Fengyi

You're welcome! (I do find posting photos a bit of a bother - but I hope they're worth it!) There was some cumin (there's always some!) but the predominate flavour was the garlic.

LAMB FEST! (actually Mutton fest....!) all lovers of fluffy lambies turn away now.... A couple of friends and we were all hankering for some gamey gamey lamb, so we all decided to head for Uyghur food (a real favourite in Beijing). We couldn't be bothered to trek to the Xinjiang Government Offfice Restaurant (each provincial office has its own restaurant with their provincial food - a great way to eat around China!), and I had a hankering for hutongs...so we went to Crescent Moon - a very well known Xinjiang place in Dongsiliutiao. First and importantly, the Xinjiang beer (I love the irony of getting Muslim beer!): Some of their in-house yoghurt came - and I love this although it's quite sweet! I usually eat this with the nang 馕 bread - the picture below is of ONE portion after four pieces had already been taken (OK we were greedy!): We started with some cold dishes...which were 'tossed fresh three' 拌三鲜 : (sorry about the alarming fat-globule lighting from my flash) It's fensi 粉丝 (green bean threads) mainly with muer woodear mushrooms and green peppers. and we also had tossed Red Cabbage: Sweet and sour with sugar and white vinegar. Then came the first dish of lamby bits: The kidneys: I'm not a huge kidney fan, but these are delicious! Cumin-covered and fried with garlic and onion - they are splendidly flavoured with plenty of fatty bits! Then came the lamb kebabs (with a token chicken wine skewer to appease the protein gods...): These kebabs are frankly delicious - tender yet chewy with a full on gamey flavour. The chicken wings were a nice contrast as they were crispy! I had tried to order a non-meat dish (chao mianpian 炒面片 - stirfried noodle slices), but of course it had lamb in it: This was my favourite - with lots of tomatoey flavour and crisp Chinese celery. it's very much like tomato-based pasta dishes. And it was HUGE. Never order the 'large' size dish at this place!!! The next dish was my husband's choice who pointed at a random picture I think... but when it arrived, we were all surprised: These immediately got christened 'Crispy Lamb McNuggets' (I think we were well into the Muslim beer by this point...) Deep-fried flour coated lamb fatty bits covered with deepfried garlic and chiles.... They were a truly moving experience.... it was impossible to stop eating those crispy morsels of lamby goodness! Argh! It was a good thing that the next dish was vegetarian (we needed a lamb-break!). Stirfried muer (wood ear) with cucumber and carrots: Refreshingly non-lamby was the verdict! We made this an action shot - just to show we were actually eating all of this! But, back to the theme of our dinner. Next came a egg and cumin pie -topped with (of course!) lamb! Deep-fried pie! Yum! Just what you need after three other lamb dishes! Actually, it's bloody good - the filling is rich in cumin flavour and egg and onion. and the Lamb bits provide that essential counterpoint. You'll be glad to know, we didn't have lamb for dessert! we ordered a walnut pancake: which actually turned out to be stuffed with rich dried fruits as well! A sort of fruitcake in an omelette.... I like Crescent Moon, even if it is a bit touristy! The portions are great and the prices are reasonable (the whole thing came to about 350RMb for the four of us). And the waitresses are all the most fantastic looking Uyghur women. I got a surreptitious picture of one of them : Most of them look kind of Chinese-turkic. Makes me feel very at home (as a Eurasian myself!). Anyway, that was the end of the lamb fest here in Beijing. The amount we consumed makes me feel, well, kinda sheepish! (GROAN - I couldn't resist that!)

