Torn down at its old location just south of the Tonghui River diagonally opposite to Jianwai Soho, this old favorite has just reopened in the Langent Center in Shuangjing.

Perhaps most different about this new location is the relatively tiny size of its dining room (compared to its previous incarnation as a multi-level affair). Very few large tables are available in the main dining room, meaning large parties should definitely call ahead. Private rooms are available but the price is considerably higher, as they only offer individual pots with broth starting at RMB 40 a pot and a 10% service charge tacked on top; that means that even before you start ordering goodies, a party of 6 is starting with RMB 250+ worth of broth.

I found the square tables and square hotpots to be particularly irritating, as it guaranteed that one side of the table could only reach the spicy side of our "yin-yang" (aka one side spicy, one side mild) and vice-versa. Broth hot pots are born to be round (as are Chinese dining tables) and there's a dawn good reason for it. I can only imagine that they felt like they could cram more square tables in the main dining room.

The food remains fantastic though expensive (our table of 5 adults and 2 toddlers) spent RMB 700 for a filling meal.