China that I was told I could not take pictures but I managed a few stolen shots when the waitress was out of sight. Please excuse the

rather shoddy images as I had to snap quickly from where I sat. It was a pity as I only managed pictures at our own table and wasn't brave enough to venture to the sauce station where the culinary happenings were. The sauce station is where you, as a chef for the night, go to concoct a designer's, one-of-a-kind dipping sauce from an immense (sooo many, tooo many) variety of condiments. I was like a child in a candy store...didn't know where to start at first but once got started, couldn't stop...:p. My first sauce turned disastrous as I got too greedy and piled on everything. The good thing was, you could start all over again until you get the prefect sauce to complement your hot pot.  

Too impatient, added too many ingredients at one go and the slice of beef landed in a cold soup :O

One pot each, a tableful of food and a night of total indulgence.