After the browsing, I went back with my friends to their hotel to see them off before they caught the train back to Shanghai that evening (BTW, the train is a Great Way to get between Beijing and Shanghai - it's a Z grade train, meaning top-class!). They were staying at a VERY POSH hotel which is a traditional siheyuan (courtyard style house) located in a hutong. What is a hutong? It is the old form of street in Beijing. It's a northern Chinese dialect word for small alley lined either side with the siheyuan. Originally nearly all streets in Beijing were like this, but less and less remain. I can understand the need for development (the sanitary conditions of siheyuans are dreadful), but I wish there was the money to re-new the siheyuans and hutong instead of demolishing them for flats. Anyway, rant over.... Here's a typical hutong: Down this hutong is the fancy hotel (Cote Cour SL): Inside, it is a completely modernised siheyuan, with contemporary touches. The courtyard is rather nice: and This small taste of old Beijing gave me a hankering to go to a hutong restaurant for that evening. So last night we decided to go to a Xinjiang (Uyghur) restaurant in the Dongsiliutiao hutong!

Fake food is a BIG problem here - and I hope they can resolve it quickly!! But to get onto more appetizing topics.... We went to Traktirr Pushikin - a restaurant near the Russian embassy. Russian food is quite popular and, of course, has a long history here not only with the White Russian immigration to Heilongjiang early this century, but also the Russian-China relationship in the 50s. I let my Russian friends do the ordering because of my abysmal knowledge of Russian food (I grew up thinking that Borscht was Chinese because my [Harbin-born] mother made it!) They ordered some Kvass and some Georgian wine to drink with a selection of zakushki: This is a layered herring salad with pickled cucumber and the glass of Kvass. The Kvass really did taste just like rye bread in a drink....a bit strange for me but refreshing! We also ordered some pelmeni dumplings (Not pictured) and beef tongue: They were disappointed in the beef tongue - but I was busy enjoying the herring salad which was lovely - with lots of various veg (potatoes, carrots, beets, onions) layered with Russian preserved herring. And, of course, we had Borscht: That was terrific! After lunch, we went for a look around a new area - looking for a new wine store, of course! There was also a new Organic food store: This is a chain which is expanding rapidly in Beijing - I think it shows that people really are concerned about the food quality that they are getting here. And then we found this terrific T-shirt: Perhaps not the most sensitive T-shirt in the world - but VERY appropriate for here! And continuing with the theme, I then came upon Beijing Roast Duck Flavoured PRETZ sticks!!!! On the front is a picture of the Temple of Heaven - a very famous landmark here!

Well, yesterday was fun - with a Russian lunch and a Xinjiang dinner! Lots of photos to post - which'll happen after breakfast today. I SWEAR I will have some proper Beijing food soon (the hot pot on Monday seems far away now!) - but this is a real reflection of what's available here!

Unfortunately, fake food here is quite common - only a few years ago, children were poisoned by fake powdered milk. Fake vinegar is VERY commonly faked - particularly the aged 5-year and 10-year Shanxi and Zhejiang vinegars! My ayi bought a beef sausage last year from a "reputable" manufacturer and discovered a long strip of dirty-ish plastic embedded throughout the sausage - she contacted the manufacturer who was very rude to her and wouldn't help. I encouraged her to keep complaining and told her that we would send the sausage to my friend who's on CNN international to expose China's lousy food laws. That got a reaction - and a RMB compensation! But their attitude towards food standards was terrible!

We've come across a new one here in China: 5a (subset). Tastings where the press pack comes complete with a "red envelope" inside it. [Red Envelope is a Chinese code for money in a pretty red envelope]. We've started to get these...and promptly return them to the people in charge of the tasting, who are startled and amazed by our behaviour! To my regret, we actually haven't opened any to see how much we are worth! there's also: 2a (subset) where your visit also comes with red envelopes.... It's been really tough in this market to try and maintain an independent stance. I am going to print out your post and put it up at the office, just to help us find our way!!! Many thanks!

