Sutiwa Restaurant Shang Shang Qian
I’ve been craving hotpot lately, the spicy Sichuan kind with a lot of peppercorn where your mouth feels like it’s on fire but it still feels good. You can’t imagine how happy I was when I found out there was a new hotpot place near Tipsy Tales in Eastwood City.
Right on top of Ruffo’s Tapas along Eastwood Citywalk, Sutiwa Restaurant Shang Shang Qian recently opened this November 2019. I can tell you that within the first minute of me entering their doors, I already knew the hotpot experience was going to feel authentic.
It’s very different from other hot pot places that are often made to look very modern. Though the place just opened, the decor was made to feel as if it’s been around for a while. The smell of Sichuan pepper in the air, the sound of Chinese music and the actual Chinese people eating there. Being that it was on the second floor, if you looked outside the window, you would think you’re in a different country.
As we sat down on the chairs, we were given a menu where we could choose the type of meat, seasonings, noodles, rice and drinks. Since we didn’t know how spicy was their spicy, we got the Medium Butter Red Pot for Php 650.00. You can also get clear broths for Php 550.00. I have to tell you, when this arrived on our table, just the smell alone was making me happy.
One of the best things about eating hotpot is getting to choose what random stuff to shove inside it. We enjoyed the thrill of a wall of random food (called Signature) from vegetables to meat on sticks. They charge you for it is based on the weight of the sticks that they weigh at the end at Php 3880/kg. While I was initially a little worried about how this sounded, the sticks are actually quite light and don’t weigh much so you’ll get a lot.
Another fun thing is that they have another of row of bowls that include the more expensive vegetables, noodles and omelette. Each bowl is colour-coded to its corresponding price with the red bowl (Php 368.00), orange bowl (Php268.00), green bowl (Php 118.00), blue bowl (Php 168.00) and brown bowl (Php 568.00).
Unlike other hot pot places though, they also ask you to pay for Seasonings at Php 68.00 each bowl. While I didn’t feel like it was that necessary to get this because the spicy soup itself was already quite flavourful, I can imagine those who get clear soup to want more of this.
We got a little too excited with all the options and got more than we could finish, but we just treated ourselves because we had such a long week at work. There’s always this thrill when you line up all the food before you pour them inside spicy boiling soup.
When cooking hotpot, it’s always necessary to time when you throw things inside the soup. I’m always careful to not overcook the meat (especially when it’s expensive lol). Depending on how thick it is, there is a certain length of time that is deal for it to be cooked.
Raw Beef in thin strips only need 10 seconds (or a little more) to cook while shrimp needs 30 seconds. If you get meatballs, the shrimp balls need 1 minute and beef balls need 2 minutes.
For mushrooms, the Golden needle mushroom needs about 45 seconds while the shiitake ones need about 1 whole minute.
Hotpot is a very communal experience. We had a lot of fun eating and reminiscing times that we we were still travelling a lot and having hotpot in Singapore and Malaysia. The flavour of the soup was intense and definitely among the best hotpot I’ve tried here in Manila.
It’s always twice the fun when it’s a bigger group that is sharing. While it was fun with it just being the two of us, I can’t wait to come back already with more friends!
Note: They currently don’t have a credit card machine so be prepared to pay with cash.
Check them out on facebook to learn more!
