The food at Haidilao （海底捞） is pretty typical for a hot pot restaurant. When I go with my friends, we usually get the pot with the two sides for soup so we can have one spicy and one not spicy. Since we cook the food in the soup, whatever soup we have will influence the flavor of our food. In addition to the spicy soup, we also got a tomato one.
I ate mostly food from the tomato side, but I did try some on the spicy side, and I loved how the taste took me back to the streets of Chongqing where the smell of spicy hot pot was everywhere. Even when there wasn’t a hot pot restaurant nearby, I could usually smell it because many stores sold the seasonings in giant blocks, and the smell wafted off these blocks and into the air.
We ordered lots of plates of thinly sliced beef, some green vegetables, tofu skin (I love this one because it soaks up the flavor of the soup and then the sauce so perfectly), fish, and several other dishes.
But these are all pretty normal hot pot dishes, and since Haidilao is more expensive than the average hot pot restaurant, why should we go?
Chinese restaurants are not usually known for exceptional service, but Haidilao is different. The waiters are trained to pay extra special attention to the customers and their needs. After I arrived, and while I was waiting for my friends, a waiter showed up with a warm cloth to clean my hands. When she saw I was still waiting several minutes later, they brought me sunflower seeds and watermelon to munch on even though these were available at the self-serve counter.
The first time I went to a Haidilao restaurant was around 10 years ago when I still lived in Hainan. Two of our students invited Megan and me out to dinner, and when we showed up at Haidilao, I had no idea what to expect. There was a long wait time, but our students had planned ahead and gotten a number online ahead of time, so by the time we arrived, it was nearly our turn to be seated.
But Haidilao was not content to lose customers to long wait times. Usually if my friends and I show up to a restaurant and the wait time is over 30 minutes, we will find a different restaurant. Haidilao didn’t want to lose customers in this way, and they also weren’t satisfied for their customers to sit around on little stools by the restaurant door sipping lemonade or tea and mindlessly scrolling on their phones.
While waiting for a table at Haidilao, you could get your nails painted for free! I don’t like painting my fingernails because I get too distracted by them, but I my friends did this, and they really enjoyed it. One time, I noticed Haidilao had a bunch of game machines set up outside the restaurant so we could play little video games while we waited—also for free.
That first time at Haidilao was a wonderful experience. I loved the food and the service, but none of that matters without my favorite experience in Haidilao. If you order noodles for your hot pot, you can choose to have a performance when the waiter delivers the noodles.
Of course, we wanted the performance. To get the performance, you have to choose the dancing option with the noodles. A waiter came out with the noodles and stretched it out so it was 2-3 meters long and then he literally danced with the noodle. He spun around, twirling the noodle around his body and in the air. He flicked the noodle toward us as we were seated around the table, but somehow he never touched us or the floor or anything else.
Once, when we were having our noodle performance, someone walked behind him, and the noodle touched that person. Undeterred, the waiter put the tainted noodle aside and continued the performance with a new noodle.
After the dance, he folded the noodle, breaking it into smaller sections before dropping different sections into both sides of our soup.
I loved watching the noodle dances, and the waiters always seemed to have so much fun doing it. As I chatted with my friends, I glanced around the restaurant and noticed the waiter giving another noodle dance to a nearby table, but they didn’t even look at him. They were focused on their food and ignored the performance by their table. The waiter didn’t perform for very long, and I wondered why they had chosen the dancing noodle performance if they didn’t care to watch.
Later on, we ordered another performance, and this time, I took a video so I could share it with you. Our waiter loved it. I think he gave us an extra long performance and definitely put his heart and soul into that performance. For performers, the audience matters.
“How long have you been learning this dance?” One of my friends asked.
“Six months,” he answered, without losing his rhythm.
I was shocked, only six months!
After he finished, I asked, “But surely you already liked to dance?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. But I was still amazed that he could perfect the noodle dance after such a short time.
Haidilao is a bit on the expensive side. For our group, we paid a bit less than 90 kuai ($13.50), but we stuffed ourselves and enjoyed the environment, the free snacks, and the noodle dance.
America has a few Haidilaos in California, one in Seattle, another in Arizona, and one in Texas. I’ve never been, so I don’t know how they compare to our Chinese experience, but the price will be higher. A website I found with lots of information about the pricing of Haidilao menu items, advised possible customers that the meal would probably be around $30-$50 per person.
So, what we can learn is that if you want to eat Haidilao, you should definitely come visit me!