Finding this Mongolian hotpot restaurant can be the first adventure of the evening. The address would have you believe it's located in the labyrinth of lanes and alleys off Bade and Guofu Roads. In reality, it sits prominently on the north side of Civil Boulevard, some 100m west of Yenji Street. Part of the reason you suspect it's nestled deep in the neighborhood is the name of the place. "We looked for over half an hour," said a woman at the next table. "They should print a map on their advertising." Actually, they haven't had to advertise much at all. A look at the several newspaper and magazine write-ups that cover the walls is the first clue that Longtang is a not very well-kept secret. The house specialty milk-soup hotpot, the place's only real claim to Mongolian cuisine, is worth looking a half hour for.
Whatever you might think of boiling meats and vegetables in a milk broth, you shouldn't knock it until you've tried it. The soup is stewed with a cornucopia of spices, ginger, dried plums and several hard-to-recognize stems and leaves. It comes to the table a deep red color. Don't be fooled; the red is chili oil floating on top. Even ordered xiao la, or only slightly spicy, this stuff is a three-alarm fire.
A good trick is to first spoon the soup into your bowl and blow on it before sipping -- not to cool it off; blowing on it moves the super spicy chili oil out of the way so what you first taste is the soup, not the spice.
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
Into the pot go all the usual hotpot fixings: mushrooms, lettuce, those things that look like shelled crab legs, meats and more. The two-person pot comes with a smallish plate of sliced beef, but you'll be doing yourself a favor to get a platter of sliced lamb. With the temperatures dropping, lamb is back in season. It's a traditional "hot food" because eating it slightly raises your body temperature. Cooking it to perfection in the pot isn't much more difficult than boiling water. Once the pot is bubbling, wash a single lamb slice in it for no more than 30 seconds, or until it turns white-ish, dip it into your favorite sauce. Once your eyes have stopped tearing and your nose isn't running, you realize just how tasty a hotpot it is.
One last trick for cooling down: The set meals come with a small dish of shredded papaya (the Mongolian variety?) save it for when you really need it to cool your taste buds.
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