Late Night Cravings – Local Startup Sells Self-Heating Instant Hotpot, Green Pepper Mala Is A Must Try

After the recent Hai Chi Jia Suan La Fen craze, there is now a new instant mala snack to check out: the self-heating hotpots from Late Night Cravings!

This local company just started selling their instant Mala hotpots last month on 14 July 2020.

Their self-heating hotpots are manufactured by independent sources and sold under the “Late Night Cravings” brand.

There are two flavours available: Original Mala and Green Pepper Mala. Each pack costs $6.50, and you enjoy a slight discount if you buy more units.

The hotpots have a shelf life of 10 months, and the expiry date is printed on the top.

Hotpot Contents & Ingredients

Each package contains Sweet Potato Noodles, the Soup Base, the Vegetable Pack (Lotus Root, Kelp, Mushroom, Potato), the Self-heating Pack, and Cutleries (Chopstick, Fork, Spoon, Napkin).

The food do not contain any animal contents so it is suitable for vegetarians too.

Original Mala ingredients

Green Pepper Mala ingredients

For the complete list of ingredients, refer to the pictures above.

How To Cook

The cooking instructions are easy!

Step 1. First, open all the ingredients and pour them into the white container. For the “Original Mala” flavour, I recommend adding just half of the soup base because it is VERY spicy – and this is coming from someone with a high spice tolerance.

Step 2. Next, add water until the indicated line. Pro-tip: room temperature water works fine, but I recommend using boiling water to create an even more satisfying steaming hotpot. This is based on personal experience.

Step 3. Put the heat pack into the black container

Step 4. Add room temperature water until the heat pack is mostly submerged.

Step 5. Place the white container into the black container, and cover with the lid.

Step 6. Wait 15 minutes for the hotpot to go to a boil, take off the lid, and enjoy your delicious Mala hotpot!

Original Mala

The Original Mala flavour is made from a variety of spices, with Szechuan Peppercorn being the main ingredient.

The Mala soup base was fragrant, robust and numbingly-spicy. The glass noodles were slippery-smooth, chewy, and soaking with Mala goodness.

Remember not to cook the hotpot beyond 15 minutes, otherwise the noodles will lose their firmness and become slightly soggy – this happened to me once.

What makes this hotpot stand out is the generous amount of vegetables inside: lotus roots, kelps, mushrooms, and potatoes.

The lotus roots were crunchy, the kelps added a slightly salty taste, the mushrooms were QQ, and the potatoes were sweet with a solid bite.

These vegetables helped to add flavour and mouthfeel to the dish, making my self-heating hotpot experience that much more satisfying!

Warning: note that when I tried this flavour the first time, I added the FULL pack of soup base and the spiciness was slightly overwhelming for me.

Go ahead and add the entire pack if you have an iron gut, but if you’re a mere mortal being like me I recommend using around just half of the soup base.

Green Pepper Mala

The Green Pepper Mala flavour is made from a unique blend of spices, with Vine Peppercorn being the key ingredient. This was my preferred flavour of the two!

The hotpot broth was super rich and fragrant, with an amazing savoury flavour that was dangerously addictive.

While not as spicy as the Original Mala flavour, it still retained that distinctive feisty and numbing taste profile.

On the whole, this was a wonderfully delicious hotpot that was super satisfying but not too spicy.

(I added the full pack of soup base for this flavour.)

Where To Buy

Late Night Cravings offers islandwide delivery through their website: https://latenightcravings.co

Prices are extremely reasonable: there is no minimum order and the delivery fee is only $4.50 for most locations in Singapore.

Delivery time is one to four working days.

Conclusion

True to its name, Late Night Cravings did a great job of satisfying my cravings at night. It is a wonderful treat that is both convenient and delicious. The Original Mala flavour was good, but I definitely enjoyed the Green Pepper Mala flavour more! I recommend adding some extra ingredients for an even better hotpot experience – as you can tell from the pictures above I added some crab sticks and button mushrooms.

Late Night Cravings
Order here: https://latenightcravings.co