Er Hot Pot 6th Avenue Hot Dinner

Er Hot Pot 6th Avenue is a spanking new Midtown Manhattan hot pot eatery. The restaurant with lots of neon and oversized lanterns is offering tradition hot pot where visitors choose from a long list of ingredients that is placed in a cauldron with choice of up to two broths ranging from fiery to mild.

While is not as large as some other places you would find around the city or in Flushing, it was nevertheless a pleasant surprise. After putting in the reservation online, there was another stage of waiting upon arrival. Like all other restaurant in the city during peak hours, there was a wait but it wasn’t too bad. We were able to seat in a corner where they gave us an extra seat to make it work.

Out of all the hotpot places I have been too in NYC, so far this is one of the top 2 or 3 places. The food is delicious as usual, the service is nice and friendly.

They serves meat and even have vegan options available. Proteins include everything from Ox Aorta and Fresh Pig Kidney to Boneless Duck Feet, Tongue, Baby Octopus and Fresh Cut Beef, among others. That is matched with a long list of veggies for dunking into broth, including Lotus Root, Baby Cabbage, Bamboo Fungus, Enoki & Shiitake Mushrooms, Potato Glass Noodles and more.

Some items that stood out were the entrails - offals, innards, pig blood cakes.

Those were very good. Soup base was half and half - preferred the pork bone broth. We can get better mala (numbing spicy pepper) and sweet sour vegetable (kiam chye) soup bases in Asia.

Ultimately hotpot is an orchestra of the freshest ingredients. I figured hotpot restaurants in America would have access to the best produce and it didn’t disappoint. The seafood were all A+.

The sauces- similar to what we get in Asia (mix your own), but the mala was more legit - I was told the ones we get are watered down. Meaning, the numbing factor is real!

Everyone spoke China Chinese in Er Hot Pot. It was evident by their slang.

All the better - hotpot originated in Chongqing. So these guys are legit. Funnily enough, we found out that Er Hot Pot was from Szechuan

That makes it totally legit - if you’re a hotpot purist like me.

My sisters have been telling me that you can get by without speaking a single word of English in New York. The immigrant enclaves - Asian, Hispanics, Koreans, Italians all have avenues and towns and streets named after them, eg K-Town.

Of these immigrant ethnicities, the Chinese have flourished most - there are other bigger C-towns outside of NYC Canal Street eg Flushing.

Given such numbers, the cooking standards (to survive) obviously has been increasing over the years. And Er Hot Pot 6th Avenue is one of latest incarnations of hotpot sorcery in New York!

Side note - I noticed price of living in Singapore has surpassed that of New York’s. Rentals, food prices are slightly cheaper in New York than in Singapore.

For 4 pax it came up to USD180 and we had our fill. Platters and platters of pork, mutton, and premium seafood. For a similar experience in Singapore, eg Imperial Treasure steamboat - that would easily set us back USD250-300.

What I love about the hotpot experience is that it can be as simple as a pot of boiling water with Japanese konbu (sukiyaki), to the explosion of flavours from the Chinese - mala spices and chillies and all sorts of numbing agents.

And we have our SouthEast Asia offerings somewhere in between. Where there’s an East Asian community, there’s hotpot!

Hotpot binds families and friends together. It’s probably what the West would describe as the epitome of communal food sharing!