The weather has been unbearably hot lately, but somehow, I just want to have mala hotpot in a perfectly air-conditioned room. But Ares doesn't like mala, so I started looking for places with duo-flavor hotpot and found DingFeng Mala Duo-Flavor Hotpot on. I looked it up on Google Maps and found the signs at their door to be very familiar.
I love walking and I used to walk all the way home from school in 4-inch heels when I was in college. And my school is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. Every time I passed by the rotary intersection near Gong-guan I'd see its eye-catching billboards and smell the delicious hotpot. As soon as it opened up 4 years ago, I sent a photo of it to my friend who went to NTU and told him that we had to come here together some time. But we never went, and I finally got to come last week! I wish I gave it a try earlier.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Broth
You can pick any 2 from the 7 soup bases available. The signature mala soup is, of course, one of the must-haves. Other popular options include the milky rich soup and healthy herbal soup. The milk broth is really special. To be honest, it's not broth, it's literally a pot of milk. There's no cheese added so it's not too thick, but has the pure sweetness and richness of milk. The other 4 options are dashi soup, spicy kimchi soup, nutritional tomato soup, and veggie mushroom soup.
I chose the mala soup, duh. Dingfeng's mala soup is more of a Taiwanese style mala. The aroma of the chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns is there but it's only mildly spicy and not to numbing either. There isn't too much chili oil, unlike classic Sichuan mala hotpot which uses tallow as the base, it's broth that most people can actually have, otherwise, I've heard that people (normal people, not me) don't typically eat the soup of mala hotpot. It's also perfect for cooking noodles and vermicelli. When cooking vegetables and enoki mushroom, they wouldn't soak up all the oil either. It feels lighter on the stomach but still has the strong taste and aroma it should have. The tofu that comes with the soup is braised very well, the soft center has soaked up a pack of soup. The duck's blood cake is pretty tender, too. I don't usually eat duck's blood, or any blood to be honest, but I tried a bite and it didn't taste rusty or fishy at all.
Ares worked and lived in Korea for 8 years before coming to Taiwan, so he chose the kimchi soup without hesitation. I want to start off by saying that this guy is super picky with Korean food! He tried every single kimchi brand in the super market and was still dissatisfied. He would also bother me by talking incessantly about Korean food that he craves and how none of the Korean restaurants in Taiwan taste authentic. So I'd study ajuma recipes for weeks then make jokbal, gimbap, and all kinds of Korean food for him. But he was so happy with Dingfeng's kimchi soup, it's such a slap in the face. He tried the broth as soon as the pot arrived and he said that the slightly sour taste and pot full of kimchi tasted like authentic kimchi jjigae. In the end, he ate every last drop of the soup, I mean, the pot was literally dry. And all of this is coming from a man who said that he hates eating hotpot because the soup is always terrible. He said the soup usually would not be good until at least 30 minutes of cooking later, when the soup has taken all the sweetness and flavor from the ingredients you put in. But Dingfeng's kimchi soup was the only one that he thought was already delicious on its own.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Buffet
The buffet has 2 areas: Noodles/Dumplings and Veggie/General. There are over 80 ingredients that you can take for yourselves.
The Veggie/General area has all types of leafy greens, mushrooms, and root and stem vegetabels. It's not only a healthy source of dietarry fiber, but also a great way to add flavor to the broth. Ares took heaps of mushrooms as usual. Aside from common hotpot ingredients, there are also some amazing protein sources, including shark's skin, squid slices, beef tendon, beef stomach, quail eggs, and my favorite arteries! Okay, I know it sounds terrible when put like that but they are delicious, trust me. They are crunchy and 100% protein with no fat. It's getting harder and harder to find arteries at Taiwanese hotpot stores, and the are even rarer in all-you-can-eat stores. Dingfeng's arteries are very well-process, the inner tube is cleaned perfectly. You find almost no residue in the center of the tuber. also, I've literally never seen such huge arteries in my life, I had to send a photo of them to my family group chat. My sister's fiancé was like, was this a radioactive Marvel cow?
The Noodles/Dumplings Area has all kinds of meatballs and a bunch of noodle choices, they have thick glass noodles, vermicelli, thick noodles, thin noodles, ramen noodles, and non deep fried ramen noodles. Of course, if you are a rice person, they have that, too. What's super special is that they even have tteokbokki! Which is Korean rice cakes. What I was the most excited, happy, ecstatic, and every other positive adjective in this world, about was that they have chuan fen!!!!!!! Chuan fen is thick, chewy hotpot glass noodles made from potato starch. They are extremely rare in Taiwan and is my favorite thing in this world. I literally went on to Taobao at one point and paid a fortune for premier shipping to get it shipped to Taiwan. I've never seen them in any hotpot stores in Taiwan. Only very few authentic Sichuan Chengdu ChuanChuan (basically cooking things on a stick in hotpot) stores have them. Turns out that Dingfeng's owner used to work in China and also loved chuan fen so he brought some back. What can I say? Great minds. Dingfeng's chuan fen has great quality, they don't stick together after being cooked. They soak up the soup perfectly and has this amazing bouncy texture. I usually stay away from noodles when I eat hotpot but I couldn't help but have 2 servings.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Meat + Seafood Menu
The meat and seafood are ordered instead of placed in the buffet. Of course, you can order as much as you want. As you might already know, I can eat a lot. When I go to all-you-can-eat barbecue or hotpot restaurants I'd eat so much that restaurants often start delaying my orders or giving me less and less. But at Dingfeng, every serving comes in standard size, and they don't randomly cut back on your serving cause you are ordering more. Food also arrive very quickly.
