Crazy Pot - Crazy good hotpot!

The weather lately couldn’t be more appropriate for hotpot, but when I was put to the task of picking a Chicago hotpot restaurant, I couldn’t have been less optimistic. Having tried a few options in the past, I always seem to walk away disappointed; the Szechuan broth not spicy or complex enough, the mild not rich enough.

That was then. The days of picking between spicy, mild or both are long gone! A quick yelp search turned up Crazy Pot, a new restaurant on wentworth right next to Lao You Ju. Crazy Pot boasts 12 unique pots to choose from! There are 6 base soup options, and 6 “crazy pots” which are filled with pre-cooked ingredients. Take a look at this list!

“Soup Base For Hot Pot”
Congee Base - 5.95
Pork Bone, Preserved Egg, Tofu And Cilantro - 5.95
Spicy Soup Base - 7.95
Szechuan Spicy Hot Pot - 5.95
Thai Lemongrass -7.95
Non-Spicy Soup Base - 7.95

“Crazy Pot”
Macau Style Pork Bone Soup Pot - 19.95
Rice Wine Chestnuts And Chicken Pot - 22.95
Spicy Crab And Chicken Pot - 23.95
House Special Braised Water Duck Pot - 21.95
Traditional Wine Braised Rabbit Stew - 19.95
Tomato, Fish And Vegetable Soup Pot - 18.95


Between the 7 of us, in addition to a few side dishes we picked 2 basic soup bases, and 1 crazy pot. We chose the pork bone, Szechuan spicy and the House Special Braised Water duck pot. I think we picked well. With the richness of the duck pot, the SUPER ma la numbing-spicy szechuan pot and the mild and healthy bone stock, they all balanced each other nicely. Nobody's mouth got bored, that's for sure!

Szechuan Spicy Hot Pot
I asked the server not to skimp on the spice and peppercorns in the Szechuan pot just because we weren't Chinese, and boy did he listen. The Szechuan pot was something to be reckoned with.



House Special Braised Water Duck Pot
The Water Duck pot was probably a table favorite. I’m not sure exactly how “water duck” translates to English, but I’m tempted to believe it was perhaps a wild duck. The meat seemed a bit darker and perhaps gamier than most other duck would be. It had pieces of ginger, tofu skins, and what I thought were wood-ear mushroom, but other people thought tasted like chunks of wheat gluten. It’s still unclear. Whatever the case, it was an amazing soup.



Pork Bone, Preserved Egg, Tofu And Cilantro
The pork bone stock with cilantro was actually flavored with coriander seeds, not cilantro as we know it. It had floating pieces of preserved egg, and tofu. It was very similar to the Korean soup, sul lung tang, in that it was warming and nourishing without being overly salty or heavy.



Of course a hotpot isn't complete without the add-on items, ordered to be cooked in the hotpots. We got:

Frog

Someone at the table asked the staff if the frog was frog legs, and to that the server responded “no they are whole frogs, alive in the back”. Much to our relief, the frogs were killed, gutted and cut up before being presented. This may be the first time I have had fresh frog in Chicago, and it was well worth it. Frozen frog can lose a lot of quality in terms of texture. As fresh as it was, I am anxious to get back to try out some of the other 4 frog items I noticed on the menu!



Fish Paste Noodles (DIY at the table!)





Sliced Lamb (can be seen in the foreground here)



Leeks (more like green onions), tofu skin and baby napa



Water Cress



Not pictured is the beef tripe which we also ordered. All of the add on ingredients were fresh, bright and flavorful.

Deep Fried Dace Fish Ball - $4.95 for 6
These seemed really house made, since I’ve never encountered a frozen fish ball with such amazing flavor and texture. They were served piping hot. In fact they were so good we had to order a second! I forgot to snap a picture of these, so i stole this one from someone on yelp. thanks Marissa G!



Steamed Eggplant with dried fish in xo sauce - $9.95
Wow, so simple and refreshing. The dired fish added just the right texture and level of salt to compliment the cold refreshing steamed eggplant. I will definitely be ordering this again. As you see, they don’t skimp on the serving sizes here.



"Yakitori" $5.00 per 3 skewers.
As the server explained there was mistranslated on the menu, and before we ordered we were informed that they were in fact traditional Chinese style and not in any way trying to be Japanese. We ordered 3 lamb and 3 chicken skin. These were probably the best skewered meats I’ve had in Chinatown, and brought back fond memories of eating skewers on the street all over china. Served piping hot, the chicken skin was crisp on the outside without sacrificing too much substance. The Lamb was wasn't overly tender, but just enough texture that to me it was perfect. The flavors were spot on on both.



