Food

Paris may be thousands of miles from Beijing, but that doesn't mean delectable French pastries are out of reach. I immediately fell for these macarons when I saw them at Comptoirs de France, a bakery opened by Philippe Ancelet, formerly of the Kempinski Hotel.

Macarons, especially from Pierre Hermé or Ladurée, have a cult following, and the cult only grows as more fans blog about them. These tiny rounds of meringue sandwiching a thin layer of cream look almost too good to eat, especially since patissiers often line up 10 or 12 different kinds, from pinks to greens to yellows. As adults, we may be too old to salivate over cotton candy and lollie pops, but macarons still give us a chance to indulge in something bright and colorful.

Comptoirs de France also has canneles, tarts, and petit fours, but those are the subjects of another story. Not buying every flavor of macarons was an exercise in restraint. But I did try the Vanilla Bourbon, Caramel Fleur de Sel, Green Tea, and Chocolate Sichuan Pepper.

The Yunnan folk music playing in the restaurant was so soothing that the cricket noises blended right in. Then Jacob snapped me out of my daze and pointed to the middle of the room. A middle-aged couple was lovingly playing with their pet cricket, which was sitting on the table in a tiny glass jar.

The cricket continued to chirp sporadically throughout our meal. While it's more common to hear car honks in the middle of Beijing than crickets, it was easy to pretend for a while that we were in rural Yunnan. The restaurant was decorated in bright yellows and reds, with Dai minority folk art on the walls. And we were about to eat hearty Yunnan fare.

We started off with a Dai mint salad, a salad composed entirely of mint leaves, with a little minced garlic, chilli, and vinegar thrown in.

"Wow," said Jacob, after his first bite. "It's good, but you'd have to really like mint."

Fortunately, I do like mint enough to fill up my whole mouth with them. But soon I found out that dipping the mint in the Cross-the-Bridge noodles made it even better.

In my previous trips to Macau, I had only explored the Central and Southern parts of Macau island. On Valentine's Day, Jacob and I took another day trip to the former Portuguese colony and headed to a part that wasn't engulfed in casino and resort construction. After crossing the border, we hopped on a free shuttle to Hotel Lisboa, and from there caught a bus to Coloane, Macau's southernmost island.

Coloane is a tiny, laid-back island that is a great antidote to Central Macau's bustling streets. I, for one, was glad to get away from the diesel fumes and noise of motorcycle engines. (Motorcycles were out in full force yesterday, probably Spring Festival vacationers expending last bits of pent-up energy before starting work again.) Coloane Village is a nice place to walk around for an hour and admire the low-lying buildings that fuse Portuguese and Chinese styles. I was reminded of little villages in Lantau and Hong Kong's New Territories, where people leave their doors open and you can peak in and see what locals are eating for lunch, or watching on TV. (Not that I peak, of course.)

I made it to Zhongshan without any problems on the road, despite the furious winter weather that still rages north of Guangdong province. I had barely settled in when my parents announced we were all going to dim sum.

My parents would never let a visit pass without going to dim sum at least once or twice, especially at their apartment complex's restaurant. It's affordable, reliably good, and like Cheers, it's where everybody knows their names. "Hi 关先生 and 关太太...oh, your daughter's back again, huh? Must be an occasion to celebrate." "Would you like the usual table and your usual pot of tea?" After 20 years in the service industry in the US, it's no wonder my parents love being on the receiving end of good service in their retirement years.

Dish after dish came to our table. There were the usual har gow (shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers) and Chiew Chow dumplings filled with pork and greens. Then came a web of something crisp with dumplings underneath. Turns out, these were pan-fried dumplings, except the pan-frying method was a tad more elaborate than swishing around a hot wok for a few minutes.

Native Hong Kongers and savvy travelers know that some of the best food, the kind you crave at 3pm or 3am, is not found at elaborate banquet halls or pricey fusion establishments. The best food is the kind Hong Kongers would make for themselves, if they only had the time. The city's noodle shops and coffee chops, called cha chaan tengs, provide the backbone of comfort food for people who are always on the move, but still like to duck into a place to relax and eat for a while.

Daisanne McLane has a good article in this week's New York Times on cha chaan tengs. These basic hole-in-the-walls, usually outfitted with formica tables and worn booths or plastic chairs, provide a kind of comforting nostalgia for the food and an old way of life. The menu usually consists of both Cantonese staples like beef brisket noodles and holdovers from HK's colonial days, like toast slathered with thickened sweet condensed milk. Wonton soup, another cha chaan teng staple, is something I could eat every other day and not get sick of. (If you can't make it to Hong Kong or have a good Cantonese restaurant in your town, see my recipe on making your own wontons.)

Hong Kong's shopping scene has long been more than just glitzy malls and department stores. Open-air night markets like the one on Temple Street has long drawn both locals and tourists in search of bargains and a little fun.