There are 7 types of meat to choose from. For the beed, there's Australian Angus beef, New Zealand Sirloin, 澳Australian Flat Iron and US brisket. Out of the 4, 3 are grass-fed, which is what I usually go for. Grass-fed beef not only has way more vitamins than grain-fed ones, it also contains less saturated fat and primarily contains good fats. Plus, grass-fed beef is not fed with GMO grains, avoiding the issue of insulin resistance caused by GMO products. As a beef lover, it's nice to have good quality beef so that I can eat to my heart's content. There's also New Zealand lamb, Taiwanese Cherry Duck Breast, and Spanish Pork Belly.
I actually don't eat lamb or mutton, but I tried some of the New Zealand Lamb slices. Surprisingly, Dingfeng's lamb does not hav the weird gamey smell, but there's this subtle milk-like taste. Out of the 7, this was Ares' favorite. He said that it goes really well with the kimchi soup. He also mentioned that he was surprised cause he never liked lamb like this. He's only ever liked lamb as kebab before.
Taiwanese Cherry Duck Breast was Ares' number 2 but my first choice. This is the first time I ever liked duck. I had a pet duck when I was a kid and I've refused to eat duck ever since. I never thought it tasted good anyway. But Dingfeng's cherry duck breast has such perfectly distributed fat. Not only was the texture great, the smell and taste of the duck fat was rich and delicious. I couldn't help but have several servings. Sorry I ate your friends, Dress. (Yeah, I was 6, I gave my pets stupid names. I might still do.)
There were so many types of seafood, I literally could not recognize half of them. There are 23 types of seafood that you can choose from, including unlimited angel red shrimp and the expensive abalone. This is the first time I've ever seen angel red shrimp, I didn't even know raw shrimp that was red existed on this earth. And they were so massive! Each was at least the size of 2 regular shrimp. Each serving came with 6 angel red shrimp. That's more food than you would get in 1 entrée at an Italian restaurant.
Dingfeng has a barbecue on the side of your hotpot. Ares was worried that I might die if we cook too much shellfish in the pot so we barbecues most of them. We also ordered some scallops. I didn't eat them but I cooked them for him. And I could feel how tender they were just by touching them with the tongs. While they were being cooked on the plate, I could see the juice gathering around the bottom of the scallops, bubbling. Each serving came with 6 big fat scallops. Ares basically inhaled them as son as they were ready. You also get a free gift of a roe-filled giant mud crab. As soon as we opened it after it was cooked, it was FILLED with crab roe. I immediately recommended this place to my seafood-loving parents when I got home. I also warned them that they would probably eat all the seafood they can eat in the month in this one meal, for the sake of their cholesterol levels.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Dessert and Beverages
There were so many types of beverages, slurpees, coffee, juice, and all types of flower and fruit tea. There are also bottled drinks with no extra charge in the fridge, including sodas, sweet beverages, and bottle water. I know bottled water isn't special, but all I drink is water, and there is no other all-you-can-eat hotpot stores that offers free water!
Don't even get me started on the variety of the desserts. There are 4 different brands of ice cream. Swiss Môvenpick, Belgian Glacio, New Zealand Talley's Thailand Mingo. Mingo has interesting flavors like durian and lychee. The other brands have common flavors like chocolate, berries, vanilla, and some of Ares' favorite classic European flavors.
Our top picks are Môvenpick's stracciatella and caramelita and Glacio's caramel cream and rote grütze. In another fridge, there are also fruits and cake. Ares happily devoured several passion fruit which were amazingly sweet and sour. The ice cream goes so well with the cake, too! Ares is convinced that the ice cream is the whole reason that the cake exists.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Price
weekday lunch: NTD$638 (+10% service fee = NTD$702)
weekday dinner and weekends: NTD$688 (+10% service fee = NTD$757)
At this price, it's really such great value with this menu and location.
Gongguan DingFeng Duo-Flavor Mala Hotpot—Store Info
Store name: Dingfeng Mala Duo-Flavor Hotpot
Opening hours: 11:30–23:45 (last entry time 22:00)
Phone number: 02-29308999
Address: No. 200, Roosevelt Road Section 4, Wenshan District, Taipei City (6-minute walk from MRT Gongguan station exit 1, at the corner of Broadway Digital Cinema)
Facebook fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/dingfeng0/
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