Spicy Lotus Root $2.95
Crisp, cold and refreshing with a little spice kick to them. This huge plate was under $3, what a steal! What you see pictured was after half of us already got a serving, It was a huge plate! This combined with the other side dishes and appetizers really has gotten me excited to come back just to try more of them.



Like how a great set of salsas can make just about any taco taste great, the many dipping sauces offered here took Crazy Pot to another level. I may get these labeled wrong, but from memory I think one was an oily shrimp (or fish) paste, another subtly sweet with sesame oil, another made of what I believe was anchovy powder. And the 3rd was i think soy sauce or vinegar with green onion, I don't remember, as I focused on the fishy ones!



There is also an AYCE option for $16.95 with a pretty extensive but limited menu. After all was said and done, the bill was $18/pp before tip, IMO it is well worth the extra $1 for the freedom to add those appetizers and get the duck pot.

If it wasn't obvious from my pictures and enthusiasm, I highly recommend this place, and can easily see it quickly becoming a board favorite! There was already talk around the table of organizing an LTH meal there very soon. I can’t wait to get back!

Take a look at how spicy this szechuan pot looks toward the end of the night once it starts evaporating!



Menupages

Crazy Pot
2002 S Wentworth Ave, Chicago, IL
(312) 225-8892 ‎

WOW! Great pics, you guys really look like you did it right.

I think a LTH event here is required.

As laikom stated above, it was really a fantastic meal and a good value. I definitely plan to return and try some of the other "crazy" pots (according to yelp and elsewhere I believe the Macau style pork bone soup comes with actual bones full of marrow in it and a straw to get it out).

laikom wrote:Take a look at how spicy this szechuan pot looks toward the end of the night once it starts evaporating!

‎

This was like drinking molten lava at the end but still super flavorful.

Dang...really bummed I couldn't make this. Looks like fun.

EDIT: agree with Zoid.

Evidently they offer a soup with the parasitic fungus, Cordyceps. I believe it's typically eaten in caterpillar form. Anyhow, if you really want to creep yourself out skip ahead to 1:20 on this video:

You're not kidding about the Szechuan spicy pot, two spoonfuls of that soup was enough to knock me on my ass. It was very impressive and entertaining watching laikom and fropones drink it down like mother's milk.

Agree that the water duck soup was very good. The broth was very rich, almost gumbo-like in texture. I wonder how they get the broth that way without using Western-style thickeners like roux.

laikom wrote:Evidently they offer a soup with the parasitic fungus, Cordyceps. I believe it's typically eaten in the caterpillar for.

That. is. freakin. awesome. A mycophile's (and entomophage's?) wet dream! Cordyceps mushrooms, the macabre stars of "Planet Earth", has medicinal properties discovered by fifteenth century Tibetan healers and is one of myco- guru Paul Stamets' six examples of how mushrooms can save the earth as a potential organic pesticide. Link below, jump to minute 13.

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

Was never aware that these could also star in gastronomy. Sign me up for the next hotpot!

Who's ready to eat some caterpillars with mushrooms sprouting out of their heads?? I am!

The event is up on the events board for Saturday at 7:30pm.

laikom wrote:I did a recon mission with Jefe this afternoon. The cordyceps weren't as extreme as we were hoping, no worms attached to the mushrooms, and quite a plain broth. The fish balls with clam sauce were amazing, even better than they were in memory! The frog was as fresh as could be. We got the szechuan pot, while plenty spicy, it wasn't quite as spicy or numbing (ma la) as the previous visit, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though was a bit on the salty side.

Alas, my initial excitement about the cordyceps soup was tempered by the underwhelming plainness of the actual product.

The cordyceps soup of my Bizarre Foods fantasies was inspired by this image from Wikipedia with silkie and seahorse:


But reality looked more like this:

petite_gourmande wrote:
I think this is the same stuff I grew up with, dried little ridged squiggles that we slow cook in nourishing soups. Doesn't have much taste other than what the Cantonese refers to as "golden" as in lingering metallurgic finish that resonates if you wish, similar to really good ginseng. Even after hours of braising, they retain bite of crunchiness, so we would painstakingly pluck them out of the sediments of a rich stockpot. Supposedly, they are good for us women, among many other "benefits". the good stuff can be Expenive, if I recall correctly. Never knew this interesting aspect though, very cool!