Wine Dinner at Aria: Last night was courtesy of a very good wine importers: Globus Wines based in Shanghai and owned by two lovely Russians: Alexey and Galina. Last night they were in Beijing and treated us to a range of their wines at the fine restaurant Aria (where the manager, Danny Kane, an excellent sommelier by training also tried them). I thought this would be an example of the 'highest dining' that you can get here in Beijing with respect to Western food. May be a bit of a contrast with the up=coming 'dinner at the relatives' house that I am planning! We had a Riesling Auslese from 2005 to go with an amuse of seared foie gras (Danny's brilliant idea when the bottle of Egly-Ouriet Champagne they bought turned out corked necessitating some quick changes): The foie gras is Chinese foie (duck). I find it indistinguishable from French foie. BTW, please don't attack me re: ethics of foie gras!! I do feel that there are a lot more important problems in China than duck welfare..... Besides which, I really like it. And since it's Chinese-made, it's affordable! Then some citrus-cured salmon (which really didn't go with the Cali Chardonnay that was next but my greed for raw salmon outweighed that!!!) (sorry for blurry pictures - the lighting level was a bit dim... that's my excuse!) The wine was Landmark Damaris Reserve 2004 Chardonnay Sonoma - made by the John Deere family! The salmon was very nice - I think it came from Norway. Most of the salmon here does - though there is some wild in Northern China. Aria also offers caviar from Harbin sturgeon (in Heilongjiang) which I've always longed to taste but haven't yet! The main was braised beef cheeks with bean and bacon: while my husband got the pigeon in pastry - which was really lovely! with an Altesino Brunello di Montalcino Monosoli Single Vineyard 2001. A bloody spectacular wine! By this point, I was stuffed, but I took a picture of the cheese menu so that you could get an idea of the cheeses that we can get now in Beijing (it's pretty good!) Of course, this all comes at a cost. A meal here is about equal to a month's wages of a low-level worker in Beijing. But according to Danny, the clientèle is NOT predominantly ex-pat but rich local Chinese (up to 70%) who come for the fine dining experience.

I've actually posted one already on the 'small kitchens' thread. One thing that we have got that I'm proud of is that our burner has FOUR rings. That is very upmarket!!!

Gosh! I didn't realize that I'd be hit by so many questions Especially as I've just got up following a heavy night (It's not easy keeping up with Russians in the wine trade...they just have more culturally-determined stamina for drinking than myself!) But just to answer a few questions (while sucking down coffee!): kbjesq: It is hard to survive *well* here without Chinese. Of course many people do! But it really does help in certain situations (plumbing breaks, delivery services, etc...) What is very helpful is that I also read and write Chinese which is not as common - but again very useful. I think, though, it's more useful to have a good grasp of Chinese culture before coming. It astounds me what some ex-pats say about Chinese behaviour because sometimes it's clear that they don't 'get' it at all. Whereas, when I arrived here first ten years ago, I immediately felt at home because so many people were like my mother! We do use a wok - even to cook beef stroganov (sp?) which is one of our favourite home-cooked meals because the sour cream here is SO awesome! MissAmy: it has indeed changed beyond measure - for wine, joining the WTO made a big influence. for the rest - well, even my great-auntie thinks using olive oil to cook with is the bee's knees! And Beijing, with its embassies and their staff, has things from everywhere now that trade restrictions have become a wee bit easier. In fact, I'm going out for Russian food for lunch (yes, more entertaining of the Russian wine people!). The dumplings will included at some point! Laksa: I've written a 2,000 word research about why the Chinese dont' buy a lot of pricey wine recently for my WSET diploma! There's alot of reasons - price is one. The hard import liquor is cheap - I get my Standart vodka for only 98RMB - cheaper than wine! My husband and I are currently working on a That's Beijing (we are the wine columnists for That's BJ - the largest ex=pat magazine here) article about wine service in Beijing. Currently wine lists at Chinese restaurants are pretty terrible - mainly because the wines are there through kickbacks by import company *(corruption....China....golly!). Wine lists at European places are much better! As for Chinese food and wine - that was the topic of our last month's column, which you can read as a pdf in its full glory on: Article on Matching Food and Wine We also suggest three wines as possible pairing for Chinese food - including one made just outside Beijing! insommiac: with regard to contamination - people are getting very worried about that - particularly with meat and eggs. Now all the supermarkets sell special meat (like the yoghurty pork) that is supposed to be 'clean' and lots of eggs that proclaim to be hormone-free, etc.... The food quality here is STILL a big issue. I was told never to buy soy sauce,vinegar, etc... from markets as they were guaranteed to be fake. Makan King: Your restaurant questions will appear slowly over the course of the blog - I hope! But YES I do MISS Waitrose!!! Not Sainsburys, not Tescos...but WAITROSE. So clean, so civilized! I personally never bought a lot of ready meals - but here I use restaurant delivery much more so I guess ready-meals aren't really suitable for the market here as delivery is so much better than in the UK. Also - no ovens here makes a difference! Doesn't it?

