As the weather started to cool down lately, one of the things that came to mind was Hot Pot. With my confidant having fallen ill recently, I was further reminded that one of the best ways to target a cold is to eat spicy hot pot, which clears out the sinuses, headaches and makes you sweat a fair bit.
Wanting to try somewhere new after work, we headed to 100 Degree, which is situated on Brunswick Street in New Farm. Lucky for us, we made a reservation that night, because all the other tables were booked up as well.
Once we were seated, we were given a soup menu and told to order soup and pay at the counter. Aside from the four soups on the menu, their seasonal soup was tom yum.
We were each given a small little gas stove, which turned out to be really strong actually.
Crockery was pretty basic. Plastic made me a bit worried about it melting with the heat of the stove, but I could definitely appreciate why it was all quite small. We were really cramped for space after everything arrived.
We were fortunate that night, to have four people. Coincidentally, we all decided on a different type of soup, which meant I could try everything. My sick confidant had the Spicy Soup, not from his own volition but from my direction, which he acquiesced. So I commend him for that, and note that it did relieve him of quite a number of cold symptoms. When we were ordering soup, our friend picked out the 'mild' spicy soup for him. Its probably noteworthy at this point to say that even mild was quite spicy.
This was the satay soup. It was not as spicy as the spicy soup, but also quite enjoyable.
This was the mushroom soup, which I also tried a little bit of. I found it to be mildly sweet, which definitely isnt my kind of thing. But the end user definitely enjoyed it.
I tried the special soup, which was a clear meat broth, with bits of spring onion and tomato in it. I found it very nourishing and comforting, although it was considerably more mild.
In terms of cold drinks, there was mango and orange, wintermelon, and black tea. I opted for the mango and orange, it tasted a bit like cordial, though it was refreshing and cooling throughout the meal.
In terms of hot drinks, they have the regular tea and coffee, but I particularly liked the Chinese Tea. Specifically because we could choose how much leaves to infuse, we could adjust it to just the right strength. I found the quality of the tea to be relatively high, higher than what is available in a lot of the generic chinese restaurants places.
They the usual meats available, including chicken, beef, pork and lamb. I didnt pick lamb because lamb usually has quite a gamey kind of smell, which I dont appreciate, but the other three were quite nice. My favourite, as usual was the beef, and the chicken breast came out a bit dry.
An assortment of noodles and veges are also available.
As are the generic meat and seafood balls.
They also had the usual fish fillets, seafood sticks, tofu assortment as well as cheesy sausages.
The highlight of the meal was the seafood, there was prawns, pipis, mussells, crab and octopus, which was very popular and was snapped up pretty much right after it was served. I got a prawn and some pieces of crab. Lucky for me, I was able to convince my associate to peel all the shells for me. I found the texture of the flesh to be good, it was firm but not too hard, and it was really quite fresh.
There were a large range of condiments to choose from, I stuck with my usual soy sauce, garlic and sesame oil option. (Zingy and fragrant at the same time).
Here are a couple gratuitous shots of the hot pots bubbling away.
I finished off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping, whilst my companion had caramel topping. I was impressed that they used Peters Ice Cream, rather than the generic brands that other buffets use. It definitely made an impression.
Before drawing a conclusion to this post, I think it is probably only fair that I also mention that there was also a large range of cooked foods like dumplings and fried goods. We didnt touch them because we were preoccupied with the hot pot, but it is also included for the price.
I really liked the buffet at 100 Degree, for the price, we definitely got value in the variety and quality of hot pot ingredients. I enjoyed the fact that drinks and desserts were provided, because I have a tendency to get desserts after hot pot, it meant that I didnt need to go find it elsewhere.
Price: $28.80 per person
Taste: 8.5/10
Value: 8/10
Service: 5/10
Environment: 7/10
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