Chinese Mt. Fuji in Ethiopia

I went out to dinner at the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant again for hu ō guō, i.e. meats and vegetables cooked in a simmering hot pot. This kind of hot pot cooking is said to have originated in China, although it's popular in Japan (shabu-shabu) and other East Asian countries as well. The pot used these days in China and Japan is a flat, earthenware or metallic bowl, but the one used here in Ethiopia is shaped like a volcano (think Mt. Fuji) with a center cone surrounded by a wide, moat-like lip. The the water or broth goes in the "moat" and the center cone contains charcoal to keep it simmering--the volcano image strengthened by the bit of smoke that rises out of the center. This older type of pot is probably used in Ethiopia since charcoal is much easier/cheaper to use than, say, gas or an electric burner. The waitresses brought out plates of beef and mutton, cabbage, tofu, noodles and tree ear mushrooms (see Judas's Ear for an unexpected etymology). For the dipping sauce, one of my colleagues had brought a liter of soy sauce with him from Japan, which we passed around, and then added garlic, as well as the sesame sauce provided by the restaurant. The plates of ingredients seemed to keep coming for the entire 90 minutes we were there, so I think we all walked out of there with full hot pot bellies.