Vegetarian in Taipei -- Mala Hotpot 小心上瘾

This is a vegetarian hotpot buffet. I've tried this the first time I was in Taipei and I wanted to tried it again.

The restaurant is at Nanking East Road. It had shifted to a new location and it took me a while to find it as it is in an alley off Nanking East Road.

The Mala soup is not the same as the Mala soup you get in Sichuan. It is not as spicy hot, not numbing and not oily -- the mala soup you get in Sichuan is all of that.

The waitress told me the soup is with stewed with many herbs and ginger and indeed, the herbal taste does come across very strongly. The soup is supposed to have health benefits. Well, it seemed that it is popular enough that the restaurant sell just the soup for take away!

They provide the option of half mala soup and half vegetable soup or just non-spicy vegetable soup.

The selection of ingredients includes tofu, various greens, mock meat balls and different type of noodles.

As part of the buffet, they served a plate of konyaku with wasabi which I didn't particularly like. But they served a noodle dish tossed in Chinese Toon (香椿) that is very delicious. They also served a deep fried "chicken drumstick" which is a whole king oyster mushroom deep fried.

Desert was available as six flavors of ice cream.

At the end of the meal, they served a small shot of fruit vinegar. I like the vinegar very much and bought a bottle of it.

The bill was NT400 plus 10% service charge. (I had lunch. I think dinner is NT450.) Comes up to less than S$20 per person. Considering that you can have a hotpot buffet for NT110 in some Ximending restaurants, this is pricey by Taipei standards. But the steamboat buffets often cost more than that in Singapore (there aren't that many in the first place).

The name of the shop is 小心上瘾 (Addiction Hazard). You to need at least 2 person to start a pot. However, I saw that they do serve noodles for individual orders, ranging from NT40 - NT100.

Nice environment

The ingredients are kept in the fridge.

Mala hotpot

Noodles tossed with Chinese Toon. 

I really like this.

香椿面

Fried Chicken Drumstick (King oyster mushroom)

Grape vinegar

Shopfront

Their website:

http://www.sssy.com.tw/

台北市松山區南京東路五段61之3號

Taipei Nanking East Road, Section 5, number 61.

The location is a little out of the way. But an new MRT line passing through Nanking East Road is near completion. It will be more convenient after the MRT start running.