I just gave a wine tasting in one of them last week - it was funny watching some of the Chinese crowd trying to figure out how to eat it out of the newspaper wrappings! No one them vomited though - so that was a good sign! I agree it's not the best advertising slogan is it? I paired the fish and chips with four different wines - and one had to be red because red wine is SO important here. It's hard to find a red wine to match fish and chips!!! (I went with a chilled light Saumur!)

Hi! I really don't find that there is any Western food that I can't get here.... (excepting the few above- mango chutney!). But to answer you fully: Wine: there is a surprisingly wide range here. I've got a nice Saumur on my desk (albeit corked) at the moment. There's hundreds of companies importing wine into China into what is NOT a big market. From these I can find just about anything - not stuff like really old Madeiras and the sherry selection is shocking, some gaps in stuff like Jurancon sec but then, those sorts of wines are harder to find anywhere in the world (except London, New York, etc...) Beer: The local pizza place has several dozen types of Belgium beers - as does the Carrefour. I can buy Abbot Ale here *cheaper* than I can in the UK! and it's delivered to my door for free! For brewhouses, there's quite a few in Beijing. There's also a HUGE supply of Baltika for those who like the Russian experience... Liquor - the rarer brands are harder to get but then again, you can always find something if you look hard enough - and my supermarket locally stocks my favourite Russian vodka - which was tough to get in the UK! Cheeses: Fauchon has all those cheeses (I don't buy them often myself, but they are there) as do several other shops (like Cheese and Fizz in Shanghai). Of course french cheeses are best represented! Supplies and ripeness are variable but no one I know buys that stuff regularly! There's adequate Chinese cheeses too... our locally-made mozzarella is quite good in fact! Charcuterie: Have to be careful here as meat imports into China are restricted. However, there are some good local products made in the style - like Sefter's White Munich sausages and their porchetta. Both good. There are laws afoot to allow imports of raw ham (I sat next to a Spanish Chamber of Commerce guy last week at dinner and we discussed the implications for pata negra!). The rule in China is - if you see it, buy it! Importation companies are VERY hard to set up here. I know of one specialist Italian food and wine company that were hoping to set up operations by Nov last year.... they'll be delayed over a year. That's typical here. Bribery helps, I've heard. Really! It is much less hassle to get Western stuff here than Chinese stuff outside of China. I love being here because I grew up fairly internationally and there are all the brands here from every continent I've been to You can even get Betty Crocker frosting in a can at my local "foreigners" supermarket The biggest supply shortage here is for other Asian cuisines - particularly Indian and South-east asian. If you've any more questions, please PM me before I bore everyone to death!!!!!!!

