Nothing Dainty about spicy sichuan food

The torrential rain and windy days have made me crave hotpot so the boy and I went to Dainty for some spicy sichuan food. The term 'ma la' is frequently used to describe Sichuan food and it literally translates to 'numbing spicyness'. Dainty (with branches in the CBD Chinatown, South Yarra and Smith St) serves up very authentic Sichuan and when we left the place, our faces were flushed red. Here's a picture of our order. Normally a hotpot is best eaten with more people so more dishes can be ordered (hence more variety), however there were plenty of tables with just couples tackling a gigantic bubbling hot pot.

We opted for mixed soup. In the pic below you can see that the clear soup is in the middle and the fiery red soup sits on the outside. Pre-boiling stage:

Post-boiling stage...our food is ready to go in!

Our dishes- which we didn't finish as the rice cakes were a lil too filling, so we took the rest home and I guess it'll serve as ingredients to the dinner I'll be making tomorrow. From L-R, top to bottom: Potato noodles, oyster mushrooms, lotus roots (very nice when boiled in the spicy 'ma la' soup), rice cakes, pork slices, black fungus, coriander beef balls and spinach. We also ordered yummy sesame dipping sauce.

Moomba was held over possibly the worst weekend ever as the weather did nothing but hail and rain, but guess what we saw? A giant plush!

And since my contract with Optus has expired, I transferred my number over to 3 and added-on an internet package..... I'm now a brand new owner of this:

Pic credits: Here
I finally get to surf the web on my phone :)