liuzhou

Restaurants in Italy tend to be family/child friendly. Family eating is a big part of the culture. I wouldn't presume to make any recommendations though. It's been 25 years since I was there. Just stay away from the tourist hotspots.

Spotted this today The Chinese indicates it is an "Avocado Spicy Chicken Taco, which sounds reasonable, but then they go and spoil it all by including the food from Hades - corn. The locals can't resist throwing it on everything from pizza to ice cream. ¥23 = $3.40 £2.60 Expensive in China.

er, that was over two years ago and they quickly abandoned the idea. also, straight "croisants" are very common in ..... France!

汤饺 tāng jiǎo - jiaozi in soup. Home made jiaozi dumplings in a chicken stock with garlic, chilli and Chinese chives.

Chinese rice is dirt cheap, and although some is OK, that tends to be expensive if you can even find it. My local supermarket carries around eight varieties of loose rice ranging from just OK down to 'I wouldn't feed that to my dog!". I experienced the same in India. While basmati (sadly very difficult to source in China) is wonderful, most of it is exported and the locals eat the low quality stuff. It's a cash crop. Not for eating! Fortunately, I can get excellent hom mali (jasmine rice) from either Thailand, Cambodia or Laos. More expensive than the local stuff (almost double) , but 1000% better. Funnily enough, and forgive me if I've related this before, a few years back I had to go back to England for my son's wedding. It's expected. One friend who had mocked me for paying so much over the odds for decent rice, begged me to leave her what I had left (a couple of kilos) in case it "went off" while I was away. I was only away for two weeks!

I know I've posted a version of this before, but it's a favourite and it's always slightly different. Pork marinated 36 hours in olive oil and lemon juice with coriander and chilli. Served here with orzo* and a tomato, asparagus and scallion salad. * Normally, I'd serve this with rice, but recently I've gone off rice. A few months ago I was given a 10kg bag of Chinese rice, but I really don't like Chinese rice. It is very low quality. I always buy Thai rice. But I was reluctant to waste it and attempted to use it, but to no avail. Now, I am just avoiding rice because I feel It's crazy to buy rice when you have a bucketful already, but at the same time really want to replace it. I'll crack soon.

Not asking a lot. I've been asked a thousand times, so the answer is well rehearsed. They simply taste like very eggy eggs. Supercharged eggs. The texture is slightly gelatinous like what I understand is known as "Jello" in your part of the planet. These were duck eggs, but they are also made from chicken and quail eggs. I like them a lot. With chilli as here, or with a soy-vinegar dip or straight.

You have to be careful buying eggs round here. These make look like regular eggs to you. but shell them to find these - 皮蛋 (pí dàn) aka century eggs, preserved eggs, hundred-year eggs, thousand-year eggs, thousand-year-old eggs, millennium eggs, skin eggs orblack eggs. Here served with chilli sauce. Delicious. P.S. The easiest way to tell if they are pidan or fresh eggs (assuming you can't read the Chinese on the signs) is that fresh eggs are sold by weight, whereas these are sold by the unit. ¥1.50/个 (¥1.50 each ) or 22 cents US; 17 pence UK.

... and another, younger, kid mastering his wok skills. I reckon he has cracked it!

I'm putting this here as, although it was brunch, it was closer to 'unch' than to 'br'. Pork, chilli, garlic, ginger, white pepper in a pork bone broth with fresh rice noodles, lettuce and a boiled chicken egg. Here it is before I added broth.

Yes, normal. Or sometimes, ”add the correct amount”. And then ”cook until cooked.”

I think there may be some confusion here as to "oily". When I referred to my fish as being "oily", I meant the category of fish. My meal wasn't oily - apart from the olive oil. Many of us cook salmon, an "oily" fish, but my salmon dishes are never oily. Sardines, herring, anchovies, salmon, trout, tuna mackerel and many more are classified as "oily" as opposed to "white". Doesn't mean the dish is greasy!

Another hot weather dinner. Panfried fish* with salad. Served with crusty baguette to mop up juices from the fish and the olive oil and lemon dressing on the salads. *As usual, I have no idea what the fish is. Some relation to mackerel, I suspect, possibly Pacific chub mackerel, but every time I go to the store they have labelled them differently and none of the Chinese names they use relate to anything on any search engine in any language. Oily and tasty, though.

Bacon, poached duck egg on (bacon fat) fried, sliced mantou steamed bun (馒头 mán tóu).

Me too.

Beef with mango. The beef was marinated with garlic, white chilli peppers, Shaoxing wine and Thai fish sauce. Stir-fried and then the diced mango added and heated through. Served with Chinese chive laden couscous and oyster mushrooms fried with garlic.

Consider yourself lucky. I've got it from May to October!

Nothing new here. Move along. Be about your business. Duck egg in wowotou buns. Good news is that one of my egg sources has started displaying the lay date of its stock. I think I can trust them. These were layed two days ago, according to the notice.

Chicken breast strips marinated in Shaoxing wine, garlic, ginger and red Sriracha sauce, stir-fried then added scallions. Asparagus steamed. Served over orzo. Quick and simple.

Shouldn't that be Habit?

On this occasion, I did make the wrappers, although to be honest I often buy them for next to nothing in my local market.

Homemade bread drizzled with olive oil. Topped with a slice of industrial ham, a slice of tomato, a basil leaf, sea salt and white pepper.

Homemade 三鲜饺子 (sān xiān jiǎo zi ) - three flavour jiaozi (pork, prawn and shiitake). With a soy and Zhejiang black vinegar dip. The jiaozi were boiled in a spicy, garlicky broth and some of the chilli and garlic added to the dip.

つゆ tsuyu It isn't a brand name so no need for capitalisation.

My thoughts entirely. I actually woke up about 2 am thinking of this then tossed and turned all night! There was no choice but to go for it. I even had to go out at some unearthly hour to pick up some fresh eggs. I had eggs, but they were passed poaching age.