Help me find out what this style of restaurant is called?

[amygirl]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some help finding out what a certain type of restuarant/style of eating is called.

I spent a week in Beijing last year, and in the city I found several shops (usually in food courts in the shopping centres...the ones where you have to load money onto a card and swipe the card to pay) that cooked noodles for you.

You grab a basket,

add dried noodles,

vegetables on wooden skewers

meat on wooden skewers

hand to assistant, who cooks them for you.

I also saw a cook your own version, where the ingredients come to you on a conveyor belt (like a sushi) and you cook them yourself.

Can anyone please tell me what this type of restaurant is called so that I can find it in Australia? I don't know Chinese, so if someone could tell me how to say it in English, that would be super.

Thank you!

[heifeng]

A skewer bar?

Wait, how do they cook them?

If it's in hot soup then it's probably malatang

(If you search any of the below does it show pictures of what you ate。。。

麻辣烫

串串香 )

Otherwise in the US, minus the actual skewers, if its cooked on a huge round grill with big sticks for you then it's called mongolian BBQ...but then again the noodles aren't dry...hmm

[aristotle1990]

If it came in an earthenware pot (or any sort of pot that's in that style, really) it could also be 砂锅 -- if those images look right, just tell your Chinese friends that you want "sha guo".

Another similar thing that they may well have in Australia is called 呷哺呷哺 (pronounced "sha bu sha bu") -- Chinese people will almost certainly know what you're talking about.

[skylee]

The first one sounds like 車仔麵 to me -> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODU4NzU5OTI=.html

[creamyhorror]

Another similar thing that they may well have in Australia is called 呷哺呷哺 (pronounced "sha bu sha bu") -- Chinese people will almost certainly know what you're talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu

[heifeng]

Or you can search Chinese Hotpot too.

I guess maybe you had the fast food version of it if it was on skewers & you mentioned you were in a food court...

I equated fast cooking of it for you to malatang which is sort of what you would get an a roadside stand and is on skewers...but the noodles sort of threw me off hehe

[yialanliu]

I don't know what it's called, but typically at hotels which serve breakfast, you have these all the time(only time I've eaten it myself). Since it's noodle based, it's cheap and not something I've done beyond breakfast haha.

If you want the "fuller" version which is more than just noodles there are street vendors for 麻辣锅 which is similar but not based around noodles.

Shabu-shabu is just a japanese version of chinese hotpot(火锅）