Guizhou smoked meats

Guizhou is famous for smoking its meats before winter looms. Towards the end of autumn, farms across the land would be permeated with the sweet smells of smoke. Meats are lightly marinated before going into the smoker, which is typically made of brick and sometimes as large as someone's house. The choice of wood varies from family to family, but typically it is a combination of local cedar and beech. Every farmer knows a family trick or two, and nobody does it the same.

Brother Long Spicy Chicken (Guiyang)

Brother Long Spicy Chicken (龙大哥辣子鸡)
南明区朝钢路58号 (near the airport)
0851-5403037

Chicken cooked in chili oil (辣子鸡), and rice cake in chili oil (麻辣米豆腐). The chicken was probably one of the best I have ever eaten, with ample amount of Sichuan pepper corn flavors permeating every inch of the chicken. The chicken meat itself was succulent and flavorful, but wasn't tough or overcooked. The rice cake was made by first bathing rice in water, grinding the rice into milk, and then steaming it into a block of rice cake. The cake was lightly salted (before steaming), and inherited additional flavors when bathed in tub of chili oil flavored with Sichuan peppercorns.

Rating: 2 stars to both the chicken and the rice cake, and 1 star to the restaurant.

A random walk down the streets of Guiyang, 2nd Ed.

Christmas banquet in Guizhou.

Ladurée

Ladurée
Shop 3224, 3/F, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road Tsim Sha Tsui

I am not a particularly big fan of macarons, and Ladurée, despite its name and recognition, couldn't carve out an exception in my book. My friends find the Ladurée experience life-transforming, while I merely found it good eats but not something I would line up everyday for 1.5 hours to buy. I freely concede that some of Ladurée's jammy fillings (especially its raspberry and blackcurrant) and buttercreams (praline, rose) are wonders of taste, because they truly impart the natural flavors of the food, but others (vanilla, coconut, pistachio) are merely bare passers and did not inspire poetry. I don't mind having them frequently or occasionally, but not with a wait that is longer than most of Mahler's symphonies.

Lai Lai Chongqing Chicken Pot

Lai Lai Chongqing Chicken Pot (來來重慶雞煲)
11/F, Kyoto Plaza, 491-499 Lockhart Road
Causeway Bay

Fantastic appetizers and chicken pot.

Nan Kee Claypot Rice (Macau)

Nan Kee (南記煲仔飯)
G/F, 6 R. das Estalagens, Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro
Macau

Beef with egg claypot rice, chicken claypot rice.

Hainan Lamb Hut (Guangzhou)

Hainan Lamb Hut
海南羊庄市桥西环路1-5号
020-34512538

The lamb ribs, cooked in a hot broth with Chinese herbal medicine, packed flavors. The meat got texture but was pleasant to chew on. The lamb "pot stickers" were slightly oily but provided added zest to the meal.

Rating: 1 star to the lamb hotpot.

Chuen Cheung Kui

Chuen Cheung Kui (泉章居)
7-8/F, Phrase 1, Causeway Bay Plaza I, 489 Hannessy Road
Causeway Bay

Deep-fried pig intestines, steamed fish with preserved vegetables, pork belly with preserved vegetables, and salt-baked chicken.

Formosa Pearl (Yilan)

Formosa Pearl
No. 102, Sec. 2, Da-Fu Rd.,
Jhuang-Wei Town, I-Lan, Taiwan
http://www.formosapearl.com/

Turnip dish with sea urchin, fish cake, sashimi plate, grilled fish, honey-glazed roast spring chicken, rice ball with 1k-island dressing, crab shabu, veggie shabu.

Shi Yang Culture Restaurant (Taipei)

Shi Yang Culture Restaurant
No. 7, Ln.350, Sec.3, XiWan Rd, XiZhi City
Taipei County, Taiwan
http://www.shi-yang.com

Sashimi platter, egg plant in an egg custard bath, tempura shrimp with fried rice cake, passion fruit gazpacho, rice ball with porcini mushrooms, the animated chicken soup.

Fai Kee

Fai Kee (馬灣輝記飯店)
馬灣大街村中211及214號地下

Steamed baby pork ribs with shrimp paste (蝦醬蒸排骨), stir-fried eggplant with batter-fried grouper (鹹魚茄子石斑塊). Ma Wan, a distant island away from the hustle-bustle of Hong Kong's center city, was a fishing village before the plan for Hong Kong's new airport back in the 90s mandated the construction of a long suspension bridge that connects it with the center city. That long suspension bridge, now 8th longest in the world, ends at Ma Wan. The fishing village of Ma Wan, then without any meaningful transportation to it, suddenly became very accessible. New residential development sprouted up, including "Park Island", the all high-rise, 32-building residential behemoth that literally introduced a new city into this tiny fishing village. Ma Wan is now a bustling district with all the amenities of a modern metropolis, but some classic gems remain, including Fai Kee, a traditional Cantonese joint serving up home-style cooking at affordable prices. Fai Kee uses liberally salted fish and shrimp paste, two of the condiment staples in Hong Kong's fishing villages of the yesteryear. Fai Kee's shrimp paste, unlike the lame ones that consumers can find at supermarkets all over center city, erupts with intense, almost pungent, flavors of the sea. One could almost imagine the copious amount of shrimp shells and shrimp juices used to render that beautiful, almost provocatively feisty paste. While the imagery of the bucolic fishing village has long been punctuated by the unstoppable locomotion that is economic development, tidbits of the yesteryear endure on.

Rating: 2 stars to the steamed pork ribs with shrimp paste.

Flavor Tang

Flavor Tang
Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3
Beijing, China

Braised yellow croaker in dried whole red chili and soy sauce.

Morning snack near the Sinnonhyeon bus station

Food stall next to the Sinnonhyeon bus station
Seoul, South Korea

Freshly scrambled eggs, melted cheese and ketchup, between two slices of warm, fluffy toast. What more can one ask for in a rainy morning at 8am?

A random walk in 810 Yeoksamdong, Gangnam Style

Jjinmandu (Korean steamed dumplings), seonji haejangguk (coagulated ox blood, in soup), nakji bokkeum (chopped octopus with sausages and bean sprouts), sundae (stew with beef intestines and blood sausage), naengmyeon (cold noodles with slices of radish and pear).

[caption id="attachment_2026" align="alignnone" width="529"] Jjinmandu (Korean steamed dumplings).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2027" align="alignnone" width="529"] Seonji haejangguk (coagulated ox blood, in soup).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2028" align="alignnone" width="529"] Nakji bokkeum (chopped octopus with sausages and bean sprouts).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2029" align="alignnone" width="529"] Sundae (stew with beef intestines and blood sausage).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2030" align="alignnone" width="529"] Naengmyeon (cold noodles with slices of radish and pear).[/caption]