jazz cat cafe

jazz cat cafe
Originally uploaded by bluepupae.

#25 on my 101 in 1001 list (8/143)
i'm a soup fiend, and now that the weather finally appears to be cooling, it's a great excuse for a nice hot bowl of soup, especially one filled with lots of good stuff--vermicelli glass noodles, meat, shrimp, an assortment of fish balls, tofu, bok choy, egg, squash, radish. this is what you'll find at jazz cat cafe when you order your choice of broth that ranges from sea-flavored premium kelp broth to spicy thai to creamy corn.

it's great that they offer a variety of broth choices. the kelp broth i had was more straightforward than i thought it would be, featuring the natural flavors of the ingredients with little added seasoning, but i found it healthy and tasty, and especially liked one of the seafood balls that was stuffed with crab roe.

overall, the hotpot was not as good as it could be since they don't allow you to cook it at your table , which means losing out on the whole experience of cooking your own hotpot. the food suffered for it, too! they serve a hard-boiled egg instead of a raw one with the soup, which was very odd and annoying as i like how the flavor of the yolk mixes with broth, and meats get overcooked sitting in the steaming broth. i tend to like my beef just this side of cooked with a tinge of pink, so i was not happy at getting overcooked meat. the shrimp was almost to the mushy state.

i sampled a couple of their appetizers--the fried tofu and sausage--that were pretty good. the tofu has a light crispy outside and soft inside. the sweet and savory sausage was tender and moist, unlike some dried ones i've had. although a tad sweet for my palate, the hokkaido premium milk tea is worth trying. more milk than tea, it reminded me of breast milk. i know that sounds weird, but it was strangely comforting!

our waitress was very helpful in answering our questions about the various broths. she explained that the reason they started precooking the hotpots was due to all the heat generated (and i guess lack of ventilation), but will be moving into a bigger space which will allow them to return to diners cooking their own hotpots. i don't think i'd want to come back otherwise.