Four Seasons Hot Pot & Dumplings - Allie Sullivan

My roommate went on a study abroad to China recently and has fallen in love with everything Chinese. When I told her about this assignment, she said she'd been wanting to try a little Hot Pot place in downtown Provo. I love asian food but I'd never heard of a hot pot before so we decided to go.

I wish I had taken pictures but I didn't even think about it until after. How it worked was they put a big pot with our chosen soup base (Miso soup) in the center of the table and then we could go and choose whatever we wanted from a bar of raw food items. We sampled a bit of everything. And then a very nice Chinese gentleman helped us cook it in the pot, telling us how long each different thing needed to cook for.

Probably the most adventurous thing that I tried was seaweed. It didn't taste bad but I couldn't get past the fact that I was eating seaweed... We also had shrimp that still had the shell and legs on them so that was a new experience for me also, learning how to pull all that stuff off. We tried several different types of noodles. Potato noodles, flour noodles and rice noodles. I really liked all of them.

When we went up to pay they gave us each some Chinese candy. The one I enjoyed the best was called a White Rabbit.

What did you learn from this experience?

I guess I learned that you can push your boundaries without breaking them. It was hard for me to decide where I wanted to go and what I wanted to try. I looked into some Peruvian and Indian places but they just did not sound good at all. I felt like with this place, I found a good balance between staying true to my tastes but still giving myself a push outside of what I normally eat.

What does this say about me?

I'm not particularly open to new things. I kind of have to take baby steps toward things that are new to me. Also, I'm not willing to take risks. I really didn't want to go out and spend money on something I could potentially hate. So I went with something that was new that I felt like I had a good chance of liking.

Have I changed in any way?

I really enjoyed this experience and it makes me want to see what else is out there. This place was just down the street from where I live and I never knew about it. I am a creature of habit, but this experience makes me want to go out and find some new habits.