What’s better for a pounding, alcohol-induced headache than a warm, gooey grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup? Not much, you’d think, until the folks at Hot Box go all crazy on us, swapping out soup for a ravishing Bloody Mary. It’s a hangover cure FTW… how is this not on every brunch menu in town?
The three guys behind the box – Andrew Freeley, Kobe Cuigiya and Greg Jurksztowicz – want visitors to have more delivery devices for the speciality shop’s many hot sauces, so they brought in the big guns: grilled cheese from Jurksztowicz’s Co. Cheese and their own exclusive Bloody cocktail recipes. Go for a classic grilled cheese with cheddar (20RMB), or try the mapo version (30RMB) with a generous spread of Sichuan soul food brand Fly by Jing’s homemade spicy mapo sauce.
Hot Box’s Bloody Marys start with a classic base – vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish and lime juice – and then get a kick from Hainan chilli sauce and a rim of the team’s own spicy powder, made from smoked sriracha, jalapeño, Korean chilli paste gochujang and celery salt. You can also go for a Bloody Caesar (a clam juice-spiked variation on the classic), or their new ‘Bloody Mao’, which uses baijiu as part of the liquor base. Those all go for an astoundingly cheap 30RMB.
Once you’ve got your tomatoey tipple, add in your own spice from one of dozens upon dozens of hot sauces: homemade, local or imported. We opt for a few dashes of Hot Box’s smoky Ghost Pepper BBQ Sauce and a squirt of sweet and spicy Chin-Su Vietnamese hot sauce for a little Southeast Asian flare. It hits the spot.
Hot Box No 4, Lane 273, Jiaozhou Lu, near Xinzha Lu, Jingan district. Midday-9pm daily.
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