Kikujiro

Jon, Do you make 'em or not eat dumplings at home? A microwave? Based on quality of sample, I'm guessing we're paying for brand. But maybe that's optimistic; haven't tried other brands ...

Oh yeah: an obvious non-food-related suggestion while she's there is a visit to the District Six Museum. One of those places you get the most out of talking to a staff member or volunteer.

The Africa Café is fun for that kind of thing, but inevitably a bit touristy. Which is a bit rich of me given that the following recs are also fairly touristy. I don't know how long you'll be there or how much free time you're have, but one of the most rewarding ways to eat is to drive to one of the wineries. The drive alone is worth it (the Cape looks like the West Coast of the USA, only better). Easily one of the best for dining is Buitenverwachting in Constantia. Also try Au Jardin in Newlands and the Quartier Français in Franschoek. Boschendal, also in Franschoek, has a restaurant but the informal café outside is in some ways more attractive for a light snack or tea. In the city, tea at the Mount Nelson hotel has a certain colonial kind of majesty. Almost USA in feel (to me, being a Britisher) is Panama Jack's seafood restaurant by the docks. Blues in Camps Bay has enjoyable food and fantastic views. Nothing haute but am very fond of it.

Oooh.

* now run by Vittorio Radice, previously responsible for reinventing Selfridges. I can hardly wait ...

Last time I looked it was only on VHS over here Oddly enough, my local video rental store is also next to a Chinese restaurant that I have never been inside.

Not an entirely dissimilar concept to the Withnail and I drinking game.

Kore-eda's next film after Maborosi, After Life, was probably my favourite release of that year. I think it benefits from being seen as unencumbered by expectations as possible, so I won't describe it, but it actually merits such overused descriptors as sublimely beautiful and unbearably moving. Oddly enough, although I am constantly recommending films to people, this is one on which several friends on both sides of the Atlantic actually followed up. Not one of them was less than overwhelmed. Rent the DVD or, even better, watch out for it in rep if you live in a big city. A masterpiece. Oh yeah, at one point in the film somebody mentions pancakes.

Simon, yes. I've never seen the Apu films and would love the opportunity. I did, however, see Kanchenjungha in the Hong Kong film festival once. I was tired and don't think I ate anything afterwards. On the other hand, I had a very good Sichuan meal there after watching A Few Good Men at the UA cinema in Pacific Place. A very mediocre film, I thought. Do you know how many people we will need to make this an affordable exercise? (We'd be occupying a screen for quite a while.)

Ramsay's second movie, Morvern Callar, based on the novel by Alan Warner, is a stunningly assured cinematic work, particularly for a British film, of which too many are mired in the literary tradition. On the other hand, the characterisation seemed to me fairly banal. The eponymous character is a young woman living in Scotland. As the movie begins, we see that her boyfriend has killed herself; he has left a novel which she eventually submits to publishers in her own name. Significantly, he kills himself in the kitchen, where later in the movie a frozen pizza is heated for too long and ends up burned.

In fact this scene precedes dinner, which is postponed be their prolonged and energetic coupling, so one imagines they are quite hungry by the time they actually eat, especially as if memory serves me right the hotel restaurant then turns out to be closed. Sutherland's character licks the toothpaste off the corner of his mouth, which probably acts like an amuse and stimulates his appetite.

Jin, yes, because Tampopo always convinces me my ramen won't be good enough. Raw egg, on the other hand, is a must. On the subject of Tsai Ming-liang, I should mention that for a while it seemed like his recent movie, What Time Is It Over There?, was not going to get a UK release, so I saw it in Paris when a family member kindly invited me to Guy Savoy. At Guy Savoy I ate soup and some kind of game bird. The food was excellent, particularly the soup. The next day I saw What Time Is It Over There?. Despite the fact that my French is worse than mediocre, I was able to cope with the Mandarin dialogue and French subtitles, as dialogue does not feature strongly in Tsai's films. WTIIOT seems to me an elegant continuation of the themes he has been developing in his previous movies, but with a lighter touch and more humour. Whether you find this an improvement on the trauma his characters invariably experience in the former films is a matter of taste, but it strongly merits at least one viewing. The film is about death and separation, and takes place in both Taipei and Paris, which made watching it in Paris particularly interesting. Afterwards I was meant to get the Eurostar home but a suicide on the tracks caused train cancellations, so I was stuck in Paris and had langoustines, frites and a half-bottle of Sancerre at La Coupole. Ironically enough, WTIIOT did get a UK release after all, and I saw it there a second time with a friend, after which we ate mediocre Chinese food at Poons because it was one of few places open at that time of night.

