For the broke college student who loves good grub...

I struggled with where to start. So rather than begin with an extravagant or completely unexpected food, I'm starting with something basic, seemingly boring, but ultimately completely addicting.

This food is 麻辣烫 (ma4la4tang4).

It is but a bowl of veggies, meats, and noodles, hand picked by the consumer, cooked in broth by the chef, and dowsed with sesame paste and maybe some hot pepper oil if you so please. Basically, malatang is hotpot made simple and cheap.

Malatang restaurants are almost exclusively hole in the wall restaurants. When you find one you will know it by the wall of raw ingredients and the cheap stools and tables filling the *usually* rundown joint. There will be a stack of metal bowls and a hook with metal tongs so you can go down the line and pick out the foods you want in your bowl. Usually the options consist of some green veggies, like spinach and cabbage, and then broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, mushrooms, rice cakes, melons, meat balls, fish balls, little sausages, tons of noodle options, and my personal favorite, lotus root.

Once you fill your bowl, the laoban weighs your food and then sends it back to be prepared in a cylindrical basket that is dunked into a giant pot of boiling broth. Make sure to tell them if you want it spicy or nah, because the spice can kick your tail if you aren't prepared for it! The completed bowl of malatang comes out in a nice broth with a spoon of sesame sauce on top.

And the best part...it usually costs between $2 and $3 (depending on how much you load into your bowl!)! Can you beat that price?? I would live at a malatang restaurant if it existed this way in the U.S.! Alas, malatang will probably only ever make it State side as a hipster fusion cuisine or a classed up food truck food.

Balla bowl: spinach, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice cakes, bailuobuo (the clear melon), broccoli, cauliflower, lotus root, and a nice clump of noodles. Extra spicy! And I am no meat eater but Mom will forever vouch for the meat balls and little sausage links.