Aug 15, 2025

TASTE TEST CLOSED!

Thank you for voting! The Ott Hot Pot Taste Test survey was closed on 8/30/25

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Sketches and Planning

I knew the general concept of an Ott Hot Pot would be pretty simple, but I struggled to figure out how to differentiate the concept of Hot Pot initially. I already have noodle bowls, like the Danger Noodle Ramen, Sheppy Shabu and Cobra Soba, but hot pot is unique because we needed to convey how we would make the pot hot without it feeling... well, morbid.

I sketched out a few versions, and in doing so I realized we could avoid "cooking" and focus more on the fun of adding ingredients.

When I was a kid, there was a restaurant my family would go to that was a buffet style place. I loved the Clam Chowder, and I had this weird obsession with stuffing it full of extra ingredients. I'd add peas, corn, cheese, hardboiled eggs and so many oyster crackers to the point that it was no longer chowder so much as more of a thick paste. A pile of food with a gentle coating of chowder flavored sauce. Then I'd take it another step further and attempt to dip breadsticks in it.

Anyway, I still do that but now it's more of a visual art process than a food one. It's less messy that way now. I decided to try out a classic "ceramic" pho style bowl, a metal one styled like the kind you'd usually find over a burner, and a stone pot with a lid. I liked each one equally for different reasons, and I decided that spreading the ingredients around the bowls would work to convey the idea behind hot pot.

The last time I had hot pot was at a conveyor belt style place, where various ingredients would pass by for you to grab at your own leisure. I love conveyor belt style places for their variety, but I truthfully find them to be kind of hit or miss when it comes to ingredient quality. It's too easy for something to be left on the belt too long. It's a fun novelty experience though, and thankfully the hot pot place I went to didn't seem to have that problem.

This week's Taste Test was interesting - I'll always send out the original Taste Test to my VIPs via email first, then later on I'll crosspost it to social media, like my Instagram. Usually the Taste Tests results are pretty similar, but this time the results were totally different. The results I originally got showed a pretty clear preference for the Metal Pot variation of the Ott Hot Pot, but when I cross posted to social media, they seemed to like the Stone Pot more! I also loved the stone pot, but ended up making an executive (chef) decision to stick with the Metal Pot variant this time around. Perhaps later we'll add the Stone Pot version? Comment below if you have ideas on how we could make use of that one!