(Tanqueray No. 10 Martini)

Beijing hardly ever sees rain, but the first part of the weekend we had an enormous showers followed by drizzling rain. The nice part is that the air (finally) gets cleaned. The bad part is outdoor activity becomes limited. On Saturday I was invited to the Ritz-Carlton Culinary Coin Festival, an indoor food and wine event I had no objections to attending.

(The "coin" part refers to the hotel's location on Beijing's Financial Street.)

The impression I got from some ads was that the event was all about Champagne and chocolate, but fortunately there was a lot of savory food to line the stomach pre-sugar and pre-alcohol. The food was a mix of French, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese, keeping in line with the Ritz's restaurants. I filled myself up on cheeses, prosciutto, soba noodles, roast duck in pancakes, an interesting quail egg shooter topped with aspic gelée, caviar, and chive oil. Chocolate made an appearance in the form of a fountain, where you can dip grapes and marshmallows, in bonbons, and in a mini soufflé topped with chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Although, for me, the dessert highlight was a chocolate-less basil ice cream.

I had first heard about Hong Kong's Cheung Chau Bun Festival by watching My Life as McDull, an existential cartoon about a Hong Kongese pig who trains to climb a mountain of Chinese steamed buns. A mountain of Chinese steamed buns!?! At first I thought such a thing was made up, until I saw real black & white footage of climbers interspersed with the animation. How odd, I thought.

Coincidentally, Jacob and I were in Hong Kong for Buddha's Birthday, the holiday on which the annual Bun Festival takes place on the island of Cheung Chau. There was supposed to be a parade, some other festivities, and the climbing competition at midnight. As a foodie who revels in weird food festivals, I had to go, mostly to see how they construct a mountain of buns.

We hopped on a ferry from Central along with 95% of Hong Kong island, and an hour later arrived on the banks of the small fishing village. The first thing we saw outside the ferry terminal were crowds of people waiting for the parade.

My original plan for Hong Kong was fitting in as much amazing Cantonese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian food as possible in a 3-day period. I solicited recommendations on Chowhound and did research on Openrice. I had dreams about sitting in a cha chaan teng with Hong Kong milk tea, French toast with condensed milk, and the odd-sounding but comforting macaroni with Spam. Then I got sick.*

I did get my milk tea, some congee, and a nice Cantonese dinner with relatives. But I was in no mood to hunt down new restaurants on streets and alleys I had never been to. Sneezing, wheezing, headaches, and a sore throat can dampen the spirits of any seasoned foodie. The best meal I had in Hong Kong was on the day I arrived, before the bad stuff started.

Jake and I got into Kowloon's train station at 1:30pm. By 3pm, after dropping off luggage, we were sitting in plastic chairs at Victory Kitchen in Northpoint. We were with my uncle, a HK foodie, who had never been to the restaurant but has always seen lines of people outside the door. That's a good enough sign for me.

Over the weekend, Jacob and I stayed at a friend's lane house in Shanghai's French Concession. It's a live-work space that is occupied by a web company, and all the techies is get their caffeine and sugar fixes from Paul, a French bakery that opened in the city last year. (I'm sure in Paris Paul is considered average, but in Shanghai a Western bakery can't be found on every corner.) Every morning we were in Shanghai one of us would make a Paul run, and come back with croissants, rolls, etc.

On Saturday, just as I was about to step out to meet my cousin for a soup dumpling lunch, J came through the door with two enormous bags. One was from Paul and was filled with Danishes, doughnuts, olive rolls, and a ham sandwich on baguette. The other was from Mr. Donut; it had a selection of large and mini doughnuts, and a little cardboard caddy of macarons.

"I didn't know Mister Donut made macarons," I said.

J shrugged. "They were 7 kuai. It's worth a try."

I just got back from a long weekend in Shanghai, where I fit in as much good eating as I could in 4 days. One place that had been on my must-visit list for a looooong time was Jia Jia Tang Bao, reportedly one of the best places for xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) in Shanghai. And since Shanghai claims xiaolongbao as a native food (others would argue that it orginated from surrounded towns), some afficionados think Jia Jia Tang Bao has some of the best in the world.

The ideal xiaolongbao, for the uninitiated, should have very thin, almost translucent skin, and equal parts soup and filling inside. I dream about these dumplings, and have tried so many poor versions that I want to cry every time. Often the skin is too think, sometimes there's not enough soup. When you are eating a perfect xiaolongbao, you should be worried about your clothes getting soup stains from a squirty dumpling.

Beijing is not known for bars that serve up well-mixed cocktails. In this city, nightlife itself is a fledgling concept, and most people's drink of choice is a bottle of cheap local beer. And don't get me started on rowdy, sketchy bars like the ones that got raided last Friday, whose atmosphere and alcohol quality remind me of a college frat party. Thank goodness for places like Q Bar, a classy little nook in south Sanlitun where bartenders shake and stir with expertise.

