My brother gave me three options for lunch today – National Dining Rooms, Baozi Inn and Little Lamb. The first two were on my to do list and the third I’d never heard of. I did at first say I’d like to try Baozi Inn but Pat seemed a bit disappointed that we weren’t going to Little Lamb so I changed my mind. I asked Pat what Little Lamb was all about and he started to say something about Mongolian bowl. In my head all I heard was Mongolian barbecue for some reason so I was surprised to find when we got to Little Lamb that actually Little Lamb was all about the hot pot, or, what I more commonly call it, steamboat.
Steamboat, for the uninitiated, is like a Chinese fondue but instead of the usual cheese or chocolate sauce you have a stock or broth bubbling away in front of you. You then have a selection of ingredients, generally raw, which you cook as you like and eat when its ready.
During the winter, or when packed out (its not a big restaurant with about 8-10 tables seating 4 people at each table), the windows are often steamed up by everyone’s stock pots bubbling away. Today we and only other table were diners so no steaming up of windows. This certainly made for some rubber-necking and we got more than our fair share of interest from the passers-by.
The way it works is that you choose a stock-type, a sauce (if you wish though recommended for adding a different flavour), and any number of plates of your choosing. Alternatively for £20 per person you can have one stock and five plates each. We ended up taking this latter option thanks to the waiter pointing out that our initial selections, chosen because we didn’t think we’d get up to choosing 10 plates, added up to £39! We decided on a three-way pot for our stock to give us three different flavourings: chilli, herbal and some other sort of broth which we couldn’t identify. You can choose to have two stocks or even one if you don’t need too much variety! For our plates we went for: Beef, Pork, Prawn, Crab, Prawn Balls, Beef Balls, Pak Choi, Oyster Mushrooms, Tofu Knots, and noodle. All of this simmered over an induction cook top which was pretty cool as it was literally cool to touch but still heated up the pot.
Eating all of these bits and pieces was certainly an experience with lots of the food ending up on the table rather than in my mouth, especially the crab and the prawn (hint: use hands!). Heh heh. It probably didn’t help that Little Lamb have the the smallest possible plates and bowls I’ve ever seen! When having steamboat you can cook your things one at a time or dump ingredients in all at once or go somewhere in between (which is what we decided to do.) Half the fun is going diving into the stock to find your food though you may end up competing with your fellow diners to find the treasures. If you’re stock starts to drop the staff are more than happy to top up with more hot water so no need to worry that you’re taking too long to get through your meal!
Don’t expect any thing special with Little Lamb service. Admittedly once we got the waiter’s or waitress’ attention they were very friendly and efficient in giving us what we want and the waiter does get a point for recommending that for £1 extra we could choose another three dishes, however, getting their attention was a whole other experience altogether. Both stood behind the counter the whole time with the waitress reading a magazine and I’m sure I caught the waiter actually sleeping on his feet on at least two occasions.
We paid £47.30 which includes 2 meals at £20, £1 each for tea (Little Lamb loses points for not offering tap water – which was a bit ridiculous considering how salty the stock and food was) and service. From an objective perspective this may seem a bit more expensive than you would normally pay for a Chinese meal (we normally average £30-£35 for dim-sum for example) however, considering the quality of the ingredients and how much you get its quite good value.
The Little Lamb was certainly a different experience from the norm and, taking nearly two hours, was twice as long, if not more, as a regular visit to a Chinese restaurant. Strangely for all the food we ate I wasn’t exactly feeling super full at the end of the meal though Pat said he felt suitably stuffed. The food is supposed to be quite healthy and from the view point that there was no deep frying involved it certainly was. However, the overwhelming feeling was one of over saltiness which was a bit worrying. (Did I mention my fingers are so swollen that I can’t take my rings off?!) I can’t say that I’d be running back again to Little Lamb soon but if you’re feeling a little adventurous I’d say drop in!