Eating with Trang's Mum- Sweet and Spicy Vietnamese Hotpot (Lau)

Today my mum asked me to write a post on the dinner we had.
Not as much 'asked' as blackmailed me into writing a post on the dinner we had. No post=No new camera, which I desperately need, judging from the quality of my pictures- which I had been so very close to deleting. Trang's mum came to our house today to help with the hotpot or 'lau'.

Trang! Your mum and I say hi :)

Ok- to the hotpot!

Well basically, we throw vegetables (in this case- enoki mushrooms and lettuce) meat (in this case- beef), fish (in this case- wels catfish), shrimp, tofu etc. into this giant pot filled with sweet and spicy broth. It's a traditional vietnamese dish, and it's really great shared with family and friends!

All the things above were thrown into the steaming pot, then taken out and ready to be eaten by me, my parents, my brother and Trang's mom.

 The first time I sipped the broth, it was so spicy that I started coughing and making these very attractive  sounds. It was insanely spicy, but after a while, I got used to it (with the help of around 10 glasses of water). The whole meal itself was very flavorsome and hearty. Something you would eat after a day spent out in the cold. Out of all the things we dropped in, I liked the enoki mushrooms the most, which were very soft after being taken out of the pot and almost sweet, to be honest. Everything else was amazing too, but this stood out, perhaps because we don't have it very often.

As a side note, if you're wondering how the hotpot works, it's a pot that you can take off (to make the broth and so on) then, when you're about to eat, you put it on a special heater, which we couldn't really figure out, seeing as we didn't know Japanese.

p.s. I changed the layout, if you like it or dislike it, or have any suggestions, do tell me!