Livin' In The Chonx

Do you like Hot Pot? Do you like spicy food? In Chongqing these are the most frequently asked questions of all time (or at least top 5). And with good reason, if you like these two things you will love Chongqing. For those who have never been to Chongqing before, here Hot Pot (Huo Guo-火锅) means sitting around a large boiling pot of oil, chili peppers, and Chinese prickly ash (the mouth numbing spice that makes every dish in this region complete). Plates of raw food come to the table and you cook it in the pot. After dipping the cooked morsel in your own personal bowl of oil, fresh garlic, and seasoning, it’s ready to eat. What makes Hot Pot interesting (or repulsive, depending on your take) is when foreigners get to see up close and personal what locals choose to order. Local favorites include cow stomach, duck intestines, gelatinous cubes of blood, and even pig brain. Needless to say, the Hot Pot experience tends to be completely different if you are just out with other foreigners, there are plenty of more prosaic items on the menu if you just know how to read it. As a measure of how popular Hot Pot is in Chongqing, imagine how many Starbucks per square mile there are in Seattle, then triple or quadruple that number and you may start approaching the number of Hot Pot restaurants in this city. And when you are strapped for cash meet the little brother of Hot Pot, Chuan Chuan (串串, lit. kabob-kabob). These are the small, typically outdoor eateries where you choose from shelves of uncooked kabobs, and then return to your table to cook them in a pot like Hot Pot. Both Hot Pot and Chuan Chuan are not recommended for the faint of stomach. More general tips and recommendations here.

Of course, Hot Pot isn’t the only thing to be had in Chongqing. Thanks to the local fondness for spice, no matter where you go or what you have, it’s almost guaranteed to not be bland and tasteless. The following section offers some recommendations for where and what to eat, with a wide range of taste buds in mind. Choose your price range* and go from there. If you can read Chinese, check out this popular online dining guide. (You can copy and paste any of the restaurants listed here into the search to find out where all the locations are!)

Budget (15 RMB or less/person)
Mid-Range (15-30 RMB/person)
Top End (30 RMB or more/person)
Coffee/Refreshments/Dessert

Tip: If you’re worried about the spice you can usually ask the chef to put less in. Just say “Shao Fang La Jiao-少放辣椒” (put less pepper) or “Wei La-微辣” (less spicy)

*Prices for food are steadily increasing, so get here while it’s still cheap!