Roughly one in eight people taste soap when they eat cilantro, and a hot pot chain just built an entire menu for everyone else.
Haidilao launched its Cilantro Series this September, and the announcement does not hedge: “we’re going ALL IN on cilantro.”
There are eight items.
The centrepiece is a Fragrant Cilantro Soup Base, photographed as a square pot with a solid green layer of leaves floating on the broth.
Around it go Cilantro Beef Skewers, Handmade Cilantro Beef Meatballs, Black Truffle Shrimp Paste, Coriander Noodles, a plate of Fresh Cilantro, Century Eggs and a Cilantro Fizz, a canned soda the colour of the herb.
The Chinese headline on the poster, 香菜党狂喜, translates roughly to “the cilantro party rejoices.”
Order all eight and you get a limited-edition Haidilao phone card holder, while supplies last.
The post gives no end date beyond “NEW this September.”
Haidilao rolled a coriander series out across its Singapore and Malaysia outlets in June, built around an extra-coriander soup base and a coriander spritzer, plus a coriander cocktail and a “Coriander Lover Honour Certificate” in Singapore.
The Canadian version swaps the certificate for a card holder and adds the skewers, meatballs, noodles and century eggs, which is a longer list than either Southeast Asian menu got.
This seems to be available at all the Haidilao locations since each individual account has posted about it.
The comment section under the post ran the way you would expect.
“I don’t know why people say it tastes like soap. I love cilantro!” wrote one commenter.
We wrote “Our nightmare,” so you know where this desk stands.
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