The same ingredients-Chinese cabbage, lettuce, mushrooms, kelp, bean curd, seafood, and mutton-that people use to make hot pot are used in malatang. However, for malatang, the ingredients are placed on thin sticks, like kebabs, and cooked in a 
previously prepared sauce.
While malatang is similar to hot pot, there are different methods for eating the dishes. When eating hot pot, a group of people usually eat together, sitting around one table, ordering the materials together, waiting and chatting, then eating from the same pot. When eating malatang,however, people do not need to order. They just get what they like from a large cooking pot on a stove. Malatang is much more convenient to eat. While more people choose hot pot in winter for warmth and fun, many people prefer malarang in the summer.
Malatang is so popular, in fact, that it is common to see people, during the summer, eating it, with either beer or soda on the sides of roads or in small restaurants. There are several reasons for that: Firstly, vegetables are the main ingredients in malatang, so the dish
contains relatively fewer calories; secondly it is cheap and convenient.
