The Whipping @ Old Mandarin Islamic

David and I like to think we're eating pros. So when we had to share a big table with an elderly Chinese couple who also were having hot pot, we joked amongst ourselves that this was like a eat-off. Well, we were in for a schooling. As seen in the picture, we ordered orders of lamb, beef, spinach, and tofu as well as an appetizer of lamb dumplings not pictured. All the food was delicious, but this was not the problem.
We foudn ourselves being out eaten into embarassment by the two across the table who were each abotu a foot shorter and 25 years older. They older what we had plus, fish, shrimp, and another vegetable! And they cooked, ate, and drank two pots of tea all in the time that we only manage to eat half of our food. To add injury to insult, the elder man when asked if they would finish their appetizer or would liek to take it home by the waittres, grinned, nodded at us, and said, "Oh, we'll eat it!"
And man, did it take effort for us to finish our dinner. I gave up with a few pices of meat left and David had to soldier on himself. We then licked wounds of defeat with $2 cocktails at Jade. Nothing like cheap booze to console the trampled.