And before I get too excited about how much great food I can eat here, I'll get back to the actual food I'm eating! Breakfast was the same old smoothie (I forgot to go over to Fauchon after work yesterday so no baguettes!). Lunch presented me with a dilemma - I know I won't be eating in much this week between work stuff and friends, so we should clear the fridge: I found these rolling about: some frozen squid (which has to be cleared because we have a on=going smell problem with our freezer - from a summertime 6 week power outage=rotten meat incident), carrots, potatoes, green peppers, Hangzhou peppers, some garlic sprouts that my husband bought thinking they were green onions (he can't read Chinese...)some VERY LONG noodles and some: So-called Pig Stomach Mushrooms The squid was protected from the freezer smell by a recycled box - I thought I would post it here because it's quite funny! It's for "yoghurt-fed pigs" and as you can see, the little piggy in the corner has graduated from the yoghurt-eating academy...I don't think this label would go down too well most places but they love it here! Anyway, I decided to make Maewoon Ojingau Bokum (sp?) the fried chile squid with veggies on noodles as it seemed to use up what was needed. The noodles were my favourite Very Long Noodles: These are the noodles *folded in half*. Well, I boiled up the noodles, stirred fried the veggies, garlic, ginger and the squid, added kojuchang paste with sesame oil (didn't have sesame seeds) some chile powder, sugar, salt and a touch of light soya sauce and voila: A massive portion of Maewoon Ojingau Bokum - to keep us going until tonight's wine dinner at Aria restaurant (one of Beijing's most exclusive and holder of a Wine Spectator Wine List Award). We're meeting a wine importing company that's based in Shanghai and who are hoping to bring their wines to Beijing. We're going to be tasting a lot from their portfolio so I may not be in any fit state to blog tonight!! It's not often that I work from home - but being the boss always helps! It's been nice to cook for a change

I used to cook A LOT before moving to China!!! There was no other option particularly as I tend to like Northern Chinese and Korean food. Fortunately, you *can* hunt down the proper ingredients in the UK (with trouble!) so you can make things at home. I even used to devote whole weekends to making jiaozi, shaobing and spring rolls to freeze! It's so much better being in China! You can buy just about anything here (except Mango chutney and lime pickle - we will accept any offers to bring Geeta's mango chutney here!). For instance, within walking distance I have a proper french bakery, about 200 Chinese restaurants, a belgium steak and frites place, Pizza delivery (italian style and US style), Persian food, many Korean places, Japanese, Mediterranean, French brasseries, Italian panotecas and even Hooters!!!! That's just my immediate neighbourhood! There is honestly very little I miss from the UK (we even have two great Fish and Chips places here in Beijing - one in a lovely ancient Hutong where you can sit on the roof and admire the ancient scenery and have a full English breakfast!). Maybe proper Pork Pies, Mango Chutney and Marks and Spenser Assam tea. But not much. It's SO SO much better here in terms of pure culinary enjoyment! We've even got a Fauchon for upmarket French cheeses and LOVELY eclairs. You can get anything here just about - but you just have to pay the price. Mind you, a Fauchon baguette is about 14 RMB -which is amazing considering even the flour comes from France! Honestly, it beats living in Cambridge hands down - I used to pay SO much money to buy Chinese things there (tongxincai from Thailand, laoganma hot sauce at over £2!). And you can get such a wider variety of things here than in the UK. And Shanghai is just as good (some would say even better)!

Today is back to the usual grey -beige skies after TWO whole days of reasonably blue ones. I even saw a CLOUD yesterday from my taxi window. It was so lovely! crustybread: I would definitely come here as soon as possible *after* the Olympics. There'll be plenty of hotel space, the monuments will all be clean, hopefully some of the social behaviour rules (no spitting, queuing, etc..) will still have some effect. . . in all, a good time to come! shelby:I think this is a Korean thing. Chinese restaurants don't do it. When they deliver the food, they usually say something like "4pm pickup OK?" and you just leave the dirty dishes by the door for when they come. I LOVE it! Wine in China is off to a very SMALL start. Trouble is, everyone says...oooh market of 1.3 billion. Well, nothing here (maybe cooking oil...) has that sort of market. Here only the elite would be buying imported wine. The average price of a large beer in the supermarket is about 3RMB (for 500mL) whereas the cheapest bottle of domestically-produced wine is about 35RMB. Big price differential! To help keep prices in mind: A basic wage to just survive here would be about 2000RMB - That's for a rented room in the cheap part of the city, public transport only, cooking at home with little meat, etc... A starting good white-collar salary for an educated Chinese person would be between 5000-10,000RMB. And there's the silly money. The guy who can buy 100 cases of Chateau Lafite for casual drinking (10,000USD!), the person who owns the bright yellow Hummer you see around town, the man I met who was designing and having constructed his own 3000m2 cellar for fun..... Rent for a one bedroom apartment in a Western standard apartment is about 6000RMB a month. For a Chinese good apartment about 4000RMB. Utilities are quite cheap (our internet+local phone line comes to 170RMB a month). I hope that helps place things in context. Our hot pot last night was about 140RMB. I will try and go to a market or two this week - there's a very interesting one near us which is the restaurant whole-sale market!

