I have to say that in recent years, the boom of Chaoshan beef hot pot is closely related to the Bahe Lihai Ji. The beef hot pot restaurant in Shantou has always been popular with the food media, including the documentary "A Bite of China", the magazine "Food and Wine", and "Twelve Sharp Flavors". Gourmets such as the famous gourmand Cai Lan, the international food critic Cai Hao, and the well-known food editor Yan Qiao also have high praise for it. Lin Haiping, the founder of Bahe Lihaiji, has created another brand in Hangzhou, Chaoniu Haiji, which has radiated to Shaoxing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Nanning and other places, with a strong reputation and a very hot business.

"Original taste" can be said to be the innate dietary gene of Chaoshan people, and for beef hot pot, freshness is the first priority. Unlike Western cuisine, which emphasizes the removal of acid from meat, Chaoshan beef hot pot requires that the beef is not frozen or deacidified, and is only eaten for a very limited time after the whole beef is slaughtered. The local beef restaurants in Chaoshan are slaughtered locally and then delivered to the store, which is very fresh; In the past, it was this that limited the promotion of Chaoshan beef hot pot. In recent years, big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have copied Chaoshan's beef slaughtering and transportation mode, and the supply chain problems have been solved, so that beef hot pot can show its skills and become famous.

Thanks to the advantages of Bahe Lihaiji in the supply chain, the source of beef from Chaoniu Haiji is stable and reliable. Several breeding bases in Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and other places are advantages that other small beef hot pot restaurants can hardly match. The official selection of 3~4-year-old local cattle, transported by train to the slaughterhouse near Shanghai, slaughtered every day within 3 hours of delivery to each branch. About 39% of the parts of a cow are used for shabu-shabu, and the rest is used as an ingredient for beef balls and other ingredients. It should be pointed out that there are no beef hot pot restaurants in Shanghai that have a delivery frequency of more than 3 times a day, basically 1 time a day, and the better performance is 2 times a day. The industry's "original flavor" rule of "control from slaughter to serving within 6 hours" seems to have disappeared in Shanghai. Chaoniu Haiji Shanghai Tongbei Road store performed better, with lunch and dinner markets in the store, and no supper. Two batches of beef are delivered before the market opens, with a 3.5-hour lunch market and a 4.5-hour evening market, which basically meets the "original taste" requirements.

Knife work is one of the important indicators to inspect beef hot pot restaurants. Chaoshan beef hot pot divides the beef into hanging dragon, three-flower toe, five-flower toe, fat callus, chest stalk, spoon handle, spoon skin and other categories according to different parts (the name of each store may be different). The thickness required varies for different parts of the beef to highlight the taste characteristics of different parts of the beef. The chefs of Chao Niu Hai Kee have many years of work experience and are very skilled in the handling of beef. Every diner can see the chef dissecting the beef, and it is clear whether the environment is hygienic or not. The presentation of beef can only be said to be in the middle of the gauge, and the plate is marked with the name of the meat but there is no reminder of the duration of the shabu-shabu, so diners need to look at the indication of the duration of the shabu-shabu on the table, which is slightly inconvenient.

Chao Niu Hai Ji has a healthy mushroom king pot base, beef offal pot bottom, high-calcium beef bone original soup pot base, and even fresh beef offal mandarin duck pot base to choose from, each of which has sufficient base materials. In order to pursue the original taste of beef, experienced diners generally choose the base of the pot with high-calcium beef bones boiled from beef bones. The consommé is made from beef bones boiled for several hours, and only corn, radish, and ginger are used to remove the fishy flavor. A bowl of clear soup is served before the shabu-shabu, the soup is clear in color and fresh in the mouth, which is both a ritual and an appetizing effect. The in-store seasoning buffet, such as chili sauce, Puning bean sauce, sand tea sauce, etc., can be selected by yourself.

The decoration of each branch of Chaoniu Haiji is basically the same, and the environment is relatively transparent and bright, which is more exquisite compared with the typical industrial decoration style of Bahe Haiji. Among the three stores in Shanghai, the best service is the Shanghai Tongbei Road store, except for the lack of waiters during meal time, the service quality is acceptable. The service of the other two branches is really hard to describe. The Jiatinghui City Life Plaza store can basically enter the blacklist of diners who value service quality, and the other performance of the store is not outstanding, so I will not recommend it here.