5 Flavor is the type of bland, super-chic Asian restaurant that’s often found in Berlin: its lime green walls and minimal black furniture bill it as a club-scene stopover rather than an authentic Chinese eaterie. Obviously, the owners have a flair for identifying winning trends and knowing how to steer them - five years ago, they began offering Chinese hot pot (“huoguo”), a type of Asian dining experience that’s exotic enough to intrigue but friendly enough to introduce your parents to.

Hot pot hasn’t caught on in this city like raw fish on rice has (though it’s way ahead of bubble tea when it comes to colonising European taste buds). But huoguo is a true Chinese eating experience, shared by city-dwellers from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong. It’s more soup than stew, more cooking than dipping, although the diners do share the same pot and swap around piles of food.

Is it as intense and savory as its traditional cheesy counterpart? Not really, but the food is healthier, less congesting and won’t render you comatose. Sixteen euros seems like a lot to pay for a pot of boiling broth and slices of meat and vegetables, but to complain would be to discount the sheer quantity of food - as well as the health benefits of the broth, which is filled with medicinal herbs like jujube (good for stress), goji berries (loaded with antioxidants), camomile and Sichuan flower peppers, whose properties leave your tongue slightly numb. Plus, the price is allinclusive, so you can order rounds of seafood without having to shell out more money. 5 Flavor serves two broths, one spicy and the other mild. The spicy broth comes in two versions: “German spicy” or “Chinese spicy”. No matter how racy you like your food, go for the German version, because “Chinese spicy” really means Szechuan spicy, and Szechuan spicy is insane.