Joi B.
Yelp
If you know me, you know that my #1 thing to eat is dry hot pot. There's nothing on planet earth as delicious as this. Fight me.
We were driving all day from New Orleans on our way to the Northeast for the holidays. We planned on stopping in Atlanta for the night.
Now, a vegan road trip inspires all kinds of feelings... from hungry and angry because you had to break down and get the tots at Sonic (OK, not so angry) to hungry and sugar silly because you grabbed licorice at the convenience store to extremely raging effing hungry, very much determined to eat an actual damn meal at a sit down restaurant. It had been 8 hours! I needed more than popcorn and sesame crackers to satisfy me.
Luckily Yelp pointed me in the direction of Urban Wu on this frigidly cold night of 12/23. Always my savior, that Yelp. I took one look at the vegetarian menu (so many great options on there btw) and saw a vegetable hot pot with tofu and ended my search.
It was on the later side of the evening and while the restaurant was empty, they were doing a booming take out business. It's a casual spot in a strip mall, but done up just fine... and they offer cocktails and wine. Yeah, I needed some of that before crashing for the night down the block. No, I wasn't driving. Maybe in spirit. Always in spirit. I'm a nervous passenger.
Everyone in here is nice and welcoming, despite the later hour (9ish). I ordered my beloved hot pot as hot as possible (underlined), despite the usual dubious look that I always get when I order something raging hot. Yes, I'm an American girl who needs her food as hot as can be. And some sparkling wine that was cold and bubbly.
And the verdict? This might be one of the best dry hot pots I have ever had! I didn't even have to specify veggies like at some places and it came out with tons of my favorite thing, lotus root. There was also cauliflower, a lot of tofu and carrots and bok choy and mushrooms and others. Besides that, they listened to my plea and it was perfectly super hot!
My husband and I barely spoke as we devoured everything. At the end, we vowed to make this our Christmas road trip tradition... even if upon our millionth hour of the drive back home this week we vowed to never make that drive again. With the promise of Urban Wu, come December 2023, we may even ignore the prospect of a long winter road trip!