Yesterday did not start well. The excesses of the night before were paid for in blood and tears and in some cases, a cheeky chunder. Thankfully not mine.

Surfacing wasn’t even possible until about 2.30pm when we all decided that we’d brave the rain and venture out in search of sustenance. Sandwiches seemed like the safest option so we headed for the Parish again as no one was in the mood for exploring. This was distinctly less successfull than the previous visit, by the time food arrived, hayls couldn’t even take a bite, i managed 2 and i think alex got about 5 mouthfuls in before we decided we had made some pretty unwise lunch choices and could no longer sit somewhere that upbeat. We had it packed up and scarpered. We decided that the New York Pizza place we’d seen on the way there was probably the better bet so went in there and grabbed some suitably large slices and headed back for the safetly of the apartment to ensconce ourselves in front of Get Him To The Greek. Much much better.

After a couple of hours and a naps all round we decided that we might now be feeling brave enough to go out for dinner. This was mainly because we had some pretty hardcore cravings for asian food and decided that the chances of us getting anything satisfactory delivered were slim and we’d be better off jumping in a cab and heading off to Chinatown. This turned out to be a damn good decision. Having no idea where to go, i jumped on to trusty Urbanspoona and flicked through a couple of menus. I love Urbanspoon as i haven’t often been disappointed by restaurants i’ve found on there and you can search by cuisine, neighbourhood and they have a lots of top tens.

Anyway, after a while spent um-ing and ah-ing we finally settled on Q, a restaurant specialing in sushi, chinese food and mongolian hot pots on washington st. Now i don’t know if it’s just me but when i’m hungover i get what we refer to as the hangover munchies, super hunger that often leads to some pretty excessive ordering, as hayley is the same, last night ended in rather a lot of food.

So, to start off with we got some japanese potstickers and some edamame. Both pretty good, although the potstickers would have been better with the sauce it usually comes with, rather than the vinegar they served it with.

After that was when we might have gone a bit overboard. Alex wanted a Mongolian hotpot so natuarally hayley and i obliged and it’s not exactly a 1 person dish! Our waiter recommended a beef noodle dish that i can’t remember the name of but we went for anyway. It was good but pretty greasy, not something i would usually be a big fan of but last night it was just what i wanted. We also, at the last minute decided to grab a bit of sushi as they have a ‘4 for $4’ deal where you can choose one of four rolls for only $4 each. We went for the spicy tuna.
As you can see, quite substantial for 3 people.

So, with the mongolian hotpots, you firstly choose your broth, then you choose your meat and finally you choose your noodles. They all also come with a little basket of veggies. Theres a whole page of additional extras as well, somewhat overwhelming and we definitely had a couple of panic additions.
After some deliberation we went for the Mala broth, there’s 4 differnt spice levels to this- mild, medium, spicy or extra spicy. Well obviously we decided not to be outdone and went for the extra spicy. Personally, it was perfect for me, i have a pretty high spice tolerance and it was exactly what i was after, something deep and spicy, heavily scented with coriander, asian cardamom and cumin, yum. I must admit though, when it arrived at the table and the entire surface of the soup was covered in a layer of chilli oil and large chunks of chilli, i did begin to panic a little. Luckily this was unfounded. A good feature about this place is that you can actually have 2 different broths in the same pot- they just divide it into 2 sections, so it eliminates the arguments if people can’t agree.

Basically it’s kind of like an asian fondue but 100 times better, you have an assortment of meats and veggies, all sliced paper thin that you then hold under the surface of the bubbling broth for a couple of seconds until cooked through. We went for chicken breast, fish cakes, coriander, bamboo shoots, quails eggs (because if they’re on a menu, alex can’t not order them), udon noodles and enoki mushrooms.
I had cup after cup of soup and it was just what the doctor ordered, it totally blew away the last cobwebs of the hangover- so much so that i even managed a glass of red wine when we got home!

The icing on the cake was when we got the bill – $82 dollars for a whole table full of delicious food. Utter bargain. The setting itself is great, really upbeat, buzzing and bright with a good soundtrack playing in the background, a really good setting for a saturday night, it even made us tempted to have a night out. I’m glad we didn’t decide to do that in the end though. The staff are very friendly and knowledgeable about the food, and, whilst at the beginning, our waiter was a little overzealous with his attentiveness and recommendations, he ended up being very sweet and helpful. We obviously couldn’t finish our mountain of food so without a flicker of hesitation he packed it all up for us to take away, there was no way we were leaving that broth behind. He also asked the manager if we could take a bottle of wine away which you can do in Boston provided it’s been opened and some has been consumed at the restaurant. We had a sip each and off we went, very contentedly full and happy and wishing we lived just down down the road. A really good restaurant to visit if you want some really tasty asian food in a lively setting. One i’ll definitely revisit when i’m next make it to Boston.