Noting like fresh frogs, so sweet and succulent with slight gooey gelatinous goodness. Can't wait to try those fish product (balls, DIY noodles, paste for DIY quenelles), if well done, the texture and seasoning provides the perfect Unami.

Very much the case with this soup. Chewy little shards with light umami. The soup was actually pretty good. One of those recipes designed more for its restorative properties than its assertive flavoring. And this makes sense considering its use in Chinese medicine. And before dinner yesterday I snooped around medicine shops in Chinatown and spied a rather good selection in that wonderful shop at the north end of the mall:


Check out that price tag! They had several varieties at different price points. Most, like in the picture had fully intact host caterpillars with little stems emerging from their heads. Some where tied together neatly in little sunburst formations. On the cheaper side were the mushrooms on their own sans host.
Very intriguing stuff for a myco- geek like myself!

And oh yeah, I echo laikom's report above of our recon mission. The fresh fried, texturally dynamic fish balls with pungent clam paste/ sauce were killer. I've never sampled frog this fresh- frankly the fishy, musty flavor of frog always turned me off in the past. Not the case at Crazy Pot, light, sweet and not fishy tasting at all. I will also add praise for the lotus appetizer which is wonderfuly crunchy and piquant. The hotpot was crazy salty.

This looks great! I am just about tired of keep going back to Mandarin Kitchen every time my friends want Chinese style hotpot.

I just got around to viewing this thread. OMG, the food looks amazing. I love lotus root, and at under $3 a plate, I can't pass it up. From my childhood, frog's legs have been a favorite of mine. The last time I ate them though, they were less than fresh, and it put me off of them. Looks like Crazy Pot will allow me to hop back onto the frog leg band wagon.

d4v3 wrote:From my childhood, frog's legs have been a favorite of mine. The last time I ate them though, they were less than fresh, and it put me off of them. Looks like Crazy Pot will allow me to hop back onto the frog leg band wagon.

A quick word of warning--it's usually the whole frog you get in Chinese food, not just the legs Funny to hear people talk about how fishy frog can be. I am not much of a seafood eater, but quite like frog. This is perhaps because I've almost exclusively had it in the context of Chinese food (Mainland and Stateside). At any rate, I'm eager to get here. I enjoyed Tao Ran Ju (which occupied this spot), but Crazy Pot appears to have upped its game a bit.

mtgl wrote:

d4v3 wrote:From my childhood, frog's legs have been a favorite of mine. The last time I ate them though, they were less than fresh, and it put me off of them. Looks like Crazy Pot will allow me to hop back onto the frog leg band wagon.

A quick word of warning--it's usually the whole frog you get in Chinese food, not just the legs Funny to hear people talk about how fishy frog can be. I am not much of a seafood eater, but quite like frog. This is perhaps because I've almost exclusively had it in the context of Chinese food (Mainland and Stateside). At any rate, I'm eager to get here. I enjoyed Tao Ran Ju (which occupied this spot), but Crazy Pot appears to have upped its game a bit.

It was indeed the entire frog, sans head or feet. I believe I'm eating it the traditional Chinese way by plopping a chunk in my mouth and extracting the bones, then spitting them onto my plate (in China they would go directly onto the table or street).

laikom wrote:It was indeed the entire frog, sans head or feet. I believe I'm eating it the traditional Chinese way by plopping a chunk in my mouth and extracting the bones, then spitting them onto my plate (in China they would go directly onto the table or street).

Are there other parts of a frog with enough meat? I thought frogs were mostly legs. I have never eaten the rest, but I am game.

When using a toothpick, the Chinese will conceal the operation with their free hand. I cannot imagine them spitting out frog bones in a restaurant.

mtgl wrote:A quick word of warning--it's usually the whole frog you get in Chinese food, not just the legs Funny to hear people talk about how fishy frog can be. I am not much of a seafood eater, but quite like frog. This is perhaps because I've almost exclusively had it in the context of Chinese food (Mainland and Stateside). At any rate, I'm eager to get here. I enjoyed Tao Ran Ju (which occupied this spot), but Crazy Pot appears to have upped its game a bit.

Well I do think there is a particular gamy flavor to frogs (edible reptiles such as alligator and snakes also have such gaminess). If I eat too many frogs, I get nauseated. Learned that the hard way as a child, as my mom used to cook frogs by the dozens. Chinese people call edible frogs "field chicken," which certainly lowers the shock value for the uninitiated. I didn't realize I was eating frogs until I was in elementary school.