Toba Hirohide's latest challenge

Lau 1000°C is a new restaurant, which Japanese expatriate Toba Hirohide has opened on Le Quy Don Street in HCMC's District 3. A winding gray stone staircase from the eatery-crowded street leads up to the hot pot and grill restaurant.

Chefs prepare hot pots for diners at Lau 1000°C.

The Vietnamese word "lau" means hot pot in English. But the restaurant serves not only Vietnamese and Japanese hot pots but also other dishes of the two countries to cash in on the increasing number of middle-class and high-income Vietnamese who like to dine out.

In terms of its trademark, the fine dining restaurant offers country-style special and sour hot pots of Vietnam and soymilk, miso, oceanic Bonito-based and Shabu Shabu hot pots of Japan. Hirohide says more hot pots are in the works to be added to the menu.

Undoubtedly, the soymilk hot pot is one of the chef's suggestions. Hirohide says this Japanese specialty combines soymilk and soup made based on the traditional secrets of Japanese chefs. The pot comes with seafood, tofu, meat-balls, mushrooms and vegetables.

Miso hot pot is another highlight, different from miso soup at Japanese restaurants in HCMC in color and flavor.

Lau 1000°C implements the do-it-yourself concept, giving diners much room for choice and creativity. Only hot broth or soup is served in a pot, and diners will order algusto fish, seafood and vegetables from the menu for the miso hot pot, for example.

Ingredients for others include meat, bitter melon, lady fingers, broccoli, cauliflower, bean sprouts, white bamboo, pumpkin flowers, sliced banana flowers and even kim chi.

Diners can also add silk and deep-fried tofu; soya sheets; shrimp and pork wontons; Udon, egg and rice noodles; and steamed rice to have with the hot pots.

Though Lau1000°C has more Japanese than Vietnamese hotpots, Hirohide says, the majority of the dishes on the menu are cooked to have Vietnamese flavors.

In addition to hot pots, grill is available - grilled squid, scallop, shrimp, crab, oysters, salmon, snails, sausages, chicken, beef tripe, a wide variety of vegetables and more.

Hirohide, who has lived in Vietnam for six years, explains Lau 1000°C cooks prepare most Vietnamese-tasting dishes from the abundant local produce to attract local and expatriate families and businesspeople in HCMC.

The unusual name Lau 1000°C and the dark-looking restaurant front are what Hirohide expects will catch the eyes of diners and earn publicity. Hirohide says Lau 1000°C is a new challenge he takes on, after he left the Legend Hotel Saigon three years ago.

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