Location: Hsinchu Hua Chuan Yan Spicy Hot Pot
Travel note summary: Hua Chuan Yan Spicy Hot Pot in Hsinchu (take-out soup base). I've heard about 'Hua Chuan Yan' for a long time. After checking, I found out its main store is in Taoyuan, and there are currently two branches in Hsinchu—one on Beida Road and one in Zhubei. I've wanted to try it for ages but kept forgetting and putting it off. Unexpectedly, during a hot pot gathering at Xiao Lan's place on Sunday noon, he said today's soup base was from Hua Chuan Yan! Wow, great—I finally got to taste this famous spicy soup base. Like Ding Wang in Taichung, it turns out you can also take the soup base home. Buying a 300 NTD soup base requires purchasing at least 500 NTD worth of ingredients, so a minimum of 800 NTD lets you take it out. A big advantage of eating at home is that besides the soup base, everything else is much cheaper than dining in. We bought loads of meat slices, meatballs, hot pot ingredients, enoki mushrooms, cabbage, and other toppings at the supermarket. In the end, splitting the cost, it was only 299 NTD per person to eat until stuffed! :P Looking at the beautiful red soup surface, I couldn't wait to scoop a bowl an…