I live in Dongzhimen, and my relatives here are in Chaoyang (Tuanjiehu). I know Jianwai well (there's some very nice restaurants there!). I haven't tried the desserts in Nanluoguxiang - but I need to head back there soon (left all my business cards in a fish and chip restaurant there after hosting a particularly lively wine and fish and chips tasting!) so I will keep an eye out!

I really hope to live up to your high standard, Peter!! As for home cooking....what's that? Actually, it's now appalling how little I cook at home. It's just so much easier to go out (and not really much different in price!). It's SO different from living in Cambridge with the three choices of: restaurants (most of which made pretty horrendous food and charged horrendous prices for it!), college eating (which was OK at my college, but the particularly "Cambridge" atmosphere could make me want to stab myself slowly to death with my butter knife) and cooking at home with the good quality ingredients that one could find in the UK. It's positively joyful to be here in a culture which is slowly finally getting the money and leisure to revel in eating and going out again!

OK - I'm back from Hot Pot! I will posting some pictures of Beijing and how it looks for all to see (I hope you don't mind if at least a few things aren't totally food-related!!!). Meanwhile, here are some food pictures! We have Three hot pot places within stumbling distance: one very cheap, one mid-range, and one VERY posh (they do wagyu and foie gras hot pot - I've got the pictures!). So in the spirit of compromise, we went to the mid-range: Taipei Hot and Cold, so-called because you can not only do hot pot, but you can follow it up with 'stir-frying' your own ice cream flavour. Needless to add, I've never made it to the ice cream stage, though I mean to go one leisured afternoon! First you get your dipping sauces: Sesame, shacha sauce, and the ALL important pickled garlic (an essential part of Beijing Hot pot). Then beer arrives (Yanjing Draft) and the food... You can just see the fatty lamb... Then more food comes: The golden enoki mushrooms and plenty of beancurd Then more food.. This is Youmaicai 油麦菜 ("oaten lettuce") and green bean flat noodles (my fave!) The duck breast (which is VERY cheap here - about 6RMB each at my supermarket) and then shrimps.. [yes, I know there's only two of us but, but, but...] Then into the hot pot with it all! We always try and get the 'mandarin duck' style hot pot because I find the 'Mala' (麻辣 numbing and spicy) style TOO much to take!!! as you can see, the left hand side is completely chiles (and that's a mild version!!!). Of course, we didn't manage the ice cream (again!). The good thing is that this place is in the mall which we live above, so only a short distance to stagger home! These fancier hot pot places are getting very popular here. Hot pot is such a staple in Beijing - and the ice cream service adds a welcome frisson of exoticism!

Yes - it is still as dusty as ever (and polluted of course!). We are all awaiting the first dust storms of the year... I hope they don't happen this week! The bibimbap is Korean - Koreans are the largest immigrant population in China. They are particularly present in Northern China. We even have a proper North Korean Restaurant here in Beijing (haven't been yet as I've heard it's sort of scary). Korean food is very popular here - particularly bulgogi. Dog is quite common in the Korean restaurants here too (I was debating whether to go and have that this week, but it's kind of expensive and I don't particularly like dog- to eat, that is!)

