Eating Haidilao Alone

I've done a lot of things alone: eating, watching movies, traveling, looking at the sea, moving house. I've spent plenty of my life on my own, but I don't think I'd ever eaten a hotpot meal by myself.

Thinking about why, there are two main reasons. First, I lived in Chongqing for over ten years, a place where hotpot is the calling card. I've eaten hotpot countless times since I was a kid, always with friends or family. Hotpot is, by nature, a group of people gathered around one pot, so people subconsciously feel you have to go with several others.

Second, I don't actually love hotpot. I don't dislike it, and I don't hate it either. If a friend gathering insists on it, I usually pick a hotpot place that serves egg fried rice. The reason I'm not a fan is that I don't find it all that tasty. The flavor is mostly spice plus whatever dipping sauce you mix yourself, and apart from beef and lamb, most of the ingredients are organ meats like tripe and duck intestine. I'm not very fond of those, so I never eat hotpot on my own, and I never suggest it when I invite people to eat.

So I'd never eaten hotpot alone, but I didn't think that was worth noting.

Then the day before yesterday I read a post by Liang Mouyin. He'd gone to eat Chaoshan hotpot by himself and written about the experience, and I found it really interesting.

So yesterday, a weekend with nothing to do, I went to the Haidilao near my place to try eating hotpot alone too.

Why Haidilao? Simple. It has a wider choice of broths. I didn't want the usual beef tallow red broth. Too oily, too spicy, too heavy.

Before going, I was actually a little nervous, because nothing I'd done alone before was as deliberate as this. I was going to eat hotpot alone on purpose.

I walked in feeling nervous. It was only when I sat down and started ordering my broth and dishes that the nervousness faded and I became calm. I think a big part of that change was the strangeness wearing off. In the past, I'd always walked into a hotpot place with one or two other people. We'd talk, discuss what to order, and go get our dipping sauces separately. Eating alone is different. You sit and order, and nobody says a word to you. You have to think it through yourself. It goes against everyday habit, so it feels strange at first. But by the time I sat down and actually started ordering, the strangeness was already slowly disappearing.

Because I found it wasn't as special as I'd imagined. It felt about the same as walking into any restaurant to eat.

In the end I ordered a pork tripe and chicken soup broth, and put it together with three clear broths in a four-section pot, which is the cheapest way.

Then I ordered Haidilao fried rice, fried milk, a kids' set, a plate of sliced lamb for hotpot, and a serving of hand-pulled noodles.

For my dipping sauce I used the recipe I've used for over ten years: garlic + scallions + cilantro + sesame oil + oyster sauce + bird's eye chili.

As for the eating itself, the obvious difference between eating hotpot alone and with others is that nobody talks to you.

I dropped my dishes into the pot bit by bit and ate them bit by bit. In between, I went to the sauce bar and grabbed some fruit and spicy snacks.

I have to recommend the kids' set. It has luncheon meat, fish, quail eggs, noodles, and lettuce, so it's very well balanced. By the end I was stuffed and regretted ordering so much. And then the server brought me two little cakes from somewhere, and I couldn't eat a bite of them.

So yes, the problem with eating hotpot alone is that you easily order too much without noticing and end up overstuffed. With two people, ordering goes better, because splitting it evenly at least keeps you from overordering.

In the end, eating alone cost me 125 yuan. My stomach felt completely full. I can't believe how Liang Mouyin managed to eat over 200 yuan of food at Haidilao by himself.

And with that, I'd done one more thing alone.

Really, eating hotpot alone isn't very different from doing most things alone. Compared with eating at an ordinary restaurant, hotpot just feels a bit more ceremonial, costs a bit more, and gives you a bigger seat. That's about it.

The whole meal felt the same as going out for a bowl of beef noodles or a rice plate, just a little longer.

And when you talk about eating hotpot alone, you can't avoid the question of loneliness.

I really didn't feel anything. Maybe because I've lived like this for several years now. What's lonely about eating a meal alone?

In China there are now over a hundred million people living alone like me. How do they eat? Surely they eat alone more often than with company. If even that made people feel lonely, loneliness would be far too cheap.

I'd say it's less loneliness and more a feeling of emptiness. If loneliness means being a person alone, then emptiness means feeling a chill when you're alone.

That chill is the difference between the two. Some people, alone, don't feel it at all. They feel the world is bustling. And some people feel it even when they aren't alone.

Wang Wei, for instance, wrote: "Sitting alone in the secluded bamboo grove, I play the zither and whistle long. No one in the deep forest knows; only the bright moon comes to shine on me." In this poem, Wang Wei fills the place of company with nature. Because his heart is calm and rich, he doesn't need anyone's approval or company. Facing heaven and earth alone, what he feels is a complete, quiet joy.

Li Bai, on the other hand, wrote: "A golden cup of clear wine costs ten thousand coins; a jade plate of delicacies is worth ten thousand more. I put down my cup and chopsticks and cannot eat; I draw my sword and look around, my heart at a loss." You see, even with a table full of good friends and cups clinking, Li Bai's eyes are lost, because his ambitions have no road to follow. This desolation born in the middle of splendor breaks the heart more than being desolate alone.

Even though I was eating Haidilao alone, I didn't feel the chill, because my mind was at peace, and I got to see that eating hotpot alone is nothing special.

I've never been afraid of being alone. What I'm more afraid of is being alone in the middle of a bustle that has nothing to do with me.

Rather than that, I'd much rather quietly do something on my own.