Zhu Quan, the founder of Xiangtianxia, is a stir-fry chef, so the restaurant attaches great importance to the production of the bottom of the pot. In addition to the requirements for the origin and variety of the base material used in the pot bottom, even the planting conditions and production and processing, the company has also formulated detailed standards, and Xiangtianxia is the hotpot restaurant with the most stable taste of the pot bottom among the chain brands.
The peppercorns used at the bottom of the pot in Xiangtianxia are all from Sichuan Hongya rattan pepper, the hemp flavor is strong, and the peppers are also from Sichuan and Guizhou. Unlike the Shanghai store, which serves both butter and clear oil, several stores in Hangzhou only have butter red pot, and its spicinessness is basically the same as that of Shanghai, but much lower than that in Sichuan. In 2017, Xiang Tianxia also launched the Nicholas Sao Bear Whole Butter Pot Base, which makes butter, pepper, chili pepper and other fried ingredients into a bear shape, which is as popular as the cartoon butter pot base of Crazy Spicy and Spicy House.
Hand-made pork meatballs are the most popular dish in the world in the past two years, and after British Prime Minister David Cameron came to the restaurant in 2013 to taste and praise it, this dish became famous overnight, and the restaurant directly renamed it Prime Minister Meatballs. The hand-beaten meatballs have a refreshing texture, and the coriander mixed in the middle enriches the single meat flavor, and the meatballs are still tender after a long time of cooking. The jade shrimp slide is mixed with spinach juice in the ordinary shrimp slide, and the green shrimp slide is placed in the bamboo tube, which looks very beautiful, and the taste is more vegetable-like than the ordinary shrimp slide. The king of bamboo shoots is also worth ordering, the bamboo shoots from Ya'an, Sichuan and Nanchuan, Chongqing, are milky white with a little yellow, and the entrance is crisp and tender. Most of the ingredients in the Hangzhou store are shipped from Sichuan, but occasionally the production is not stable enough, some dishes are handled roughly, and the freshness of the ingredients is far less than that of Haidilao of the same scale.
Like many Sichuan-style hot pots, the store is as bustling as many Sichuan-style hot pots, with grey wall tiles, wooden tables and chairs, and red and yellow lanterns neatly hung in the store. The service management level of several stores in Hangzhou needs to be improved, the waiters have a cold attitude, lack of initiative, and the response speed will drop significantly during peak hours. It should be noted that Xiangtianxia uses self-service QR code ordering, but many diners report that the ordering system often fails, and sometimes the mobile phone shows that the order is successful but the merchant does not actually receive the order.
