Beijing Cooking Pot – restaurant review

On a Friday lunchtime just a handful days after opening, and with the bright red paint still sticky on the front door (for which owner and chef Yue Xiao keeps good-naturedly apologising), Beijing Cooking Pot is half-full of students and people with blue NHS lanyards around their necks.

The Perry Road shop, which was home to Chilli Daddy’s first restaurant until December 10 2018 (closing due to “increased family and time commitments”), has been transformed. Sichuan cuisine is out and personal-sized Beijing-style hotpots are in, along with a new lick of paint.

A false ceiling made from wooden garden trellising draped in fake ivy and hung with paper lanterns adds a homely feel to the little dining room, which has half a dozen wooden tables plus bar stools in the big windows that catch the lunchtime sun. It’s like eating on someone’s patio at home, complete with the sound of the radio playing from their kitchen (accompanied by some gentle slurping from a fellow guest).

Behind the counter, three women including Yue Xiao dish up portions on colourful trays and joyfully yell orders out to the diners once they are ready.

The beef  cooking pot is one of six available in the evenings, with one on the menu every lunchtime that changes daily

The simple menu consists of appetisers including spring rolls (£3.50), rice and noodle dishes (all £5.80 at lunchtime or £6.80 in the evening) including vegetarian tofu and Zha Jiang Mian, Beijing’s signature pork noodle dish. At lunchtime there’s a choice of one cooking pot (which changes daily), while in the evenings all the pots (from £7.50) are available.

Pots come with a choice of spicy or sesame dipping sauce, rice or naan, and optional extra spice. Friday’s option is beef (£8) and is soon ready, the fresh chicken stock piping hot in the thick ceramic bowl. Tender young pak choi nestles amongst fat, fluffy pieces of tofu, chunks of mushrooms and a generous helping of Chinese greens. Thick glass noodles sit at the bottom, accompanied by beef that has been sliced incredibly thin from frozen and cooked, Yue Xiao says, for no more than one minute. It more resembles bacon than beef, and is unusual and delicious.

The peanut sauce is fermented and sharp – not at all sweet or sickly as it can be – and spiked with fresh coriander. Poured over the bowl of sticky white rice, with some greens and a piece of beef, it tastes like it would fortify you against anything a cold day could throw your way. Though it doesn’t bring the sense of sharing a meal that cooking a bubbling hotpot on your restaurant table for an hour with your closest friends does, it’s home cooking without any pretence, with a proprietor whose farewell greeting is as warm as her food.

Beijing Cooking Pot
17 Perry Road, Bristol, BS1 5BG
www.beijing-cooking-pot.business.site

Read more restaurant reviews: Pho Lounge