There’s a hilarious trend sweeping Chinese social media these days and people can’t get enough of it. Videos of people sneaking in their own raw ingredients into hotpot restaurant and dropping them into bowls of simmering broth have been going viral since December.
If you’re ever been to a Chinese restaurant, you probably know all about the hotpot. A staple of Chinese cuisine, it basically consists of a simmering pot of soup stock and a selection of raw ingredients that patrons drop into the stock to be cooked right at their table. Hotpot restaurants are all the rage in China, and they usually offer all the raw ingredients you need for a delicious meal, but a new trend has people sneaking in their own ingredients, which range from mushrooms and herbs to whole chickens and fish.
A compilation video posted on a Vietnamese Facebook page shows all kinds of hilarious scenes of people pulling out hotpot ingredients from their bags and dropping them into the hotpot when waiters aren’t looking. While some protagonists try to be as inconspicuous as possible, sneaking in small ingredients, others are clearly only doing it for the views, dropping giant fish or birds into the hotpot.
The new trend has been getting mixed responses on social media, with some finding it hilarious, and others claiming that it promotes illegal activity and affects restaurants’ bottom line.
“If you can buy your own ingredients, you can cook your own hotpot at home. Don’t make jokes like this at restaurants,” one person commented.