Haidilao Self-heating hot pot(3 flavor availalbe) (New Vegetable & Spicy)

I enjoyed this 100%. However I was the only one of three who did. My Korean wife pretty much hated it. It was spicy but not over board. It also had a medicinal taste to it. I would buy it again but is kind of pricy. We were eating shabu-shabu and I used the broth as a dipping sauce. There is enough for two, although I ate almost all of it.

I don’t generally spend time writing reviews but I had to get this out there. I saw something similar to this on a Chinese drama I was watching so I wanted to try it out. I was so excited when I received the shipment today that I prepared it right away for dinner with my two girls. The instructions were easy to follow and I was amazed at how well it worked; however, I’m not so sure about the taste... LITERALLY! I couldn’t taste anything due to my mouth being completely numbed. I grew up eating really spicy food so this level of spice is considered mild to me. Never in my life have I ever felt numbness in my mouth like this except for when they use local anesthetics at the dental office. My girls and I felt instant numbness of our tongues with the just first bite. I honestly thought that it was due to a high level of spiciness but after trying a couple more bites and my whole mouth, lips and throat were completely numbed, I knew something was not right. It felt like I was ingesting poison. It took a good 30 minutes for the numbness to completely wear off but then I started to get indigestion. I had to force myself to throw up because I felt miserable. I love the idea and the invention but I’m very worried about the safeness of the food.

Ok, I like the idea, and it worked great, but I wish it had a way to adjust the spice level. Veggies were tasty for the first few bites, then I lost all sense of taste to the spice. And I only used half the sauce packet!. If you like that level of heat in your food, go for it. FYI, speaking of heat, this got the food to a nice heat level without being so hot you couldn’t eat it. Everything aside from water was included, so it would be a good option for truck drivers, someone with a long layover or a long train ride, a per diem alternative when you don’t have a stove or microwave, and—of course—camping and hiking. At a lower spice level, of course! 😜

I love these things so much especially since my area is prone to having the power go out when the wind blows too hard. The asian grocers in my city either no longer stock them or can't keep them on the shelves long enough. That being said, it's way cheaper to buy these at a store, the price for this one plus shipping could get you 3 or 4 at a time the grocery. The taste is really good for packaged shelf food. You can taste the spice and the salt for sure and it does have a weird smell when you open the vegetables because of the preservatives, but that hasn't stopped my family from eating them plus you can't smell anything off after cooking it. I would rate the heat to be around a 7. Not for beginners for sure but nothing incredibly hot. I would suggest some rice and other banchan to absorb some of the extra broth and spice. There are no english instructions included with this if that matters to you. The pictures that accompany the instructions are more than enough to figure out what to do and (so far) the translations I found online are accurate.

The broth of this hot pot is as gross tasting as it is spicy. I tried both this and the tomato flavor and can definitely say I strongly prefer the tomato flavored hot pot. The initial smell is interesting but quickly becomes unappetizing. I can't even eat anymore of what's in the picture because of how gross it tastes. Although I wasted $15 on this, it was necessary so that icould know not to get it again.

The actual setup of it all and watching the pot steam up was cool. The liquid was kinda weird and oily but I'm also not experienced. The taste and veggies were good but overall I'd probably not try again. The hot flavor IS hot so don't buy if you can't handle heat.

So good!

Pros: Great packaging and setup and the coooking with the chemical pouch works as expected and is a very MRE experience. Cons : Spice is great at first but then you realize it consumes any flavor, takes over the meal and totally takes away from the experience. There is also some weird "perfume"taste. I tried to figure out what herb or spice it could be but ultimately it wasn't great like a lemon grass. Finally something made half my mouth go numb when I ate it and that was it for me I threw the rest out.