PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT SUCHMAN
Dining Candy Sagon
the restaurant’s helpful and amazingly patient staff is happy to get you started. (On our first visit, our saintlike waitress ended up preparing half of the dinner for us, worried that we’d overdo the meat or undercook the dumplings.) Uncle Liu’s was opened
in March by Liu Chaosheng, owner of Hong Kong Palace in Seven Corners, who wanted to re-create the hot pot restaurants popular in his native Sichuan province. His new venture is tucked into a shopping center between the gigantic Great Wall Asian supermarket and a large Gold’s Gym. It draws a diverse clientele for its 40-item lunch buffet and lots of multi- generational Chinese families for the hot pots at dinner. Although restaurants serving
Hot, and in more W
Chinese hot pot are a rarity in this area, this style of eating has existed in Asia for more than 1,000 years. Some say it started in Mongolia and spread to China; others claim it began in China’s Sichuan province with a chili-laden broth known for its incendiary spiciness. No matter; today nearly every region of China has its own style of hot pot.
Fans of Liu’s Hong Kong
ways than one Uncle Liu’s showcases popular pots
hen I don’t feel like cooking, I go out to eat. When I do feel like cooking but want
someone else to do the prep work and cleanup, my new routine is to go to
Uncle Liu’s Hot Pot in Falls Church. At Uncle Liu’s, friends and I can cook our dinner at the table,
dunking a variety of meats, seafood, tofu, vegetables and noodles in a big bowl of broth simmering on a portable tabletop burner. Each of us can also customize individual bowls of sauce in which to dip the cooked ingredients. It’s healthful, delicious and a fun way to share the cooking chores. And if you are unsure what to order or look as if you’re
fumbling around with the chopsticks once the broth is delivered,
Palace, which, name aside, focuses on Sichuan cuisine, will recognize some of the dishes on the regular menu at Uncle Liu’s. There’s also a whiteboard out front on which specials are written in Chinese. If you want to try the hot pot, let the hosts know as you arrive; they’ll steer you to the larger tables that can accommodate the burners and will give you the separate hot pot menu. The setup is fairly simple:
You have your choice of five basic kinds of broth bowls. The most popular is a mild, opaque chicken-based broth simmered (Continued on Page 28)
★ ★ (Good)
Uncle Liu’s Hot Pot 2972 Gallows Rd., Falls Church. 703-560-6868.
OPen: Daily 11 a.m. to midnight. Major credit cards. Free parking lot.
Price: Lunch buffet $8.25 weekdays, $10.95 weekends. Lunch and dinner entrees $6.95 to $20.95. Hot pot prices: Mild or spicy broth $6; combination $8; mushroom $10; fish $20.95. Added ingredients from $2 to $10 each.
SOUnd cHeck: 75 decibels / must speak with raised voice.
Tom Sietsema chats live at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays. Join him and find videos, blog posts and more at washingtonpost. com/
tomsietsema. July 18, 2010 | The WashIngTon PosT MagazIne 27
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