Located in Tsim Sha Tsui near the Jordan and Yau Ma Tei subway stops, Temple Street transforms into a circus of bargain ware after dark. There are so many stalls you will need at least half and hour to an hour to walk through, if you don't stop. You can get kitschy trinkets, clothes, DVDs, and toys, and even those kinds of DVDs and toys. (This is one of the few places in the world where you can walk around outdoors and see someone haggling over $5 for a toy usually sold in curtained shops.) And of course, there are the requisite Mao souvenirs, for irony, of course.

Other than shopping, you can also listen to Cantopop sung by people at makeshift karaoke stands, or visit one of the 20 or 30 fortune tellers. Or eat at one of the many street hawker stands or restaurants.

Hong Kong may not be under snow and ice like Hunan province, but it has its fair share of winter weather. After seeing some wild monkeys at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, we trekked back to North Point to meet up with my relatives for dinner. Even incessant rain couldn't dampen my spirits, because I knew my relatives always pick out the best places for Cantonese specialties.

Fung Shing Restaurant at the South China Hotel is one of those clean, brightly lit banquet halls where Hong Kongers go for both special occasions and no-special-occasions. And of course, we ordered a bunch of dishes to serve family-style.

I've had Cantonese roast chicken more times than I can count, and tonight's was one of the best I've ever tasted. The skin was amazingly crisp, the meat amazingly juicy. Usually you get skin and meat of this caliber only on a duck, but this chicken was prepared almost the same way. By repeatedly spooning the sugary sauce over chicken as it roasts, you can get a glistening, perfectly crisp skin.

Back in the good ol' US of A, I used to make candied nuts for snacks or holiday treats using the standard American oven. You know, the kind that comes in every house from coast to coast, from California McMansions to tiny tenement apartments in the Lower East Side. (The one in my LES tenement was always on the fritz, but that's a tangent for another time.)

In China, home ovens are almost impossible to find outside of the newest and priciest pads. So while Western recipes for candied walnuts and pecans tend to say bake in the oven, Chinese recipes call for deep-frying. I had never fried walnuts before but decided to try today. My wok is still pretty new, and even though it has already been seasoned, deep-frying is good for getting more oil into the metal.

I had originally planned to save these walnuts for an after-dinner snack, when I settle into the couch and tune in to China's version of HGTV. So putting them within easy reach of Jacob and me was a bad idea. The walnuts are almost all gone and we haven't even begun to make dinner.

Candied Walnuts without an Oven
Adapted from Mrs. Chiang's Szechuan Cookbook and 101 Cookbooks

2 cups shelled walnuts
1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated white sugar
3 to 4 cups peanut or canola oil for deep frying

Special equipment: 1. Deep fryer, wok, or heavy stockpot. 2. Slotted spoon or metal strainer

Mushroom duxelles is one of those simple dishes that can fill a kitchen and surrounding rooms with its intoxicatingly rustic aroma. I first made this dish way back in culinary school, where we paired the buttery mushroom and shallot concoction with steak. Since then I've made variations for other meat dishes, omelets, and pastas.

Yesterday I decided to tweak the original French preparation to have the mushrooms go with rice. Sort of like a vegetarian version of Cantonese minced pork with rice. Fearing that stewing the mushrooms in butter would be too heavy for rice, I decided to use olive oil instead, then mount a bit of butter towards the end. Turns out, because mushrooms soak up oil a lot faster than butter, I kept having to add more and ended up with rather oily mushrooms.

Tonight I went back to good ol' butter. Not only was it was perfect for the slow caramelizing of shallots and mushrooms, it also didn't overwhelm the rice at all.

Mushroom Duxelles with Rice

Serves 2 as a side dish

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large or 2 medium-sized shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 to 10 medium-sized button mushrooms, finely chopped
45 mL (3 tablespoons) red wine or sherry
Salt and pepper to taste
1 stalk scallion, thinly sliced
2 cups cooked rice

Fans of Sichuan cuisine know that even spice fiends need something to ward off all the heat in your mouth between bites. Cucumber salads are served at almost every Sichuan restaurant I've been too, and are good appetizers as well as good palate cleansers.

It's also easy make at home. However, one of the main ingredients is Sichuan peppercorn, which can still be rather hard to find outside China. For years the US had a ban on Sichuan peppercorn imports, which they recently lifted. But the last I heard the spice is still not widely available. (What is the situation like in other countries?)

In any case, if you aren't able to get your hands on any, you can always substitute with a dash of red pepper flakes or 5 g (1 tablespoon) hot chili paste. If you have Sichuan peppercorns and you're brave enough, leave them whole instead of grinding them up. ;-)

Also, although restaurants here like to serve the cucumbers in longer strips, I personally like them cubed. More surface area = more flavor absorbed.

A less spicy version of the salad can make a good appetizer for Western meals too.

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More Sichuan recipes to try:

Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans

Mapo Tofu (Mapo Doufu)