Of the things falsely attributed to the Mongolians, the Mongol hot pot might be the most delicious. A flavorful pot of broth boils at the table, and you dip various meats, seafood, vegetables, dumplings, and noodles in it.

Other Asian cultures have variations of the hot pot, like the Japanese shabu shabu. Unlike the Japanese version where you’d cook in plain hot water then dip your food in a sauce, here the broth is pungent with spices, herbs and chilis and adds all the flavor you’d want. One selects from several broths of various intensity, and differnent dishes to cook in it.

This style of dining lends itself to large family style gatherings, and 32 hungry chowhounds convened for this feast. With about ten people per table, we sampled many more dishes than we could with a smaller group. I love that this adventurous horde is up for any type of cuisine and will try pretty much anything, even the odd sounding stuff.

“What the hell is Mongolian Fresh 18?”
“Don’t know, but we’re gonna get one.”

First page of menu

Second page of menu

Half mild and half extra spicy bowl of bubbling broth. The mild one tastes of green vegetables and herbs, and can be eaten as a soup in the last course. The intensely spicy red broth is too hot to drink as a soup, even for chiliheads. Note all the herbs and spices floating in the broths, which is the style served at Little Sheep. Not all places leave the floaties in.

Our first meat: paper thin slices of lamb. We also ordered “fat lamb”, sliced pork, lamb meatball, and cuttlefish dumplings

Pea shoots, or pea tips, as they’re called on this menu. Our table also enjoyed sliced daikon, nappa cabbage, cauliflower florets, slices of kabocha pumpkin, baby bok choy, and three mushrooms: black fungus, enoki, and oyster.

Little Sheep noodles: a hot bowl of noodles minus the soup. These udon-like wheat noodles absorb the rich lamb broth they’re cooked in and are served with vegetables and meat.

Hand pulled noodles. These broad thin noodles flavored with green leafies (spinach?) are cooked in the hot pot.

This is Mongolian fresh 18. It’s a cold noodle dish with vegetables and tofu skin flavored with sesame oil, vinegar, and chilis. Delicious.

Several other cold dishes we tried included thinly sliced daikon and naga yam. Naga is known in Japanese as yama-imo, a root vegetable with crisp white flesh and mild flavor notorious for oozing a mucous-like slime when sliced, as okra does. Here, they’re cut into bite sized wedges and served in a suprisingly Japanese style with soy sauce and shaved bonito flakes (aka katsuoboshi). These were not a big hit at my table. Dorothy remarked that every time she eats with me (like when we ate banh cuon in Little Saigon) something slimy’s going to show up on the table.

Spicy pork wontons. Thick skinned hand formed dumplings filled with ground pork, and sauced with red chili oil, green onion and black vinegar. Very popular at our table.

Scallion pancakes. This is a Northern Chinese staple, and this thin version was very good, if a bit oily.

Lamb pancakes. Hand-rolled skins contain juicy lamb patties flavored with herbs. Like a Middle Eastern kofta kebab in a thin crisp fried skin. The inside of the skins absorbed some of the meat juices, yielding a nice crispy / chewy contrast in texture.

So spicy you’ll need this much paper to blow your nose

Final tab for my table, with a Tsingtao beer for some of us, came to just $20 per adult, including tip.

Little Sheep
120 S. Atlantic Blvd.
Monterey Park, CA 91754
626-282-1089
and
227 W. Valley Blvd. #348
San Gabriel, CA 91776
626-457-5599
and
1695 S. Azusa Ave
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
626-581-4922

There’s always room for ice cream. Little Sheep doesn’t have much in the way of dessert, so we caravaned over to Fosselman’s, a Los Angeles ice cream institution since 1924. The local Asian and Mexican populations have influenced their menu over the years, with green tea, ube, macapuno and dulce de leche offered next to seasonal American offerings like eggnog and pumpkin.

Fosselman’s Ice Cream
1824 W. Main St.
Alhambra, CA 91801
626-282-6533

Many thanks to our chief instigator Paloma for organizing yet another memorable feast, and to all the friends new and old who make these gatherings special!