Food review - hot spicy numbing soup

Okay. Hello dear friends. Good evening. Such a beautiful, beautiful evening. Friday evening and there is a new restaurant in town. Why not check it out? So this is called Zhang Liang Mala Tang. Zhang Liang is a person's name. I do not know the story. It seems like a chain restaurant. And Mala Tang, Ma is numb. La is spicy, hot, spicy, numb soup. It's a soup that is that you you drink it one sip and your whole body become like on fire. And they use special kind of chili pepper. It's not only spicy but also numb spicy. And it's it's firing spicy. It's just a very unique kind of of chili pepper. Dried chili pepper and and and deep fried so the oil is all red. And we went there. We I am in the mood of trying something new and my family told me there is a new restaurant. We have never tried. So we went there. And no surprise. So Mala Tang is a typical Chinese. I think he's from Sichuan. And then because in China or in anywhere in the world, if something runs well, it becomes everywhere. There is they have it. You get the idea, right? There is Hunan Mala Tang, Sichuan Mala Tang from everywhere. And it's beyond my knowledge to debate the origin of this numb, hot, spicy soup origin. It's beyond my knowledge to debate it. We just discussed this. And this is the pepper is Hua Jiao. Hua Jiao is actually not the same as pepper. It's not belong to the pepper family. But the size and shape is exactly exactly like pepper. And you grind it or you deep fry it. And it it has this numb feel. It it actually used for for for numbing for the dentist in the I think in China or it's one of the ingredients for the dentist because it numbs the medicine. Anyway, it's very delicious. So this restaurant is Mala Tang. They have this kind of sauce. How is this made is that they make a big bowl of soup. I think some use original just a plain soup and then put a lot of spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, star anise, cumin, curry, chili, anything you can name it. And ginger, onion, garlic, anything you can name it. And put all these into that big soup and and a lot of oil to boil a big soup because it covered with oil. So the heat does not get out. It becomes extremely hot. And I think some soups even put a bone soup and chicken stock and beef stock or pork stock, the bone stock and a big huge bowl of soup. And then there are all kinds of vegetables for people to choose. Usually when I was in Beijing or in other place, they make into a skewer, a bamboo stick and they put everything into the bamboo stick. Five fish balls, six pieces of tofu and seven pieces of a mushroom. And then stick together one piece of cabbage leaf and iceberg leaf, those kind. And there are many, many, many kinds. There are meats and meatballs, all these fish, shrimp, scallop and squid, everything you name it. Everything that is edible and the noodle, anything. And so we, so here this is a little bit different and it's actually by weight. They give you a huge bowl, the bowl as big as you make you make a cookie. That big bowl you blend the, or big salad, let's say a big huge salad. And you put whatever you choose. There is beef, there is lamb, no chicken today. And meatball, fish balls and fish cake. Let me try to remember. There are 10 kinds of vegetables and 10 or 20 kinds of meatballs and 10 or 20 kinds of noodles, rice noodle, tofu and meat. Anyway, so you get anything you like and everything is the same price. Meat and vegetable is the same price just by weight. You take anything you like and then go to the counter and they will weigh the vegetable or the meat, weigh that bowl. And you can choose soup. There is hot and spicy, num hot spicy soup. There is mushroom soup. I ordered mushroom soup because I know in the Chinese restaurant spicy means spicy. It's no joke, it's no joke. And there is tomato soup base, there is tom yum soup base, and there is also dried without soup, dry combined, combined. So we both ordered. My family ordered the spicy soup, too spicy for him. And I ordered the mushroom soup. So we put meat, vegetables. Oh, that's so good. That's so fun. Maybe one day we should do one time like this. Actually, at home we do it. We do it from time to time. When it is cold and when we are in a good mood, we eat it. And we always end up, oh, this is so satisfying. Always end up so satisfying. So it's so good. It depends on you. And this is something that you can decide. You can decide what to put in, you can decide whether it's spicy or not. And on the side, there are what we call it the condiments. There is sesame paste sauce, there is shrimp paste sauce, there is chili oil, coriander, cilantro, onion, garlic. What else? Chili pepper. Yeah. Oh, it is so good. Bye-bye, friends. I love you. I really do. Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do. Goodbye. Bye.