Thanks for the kind words! Beijing is changing SO quickly - I've been coming here on and off for about ten years. Shanghai too! It's really crazy here, but really enjoyable. Everything is a bit of a challenge - but exciting! However, breakfast was far from exciting...just a smoothie and coffee: We used mango and banana (I have no idea where they came from as they were brought in by my ayi (househelp)) and some yoghurt: This is strawberry and mulberry flavour - but they have really bizarre flavours too - like corn and aloe vera. Yoghurt is HUGELY popular here - and it's a traditional street snack so I guess it didn't take much for it to take over the supermarkets too! Our coffee is grown in Yunnan province - at only 24RMB a bag (about 7 RMB to the USD) it's the only affordable coffee option for us! But as I said, hardly an exciting breakfast.... For lunch, I was at the office so I had my usual lunch: dolsot bimbimbap (sp?) This is my favourite because a) it's only 16RMB for lunch and b) they deliver it to the door in the bowl and then come and take it away. So there's a lot less waste! There's so much use of plastic here - that it's nice not to use more of it! Now I'm off for Hot Pot dinner

I know this is supposed to be just about tea - but here in China so many people bring their own food to restaurants that they've started putting up notices about it in many (cheaper) restaurants. But, I've still seen people sit down (usually with a friend who is eating the restaurant food) and pull out their own biscuits, drinks, and snacks and happily chow down!! It still slightly boggles my (Western-orientated) mind!

Firstly, apologies for the teaser photos that led so many astray! I was very hard pushed to find a location picture that wouldn't scream CHINA (cf. my atavar) so I ended up with a picture of Grace Vineyards in Shanxi province - we've also got lots of vineyards around Beijing (just beyond the Great Wall and to the south of the city) but the Grace pictures are the ones that came out best. As for the picture: It's classic Red Cooked Pork (红烧肉) with eggs cooked with the pork that I had last week in Shanghai. Delicious!!! I feel a bit of an imposter doing a blog here because I haven't posted a lot in my eGullet time, but my excuse is that moving countries and starting up my own business in China is a heavy load! But reading and enjoying eGullet posts has often been my lifeline for relaxation and enjoyment here in the Big Beige. A Synopsis: About a year ago, my husband and I packed up our entire house in Cambridge UK, put it into storage and moved to Beijing with two suitcases and a half-formed business plan.... A year later, the house is still mainly in storage, a few more bags have been moved over and I have just received a business license for our wine consultancy/school here in Beijing after many months of red-tape! If anyone out there is interested, the website is here (I hope that's not construed as advertising!!!) Over the next few days, I would love to give you an introduction to food and drink here in China's capital as it gets thoroughly over-excited about the Olympics, eats more dumplings than can be measured and roasts a few thousand more duck!

I don't think that shuijianbao (or shengjianbao) can be made just by frying up regular baozi. They are very different and the dough, in particular, is different so the results wouldn't be shuijianbao-like. However, they might still be delicious - so give it a try! I still reckon that the orignal poster was talking about regular baozi - just becuase regular baozi are just SO much more commonly seen in Northern China than any other kind. Most places that I know that sell sheng/shui jianbao sell out pretty darn quickly because they are a more 'specialist' type of baozi. The regular boazi, though, are the most common food eaten while travelling around. Plastic bag of baozi, squirt of hand sanitizer if needed and squat down munching.... oh the times I've done that when on a student budget here!

I'm officially a wine consultant - but would always be available for food consultancy should anyone come to Beijing! As I often do work with the Chinese version of Food and Wine, I usually get to hear about the good places!

Oh gosh! I thought I was the only one trying to stock up before departing.. .. the rule for us is that my husband goes to the Milestones for one last Caesar and I go for the onion rings and rootbeer.... I will also admit (gulp!) to being a patron of Heathrow's T3 Chez Gerard for that bit of very rare onglet before leaving for Asia. Beijing airport is TERRIBLE (and overpriced for everything) but I am holding up high hopes for the new Terminal 3! I vote Narita or Changyi for best eating pre-flight!