Hot Pang in Beeston sits on the corner of Regent Street and the High Road, it is so much on the corner that the shop front is actually curved. I had been drawn to dine here by the pictures of steaming sichuan hot pots dishes in the window as I passed by last weekend on a breakfast run
The place does specialise in Hot Pots and the tables all have those hot plates in the middle that you sit your own personal pot of stock in to cook you own bowl of food up in.
Today though I was dining alone and was just hoping nay praying that I could get some sort of noodles and hopefully some dumplings, nothing unusual then happening in the MyFoodHunt world of scoffing.
Noodle Menu
I loved the handwritten menu that they gave me, cardboard sheets in a binder all carefully transcribed in Chinese and English. I turned to the Noodle page where the dishes were listed very simply. “Beef Noodle” £8.80, they really were not giving much away with that description! I ordered that anyway 🙂
Beef Noodle
It turned out that ‘Beef Noodle’ at Hot Pang was a really very accurate description of the dish. It was essentially just that, a bowlful of noodles topped with a large pile of cubed braised beef.
The soup was basically ladlefuls of thick meaty beefy stock, very little hot spicing perhaps just a hint of heat from the ginger. Other flavourings I could pick out were garlic, star anise, cinnamon, and rice wine. It was quite gentle on the palate
The chunks of beef were super tender, a little fatty just as I like, and were very unctuous, a joy to eat. The stock was like supping super beefy gravy, just like when you spoon up the spare gravy from your emptied plate of Roast Beef at the end of a Sunday Dinner
As you slowly work your way through the dish by slurping up the soup the lovely noodle strands appear and you find the leaves of chinese cabbage lurking beneath the surface. It is like the tide receding in a rock pool to reveal what lay beneath. (or maybe not 🙂 )
The thing that struck me the most about this Bowl of Beef Noodles was just how much beef they gave me, I mean it was really a very generous portion.
It was almost overwhelming, yet so easy to eat that you felt as if you could just keep on going long after I knew that I was actually full and should stop.
Menu with Dumplings
If I am honest I probably did not need to order Dumplings to go alongside my Beef Noodles, but knowing that and listening to the sensible side of my brain is a function that seems to get switched off whenever I see a menu.
It was a straight choice for me between the Grilled Dumplings and the Handmade Pork Mince Dumplings. I really thought I should have tested out the Handmade ones, but as I suspected I had a lot of noodles to get through I went for the Grilled ones purely because they were cheaper so I thought it would be a smaller plateful. I know that logic stopped working too 🙂
Grilled Dumplings
The Grilled dumplings were excellent, nicely fried with a soft slightly chewy yet crispy coating. They were packed full of soft pork and chinese vegetables. They came with a chinese black vinegar dipping plate, but there were other condiments that were available on the table like soy and chilli oil
I also dipped some in my soup, which is code for I fished out some of the dumplings from my soup that I dropped during overconfident chopstick maneuvers. That actually worked out pretty well too 🙂
I was really happy with these grilled dumplings, and I am really keen now to try the handmade ones that I didn’t pick as I reckon that they will be really good too
More Menu Options
I took a few pictures of the menu as there were none to take away and I wanted to have some food for thought for future possible visits. The cover rice dishes were all £8 each and there were several pages worth.
Chicken Dishes on the Menu
I took a picture of the Chicken Dishes section of the menu as I like the sound of the Xinjiang Sauce Spicy Chicken with Noodle and I wanted to remember the name so I could check out what that dish actually was.
A little Google action tells me that this is Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Flat Noodles also know as Big Plate Chicken. I think I have had something similar at Lanzhou Beef Noodle on Market Street where they have a dish called Big Plate Noodles.
Something maybe to come back for when I hit up those handmade pork dumplings on another trip over this way 🙂
Hot Pang is located at 124 High Rd, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 2LN . I haven’t found many references on the web for this place yet, but if any appear I will update the deets.