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.