Hot Pot Lunch at 13 Taels 十三两火鍋

It was a relatively cold day and what better way to warm up than having some hot pot?  We had just finished visiting the Humble Administrator’s Garden and after a short walk, we found this restaurant that looked quite promising.  The name of the restaurant is quite interesting and I’m unsure of how to translate it properly. 十三 is “thirteen” and 两  can either mean “twice” or in this case, it’s a unit of measurement that can be translated to “tael”.  But does 13 Taels really make sense to anyone? 

We ordered all the usuals – beancurd, veggies, rice cakes, and meatballs.  Actually, probably the most common hot pot item is thinly cut slices of beef or lamb and we decided to forgo this and try the meatballs instead.  And as with all typical hot pot restaurants in Asia, they had a big table set up in the middle of the restaurant with all the sauces you can imagine – chili oil, peanut sauce, sesame sauce, vinegar, xo sauce, etc.  I can’t remember all the ones they had as I normally just focus on the peanut and sesame sauces.
 

Lunch was a success and we left with very full and warm tummies. I tried to look this place up online after I returned home to see how big of a chain it is.  I could hardly find any information about them online which leads me to believe that it is actually just a very small business.  You would never know it from the way the restaurant was decorated.  It looked like many of the other hot pot chains around the country.