alright here's what you do.
first of all, don't buy the soup packets. buy either one of two things: buy the bricks of orange clarified butter/lard/tallow with all the herbs and spices in it already. these are typically from sichuan and they're the fucking best. no contest. if you see these, buy them. i've seen them in US asian supermarkets before and they are the only things i would recommend buying.
the alternative is japanese shabu shabu (japanese hot pot) base. this comes in liquid (not powdered) form, usually in a bag of soup. usually these are good as well. fuck powdered soup base. you're better off with knorr chicken stock and some red oil.
i wouldn't recommend making your own soup base from scratch. nobody does that.
as for fixins, specifically meat, get yourself a meat slicer, freeze a piece of chuck or whatever is cheap and slice it thin. the cut itself doesn't matter as much as making it thinly sliced. beef or pork. not chicken. as for other meats, the only un-prepared meat i'd recommend is whole shrimp. (heads on. don't be a fucking PUSSY.) and king crab meat/crab sticks/imitation crab meat. it's fuckin good in hotpot.
for prepared meat, you need asian meat balls: beef balls, pork balls, fish balls, cuttlefish balls, cheese-filled fishballs, lobster fishballs---whatever. it doesn't fucking matter. you just need a couple of these. they're all in the frozen section. get them all and only take out an assortment and keep the rest frozen.
as for vegetables, there are some veggies you put in at the start that will soak up all the flavor and you can just sort of forget about them until they're ready much later on. these include corn (on the cob), large mushrooms, winter melon, celtuce, and some other shit i'm forgetting.
you also definitely want enoki mushrooms. these don't need to cook as long but they're fucking good about halfway through after a bunch of stuff has already married.
get yourself some deep fried tofu puffs or tofu skin too. the shape doesn't matter. sometimes they come in puffy balls (dried), other time it comes in a sheet, other times it comes in puffy squares, and other times in a roll. just search "deep fried tofu balls" or "fried bean curd rolls" or "bean curd sheets" and you can't go wrong.
finally there are the leafy vegeables. most common is watercress or lettuce. it shouldn't have much flavor and you just put it in at the end to soak up all the OTHER flavors with a bit of a crunch. it's essential, but again it comes at the end.
finally, some may disagree but i don't fuck with noodles at hotpot. why? because you only eat noodles if you're a poor piece of shit and don't have enough to fill up on with the rest of your feast, or when you and your drunk buddies are beyond the point of no return and just want to keep eating but you're already full. in this case, you can have some udon or instant noodles (or if you're really fancy, mung bean noodles or sweet potato glass noodles), but you really shouldn't have room for these. and they should ONLY be cooked at the very end when they can absorb all the flavors from everything else you've cooked.
edit: don't mean to shit on
@There She Glows soup packet. i'm sure it's fine. i still strongly recommend the sichuan soup base bricks though.
also, for wood ear, you can find them dried at asian supermarkets, but do NOT put them in the hotpot dried. you need to hydrate them and preferably boil them first or they'll taste like ass and might make everything else taste like ass.
enjoy your gout!