What kind of food do you eat after you see a movie? During a movie? If you watch a movie at home? For example, if I see a Taiwanese film, in which characters are inevitably eating throughout and there's a rice cooker on every table, I usually crave Chinese food of some kind. Some of my favourite Taiwanese films involving rice cookers are those directed by Tsai Ming-liang, particularly The River and Vive l'amour. These and his other major movies all feature his regular actors, including the fantastic young actor Lee Kang-sheng. Tsai, oddly, was actually born in Malaysia. One of my favourite movies of all time is Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier. Funnilly enough, although it's set in Venice, fish and seafood play almost no part in the film; the only significant meal is, I believe, based around chicken. Next year will be the 30th anniversary of Don't Look Now; I hope this event gets the attention it deserves. The only film I know to incorporate a recipe in the credits is Martin Scorsese's documentary about his parents, Italianamerican. Of course, food is a major element in many key films about Italian-American life in general, as well as specifically mafia films; think of the garlic-slicing scene in GoodFellas. I haven't seen Gangs of New York yet; it doesn't open in the UK until mid-January. When I have done, I'm sure I will be curious to know what other people thought of it. I did see The Age of Innocence at the world premiere screening during the Venice festival, with Giorgio Armani among others, after which I believe I ate a sandwich. The food at the Film Café at the National Film Theatre in London is execrable. Nevertheles I have seen many important films there, including major retrospectives of Fassbinder and Mizoguchi. The Bergman retrospective starts in the new year. I am not yet a big Bergman fan, but I hope to get a chance to reevaluate his work. As far as I am aware, Wild Strawberries is the only Bergman film with food in the title. Another filmmaker I admire is Werner Herzog. I have seen nearly all Herzog's features and a large number of his documentaries. One Herzog film I have never seen is his debut feature, Even Dwarfs Started Small. It was once playing in a double bill with Cobra Verde, a minor film in my opinion, but I had to leave the cinema before Even Dwarfs ... started because I felt lightheaded. Later it turned out I was suffering from dehydration, so for a while I cut out caffeine and drank loads of Snapple lemonade.

Are hua gu/flower mushrooms a different thing from shiitake? From the posts above I was assuming they were, but a search on Google got results suggesting they're the same. In the shops I looked in in Chinatown, London, both dried and fresh shiitake seem to come from China. Edit: in Borough Market the mushroom stall was serving 'shit-take' (sic) mushrooms, perhaps a reference to the price.

Yes, storage confuses me. And how about Xiaoxing wine? Does it last or does it need constant replacing? (that is, is it like wine?)

Surely some mistake?

How do you judge it? Without cutting into the dumplings and seeing how hot the filling is? Or is that the procedure -- sacrifice a har gau or two?

Hope you enjoy it with triple sec. I'm fond of the occasional Havana Sidecar. Also, I'm not the only one who'd call it that.

Today, I picked up, experimentally, some frozen prawn and chive dumplings from a supermarket in Chinatown. They were made by Royal Gourmet, a brand that turns out to be a subsidiary of the Royal China restaurant group. The packet listed no ingredients (fairly sure that's illegal; there was a space for them so maybe a glitch) and had no cooking instructions. Another packet of frozen dim sum I looked at said to steam for 15 mins, so I tried that with half the dumplings. They disintegrated. The other half I steamed for half the time. They tasted fine, and if I'm still posting tomorrow evening I guess the food poisoning wasn't too severe. Any tips on how to judge this kind of thing, though, in the absence of directions? Quality-wise, they were just okay. (I note I'd be unlikely to buy equivalent frozen versions of Western dishes. Strange.)

I'd call it a Havana Sidecar. And I think I'd be right (Edit: I was assuming triple sec/cointreau was in there. I dunno what's included a margarita mix. I usually squeeze limes ...)

Oh good. Now I am convinced I have to buy a fuzzy logic model. The knuckle method is a bit dubious, presumably, given that it can't factor in either varying amounts of rice or the diameter of the pot.

Suvir's mention of many non-Chinese restaurants using MSG adds to my suspicion that my allergy, whatever it is (although the symptoms are a definite subset of those cited in the Chinese restaurant syndrome description) is not to MSG but to something else: some ingredient used occasionally in Chinese dishes. It's certainly not psychosomatic as it's a very rare occurrence and I never expect it until it happens. I'm interested that MSG has still not been confirmed as the cause. You'd think it would be relatively easy to do that if it were responsible.

I occasionally get 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'. I never ever had it until I came back from half a year in Hongkong, so I assume it's an allergy that was tripped by overexposure to something there (my personal theory is that it happened in a duck restaurant in Beijing). It's a weird sensation, like feeling very embarrassed and having an iron band tightened around your head at the same time. It's never been bad enough to reduce my consumption of Chinese food. Also, I'd say I get it about 1 in 25 Chinese meals, or less. Anyway, many of the restaurants I go to regularly use MSG, and I get it so rarely I can't help thinking it's an allergy to something else. (I was under the impression that years ago someone did a study which concluded that MSG wasn't the cause of this syndrome anyway.) I've never noticed getting it outside of a Chinese restaurant.

Rice? What happens to rice?

Ed said in the pantry thread that he has never used a rice cooker. Nevertheless, I'm tempted to get one as I find rice a hassle, and think if I had a cooker I might eat it more at home (and consequently wheat less, which I think is a good thing). However, the range of cookers available in both department stores and Chinatown is overwhelming, and the variance in price (from, I'd say, GBP 20 to GBP 140) incomprehensible to me. Can anyone help me understand the differences, or what's important to look for, or even recommend a reasonably-priced brand?