HOME CENTRAL TAIWAN DINING

COMPASS MAGAZINE November 2009
　

Mala Ren Jia Mala Ren Jia: Spicy & not-so-spicy healthy hotpots By Douglas Habecker Translated by Naomi Lai 292, MeiTing St (corner of WuChang St), North District (04) 2202-2346 Hours: 11:30 am-1 am No service charge. Credit cards not accepted. Reservations recommended on weekends. Undoubtedly, Taiwanese love eating hotpot in all four seasons. However, fall and winter are a golden time for local hotpot eateries, as crowds queue up for an unbeatable way to warm up, fill up and socialize over a hearty, do-it-yourself meal. As connoisseurs consider a near-glut of hotpot restaurants around town, a few exceptional places stand out and Mala Ren Jia is one of them. With a name that literally means, "Mala People", Mala Ren Jia is a medium-sized, 45-seat restaurant on the relatively-quiet corner of MeiTing and WuChang streets, about 100 meters from bustling JianXing Road. Its modern-meets-traditional Chinese decor, with lots of brown wood, red accents and ceiling-to-floor windows, offers a cozy setting for a meal. Since opening about five years ago, it has attracted a steady following of loyal diners including--significantly--many local veteran food journalists and visitors from Hong Kong and Japan. The first ingredient to this success is the four types of broth that are available, either individually or in a two-flavored, divided pot. Unless you're adverse to peppery flavors, the "mala" spicy broth is an obvious must-try, made with Sichuan's famed, flaming-hot "da hung pao" (big red coat) pepper, plus dried red peppers, 30 Chinese herbs and big cakes of duck's blood. Other choices include the popular, slightly-sour Pickled Cabbage Sliced Pork Fat broth, and the High-Calcium Shantou Pork variety, touted as being high in calcium and made with Shantou pork and pork bones, chicken bones, cuttlefish, prawns, pickled veggies, tomatoes, cabbage and other ingredients. Ladies and the health-conscious gravitate toward the High-Fiber Vegetable Broth, with plenty of healthy-looking sweet potato leaves, red and yellow sweet potato chunks, celery, apples and dozens of other vegetables. Mala Ren Jia's owners emphasize healthy, homemade hotpot ingredients, like Sichuan Spicy Meatballs, ideal with the "mala" broth and made with pork from black-haired pigs, mixed with scallions, ginger, garlic and a special sauce and tenderized by hand for 30 minutes. Other exceptional ingredients include Dajia's famed "betelnut heart" taro, sweet pototoes grown on Dadu Mountain, tofu "skin" (pi), "you tiao" fried pastry sticks and slices of snapper fish. Locals in particular love the many internal-organ hotpot add-ins, from chewy ox veins and stomach to pig and duck intestines. Another must are the bamboo halves filled with either mushroom, squid or prawn paste that you scoop into the broth. There are also two dipping sauces: the clear sesame oil/garlic stem sauce for "mala" items and creamy pickled tofu and vinegar sauce for others. NT$120 pitchers of plum juice will also help quench those spicy fires. Despite this varied, high-quality fare, the prices here won't set you back far, with NT$250 for lunch sets Monday to Friday and NT$290 for dinners and weekend lunches. This makes Mala Ren Jia a top Taichung hotpot option in any season.