There’s something singularly satisfying about huddling over a piping hot bowl of noodle soup, slurping spicy stock from a plastic ladle as the endlessly rising steam opens up your airways and pores. Dragon Hot Pot – a popular chain with multiple locations across the country – offers that experience, plus the chance to shape your own culinary adventure.

Diners pick up a pot at the entrance and choose from an expansive range of ingredients at the front of the restaurant. The pot is weighed by the server, taken away and then returned with the diners’ choice of broth.

Their signature malatang boasts more than 20 Chinese herbs and spices melding together to create a fragrant velvety broth that can be adjusted to suit each person’s preferred heat levels: “mild”, “hot”, “fire hot” or “dragon hot”.

The Ma La Spicy Stir-Fry is a “dry” alternative that still delivers the heat and abundance of a broth-based hotpot, but the broth is substituted for a sauce. Payment here is determined by the weight of ingredients in each pot, so it’s easy to have a pot solo, or to load up and share between a group.