Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
According to historians, Genghis Khan’s many wives and his penchant for pillaging towns and villages might have seen him sire hundreds, or even thousands, of children.
A 2003 genetic study suggested around one in 200 living men carry a form of the Y chromosome that may have originated with the Great Khan himself. If true, that would mean that 0.5 per cent of the world’s male population are his direct descendants.
What I would like to know is: where did he get his energy from?
I think I may have found the answer – Mongolian Hot Pot, a tasty triumph oozing with flavour and perhaps there’s a bit of Khan’s genes in my DNA because I couldn’t get enough.
The Sheraton Bahrain Hotel’s sensational Soie Restaurant is running a Mongolian Hot Pot promotion until the end of the month with a choice of meat and vegetable hot pot and seafood and vegetable hot pot.
The meat version is an authentic Mongolian fondue surrounded with thinly sliced chicken, beef, and firm bean curd, accompanied by glass noodles and served with the chef’s choice of dips and a bowl of rice on the side.
This is a very tasty option which the good lady wife Kathryn and I shared filling our bowl from the warm pot after adding a selection of vegetables into the mix.
But the seafood version was swimming with flavour, another delicious Mongolian fondue with cuttle fish, shrimps, calamari and hammour floating in a soup alongside the most amazing fish balls containing the flesh of fresh catch in a doughy delight that melted in the mouth.
It was warming and wonderful and you could just image the concoction putting fire in the bellies of Khan and his marauding compatriots.
Little Stan, our 11-year-old son, is not very adventurous when it comes to trying new restaurant meals and went for his favourite Chinese dish of crispy chicken stir-fry after some nibbles to start with, using chop-stick skills taught to him by our friendly waitress.
The Soie team never fail to impress and it was good to see the restaurant buzzing with food devotees enjoying the fare.
The legacy of Genghis Khan has often been invoked in an attempt to foster national pride. Mongolian culture embraced religious freedom and helped open contact between East and West.
Many people were slaughtered in the course of Khan’s invasions, but he also granted religious freedom to his subjects, abolished torture, encouraged trade and created the first international postal system.
Perhaps 21st Century Mongolia ought to devote a stamp to celebrate the hot pot that kept him on the go.
Until then readers will have to invade the Sheraton armed with BD9++ for the meat and veg hot pot and BD13.9 for the seafood sensation.
The good news is that you’ll never finish the whole pot in one sitting, so you can pull up the drawbridge and heat up the remains back at home the following day.
