Hotpot: Sharing is caring

PHUKET: There are two ways to make your food taste better: eat it fresh and share it with friends.
There are few dishes out there fresher and easier to share than an Asian hotpot. To try the latest incarnation in Phuket, visit Karon Beach Square’s Orient Asia restaurant.

The concept of Karon Beach Square is based on a simple goal: to attract people who like good food and good fun. The guests of the Square not only have the opportunity to enjoy delicious food at one of its restaurants, but can also sip cocktails at the bar, dance the night away to the beach town’s hottest rhythms or even have a cup of coffee and a croissant at the Square’s Cafe Studio.

Introduced to the Square to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Orient Asia offers its own concept of the hotpot – one of the region’s most popular and fun-filled traditions.

Eating out is about treating yourself, doing something special.

The moment my selection of delectable meat, seafood, mushrooms and vegetables arrived at the table and landed next to a pot of boiling Tom Yum and chicken broth, I knew my company and I would never be able to finish all the food. And certainly not for a lack of trying.

First goes the meat, taking the longest to boil, as it releases its flavor into the soup. Seafood and mushrooms follow, giving the stew even more flavor and substance. The vegetables comes at the very end, together with noodles, ensuring that they don’t over-boil and become soggy.

It is difficult to comprehend how all of these elements play so well together, turning into a flavorful blend that’s difficult to describe, but very easy to gulp down.

All guests gathered at the table sharing the soup from the big, steaming pot in the middle. It’s hot, it’s flavorful, it’s delicious and – most of all – it’s fun.

After a while, things tend to get a bit messy at the table. A hefty shrimp falls with a splash into the sauce bowl, a piece of beef fails to make it into the soup pot and lands in the vegetable basket and mediocre chopstick skills result in some interesting gravy patterns on my shirt… but it’s fine.

By the time half of the soup in the pot is gone, everybody at the table is in a festive mood, planning to follow up the dinner with a round of cocktails at the Karon Beach Square’s Mint Bar. This is what good food and good company does to people. And it certainly is good.

For more information about Orient Asia restaurant, please visit karonbeachsquare.com

— Maciek Klimowicz