Chinese Juchunyuan in Colpetty is one of the few places in town to try out Chinese hotpot. The catch, however, is that if you don't add the right ingredients, you'll basically end up drinking broth. On the flipside, it can also be excellent should you make it right.

The Food

When we first tried out the hotpot at Juchunyuan about a year back, we kinda' hated it, but that was partly due to our inexperience when it came to hotpots. The food here is definitely an acquired taste and any local planning on dining here should be willing to try something very much different from the food we generally get at other Chinese eateries. They do offer fried rice and side dishes but everyone seems to come here for the hotpot. Prices are quite affordable with the hotpot easily enough for four people.

It starts off looking like this, which is pretty much broth.

They have a whole bunch of different options when it comes to choosing your soup, which can be a bit confusing for those (like me) who aren't very familiar with the procedure. After some deliberation, we decided to go with the half chicken soup (Rs. 600) with fish balls (Rs. 366). In retrospect, we should probably have gone for a different soup since the boiled chicken in the one we got, was all but tasteless.

One thing to note though, is the fact that these fish balls were not actually balls of fish meat, rather something they import which has an interestingly fishy flavour and an almost gelatinous texture.

Along with the soup they bring you a few ingredients - chopped cilantro, chili tofu, chili paste, soy sauce, chopped garlic and an interesting peanut sauce. This is actually where all the flavour of your hotpot comes from. The waiter will make a sort of paste using all the ingredients, but then he'll bounce and leave you guessing.

After playing around a bit we found that adding said paste to the hotpot really makes a world of difference when it comes to the flavour. We did so judiciously since we didn't want the flavours to be overpowering. Once we hit a good balance, we were left with quite a tasty soup with a bit of heat from the chillies, cilantro aroma and saltiness from the soy sauce. We added the paste to the steamed rice, and even that tasted good.

Just to cover all the bases, we went ahead and got the pork and mushroom casserole (Rs. 646) which tasted pretty good with a slightly thick gravy and very flavoursome black mushrooms, although it could have had less veges and more pork.

Ambience & Service

Juchunyuan is pretty much the definition of ghetto Chinese. The ground floor dining room bares a striking resemblance to a washroom, complete with bathroom tiles. What's great though is that everyone that dines here seems to embrace the ambience. So yeah, this certainly would not qualify as fancy. They've also got a tiny ancient TV in there as well, playing black and white Sinhalese films, which creates a very apparent mismatch between the clientele and entertainment.

They've got one local waiter, who was friendly though with a very limited attention span. Besides that the food was prepared quite fast, so we didn't find ourselves getting angsty.

Conclusion

Chinese Juchunyuan is not for everyone, and there's a good chance that their hotpot may not appease local palates. However, if you're really looking to try something new, this may be just the place you're looking for.