A regular steamboat would typically include meat, dairy and seafood. But vegetarians can opt for a meat-free option at Ganglamedo, a vegetarian restaurant that newly opened in March this year.
Located in a cosy shophouse at Craig Road, Ganglamedo offers Tibetan-inspired fare. For the soup base, you get a choice of mushroom, white pea, mala or tomato soup. Vegetables like carrots, corn and onions are cooked in the broth, along with enoki mushrooms and tofu (available in a set meal for $49.90).
The vegetarian meal comes with the option of adding a la carte menu items like fried spinach pancake ($12). The highlight in Ganglamedo’s menu would be their cordyceps dishes, including the double boiled Naqu cordyceps soup ($68), which consists of premium cordyceps, black truffle, matsutake and bamboo fungus. Cordyceps are known for their immense health benefits like promoting longevity and boosting the immune system, making these Ganglamedo a great choice for the health junkies.
Fans of Korean cuisine can go for Goro Goro Restaurant, which offers a steamboat with a Korean buffet twist. Korean buffets are mostly in barbeque style, but Goro Goro stands out by offering it in hotpot style. This allows diners to satisfy both their cravings for hotpot and Korean cuisine at once. Inconspicuously located in Orchard Gateway, it has six soup bases available: Tom Yum, Beauty Collagen, Ginseng Chicken and Mala, and vegetarian bases Vegetarian and Tomato.
The ingredients for the steamboat are free-flow for the duration of the buffet (Price ranges from $14.90 to $24.90 for lunch, and $24.90 to $26.90 for dinner.) Besides the usual beef, pork and chicken, there are also Korean dishes available like chapche (Korean glass noodle), kimchi pancake and tteobokki (Korean rice cake). If you’re bored by the usual ingredients and food available for hotpots, this opens up your variety of options.
Vainpots can go for wholesome hotpots in Beauty in The Pot, which serves up collagen-rich steamboat soup for diners. Collagen is a popular protein with ladies, as it is known for its anti-aging effects and improvement of skin elasticity. By incorporating collagen into its soup bases, you can enjoy tasty hotpot while achieving glowy, bouncy skin at the same time.
Inspired by the healthy eating culture, this restaurant, which has three outlets, has six types of collagen-based soup bases that are both nourishing and flavourful. Besides the signature broths of Beauty Collagen Broth and Pork Bone Soup, there are other soup bases such as Herbal Drunken Chicken Broth, Cooling Coconut Broth and Vitamin C Tomato Sweet Corn Broth (the price of a single pot starts from $14, a quart pot goes for $5). The beef ($21) and pork slices ($9) are thinly sliced and well marbled, ensuring a superb steamboat experience.
4. Spice World
How to stand out in the crowded local hot pot scene? Chinese hot pot chain Spice World is upping its game with a lavish presentation of food at its Singapore outlet that opened in Clarke Quay in April. Creating quite a stir are hot pot ingredients such as strips of tender-soft Australian wagyu ($38.90) that are draped over a Barbie doll — reminiscent of Lady Gaga’s meat dress at the MTV Video Music Awards 2010.
Another gasp-worthy dish is the fiery orange-red mala-flavoured butter that is shaped into a teddy bear or Hello Kitty ($9.90). The adorable sculpture melts into the Sichuan mala broth to deliver a sinful tongue-numbing sensation. The larger-than-life seafood platter ($59.90) is decked out with pomfret and seafood on a bed a rice that is lit up with LED lights. For soups, opt for the collagen-loaded Three-Delicacy Broth that is brewed with pork, chicken and duck bones. The tomato broth is delightfully sweet from a blend of tomatoes used. To up the tongue-numbing sensation of the mala soup, diners can add free cans of zanthoxylum oil to elevate the spice level and acidity.
If you’re gunning for an unique hotpot experience, Captain K Seafood Tower offers a visually exciting steamboat style which involves seafood being cooked layer by layer from top to bottom, a style that originated from Korea. This provides a surprise element for diners, as they unveil the next dish by unstacking the seafood tower. A minimum of 3 tiers are available for this tower, to 5, 7 and a maximum of 9 tiers.
Each tier contains a selection of extremely fresh seafood from Hokkaido scallops ($20 for 4), prawns ($12 for 6), to the Boston Lobster ($8.80 for 100g) and Chilean King Crab (available in a 9 tier set for $328.90). Its hotpot option allows you to choose two from six available soup bases: korean kimchi, ginseng chicken, mala, tomato, tomyum mushroom - all soup bases are priced at one for $16 and two for $20, with a supplement of $4 if you choose ginseng chicken.
