Ken’s Happy Birthday HotPot

Tonight’s hot pot feels like the kind of warmth you can’t quite photograph—the way heat gathers at the edges of a night and makes everyone lean in.

Ken’s Happy Birthday HotPot started with a simple center: a ceramic pot perched above blue flame, surrounded by dark lava stones, steady and alive. It’s the sort of setup that turns a patio into a small, flickering room. The air goes cool, the conversation slows, and you can hear the night doing what it always does—moving around you while you stay put for a while.

We cooked the way you do when the point isn’t speed. Thin slices of wagyu beef disappeared into the broth and came back out transformed, tender and rich. Everyone hovered close, trading turns, watching steam rise, letting the meal pace itself. A birthday doesn’t need much more than that: a shared pot, a little ceremony, and the feeling that the evening is holding together.

There’s something comforting about food that asks you to pay attention. You wait, you listen, you taste, you repeat. The fire keeps its quiet rhythm. The pot keeps offering another small moment. And somewhere in the middle of all that, the celebration becomes real.