First off, the view of the city skyline from the 6th floor is great, as is the huge roof deck. And the cocktails - a range of martinis, revived classics, and special mixes like the rum-and-lychee-based G & E - ooze sophistication.

Then there's the food. Q Bar just started offering food, nicely plated and well-portioned for sharing. The grilled flatbread comes with a hummus dip and a wasabi cream cheese dip. The hummus dip was light, almost airy, and had something other than chickpeas that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As for the wasabi cream cheese, I can't say I've had that combo before, but there was just enough kick without being overwhelming.

The avocado lime dip for the chicken kebabs, also pretty light, was even better. After the chicken was eaten, I couldn't help finishing off the dip with flatbread.

Two nights ago one of J's friends visited from Shanghai, and he was craving the nice succulent duck that virtually everyone craves after a long hiatus from Beijing. He had eaten Peking duck "hundreds of times" before, in Beijing and elsewhere, but laments that Shanghai has nothing close to what the capital offers. We laid out the options: one of the Quanjude restaurants around his hotel in Wangfujing, or go all out at the swanky Da Dong a short cab ride away. Hoping to get away from the tourist crowd, we jumped in the cab.

Turns out, Da Dong also had loads of tourists that night, including at least 4 or 5 tour groups led by a flag-waving guide. Fortunately, the restaurant's massive size, taking up 2 floors of a block-size tower, means that tour groups get their own rooms, and everyone else eats without being offended by bullhorns or matching baseball caps.

The one thing that Da Dong immediate has going for it is atmosphere. After eating at other duck restaurants around the city that go all out with faux (insert random Chinese dynasty) gaudiness, it was a relief to be in a kaoyadian with good lighting, comfortable modern furniture, and absolutely no mammoth cartoon duck statues by the door.

The wait was 20 minutes or so (on a Monday night), so we amused ourselves by watching the duck kitchen at work. The kitchen is right by the entrance, on full display like a museum exhibit. There are 4 or 5 brick ovens, each fitting 5 ducks at a time. Every 2 minutes or so one of the 20 chefs lined up would pull a duck from the oven, hang it on a rack, drain and wipe it, and prep it for table-side carving. The skin always glistened so beautifully, so temptingly. On the other side of the plexiglass, hungry visitors like us would sit, waiting and drooling.

If you have been to Beijing*, you've most likely come across this street scene: a bunch of people crowded around a street vendor, picking out skewers from a bubbling hot red broth. Others are standing around munching on the their bounty with a look of ecstasy on their faces. Passersby, drawn by the sight or smells or possibly even the pheromones of the people in ecstasy, join the crowd. You wonder, what is all this?

Málàtāng seems to be more of a magnet than most other highly addictive street food. Most likely it's because of the number of choices you get. Shrimp, fish balls, tofu, bean curd, lotus root, mushrooms, chicken, beef tendon, noodles, and much more get cooked in a pot of steaming broth laced with Sichuan peppers and sesame oil. You get a plate or take-out container and make your selection either blindly or informed, by asking nicely and trying to remember if there's a chapter on animal parts in your phrasebook. No matter, because everything is cooked through and more often than not, delicious. At 1 rmb or 50 jiao per skewer, you can have a light snack for 3 rmb or stuff yourself for 10 rmb.

I have been obsessed with almond milk ever since I discovered Lulu in Beijing. Sold at every market here for 7 yuan a liter, this boxed almond milk has been my new alternative to chamomile for a soothing right-before-bed drink. I also have it at breakfast mixed with green tea, or at dinner whenever my fridge has out of soju or vodka or anything to mix a drink with. Lulu is fine cold, but so delicious when warm that I can unconciously go through a whole box in one sitting.

So naturally I had to make my own. Store-bought Lulu may be addictive, but the homemade version is so transcendent that it makes me forget the 3 or 4 times I had to strain every batch because the mesh in my colander isn't fine enough. But c'est la vie. If you have a very fine-mesh colander to strain out the minute particles of puréed almond, making this will be a breeze.

The results of this first homemade trial were either sipped straight, or heated to go with warm honey and bananas (recipe below). Some other ways to use homemade almond milk:

Paris may be thousands of miles from Beijing, but that doesn't mean delectable French pastries are out of reach. I immediately fell for these macarons when I saw them at Comptoirs de France, a bakery opened by Philippe Ancelet, formerly of the Kempinski Hotel.

Macarons, especially from Pierre Hermé or Ladurée, have a cult following, and the cult only grows as more fans blog about them. These tiny rounds of meringue sandwiching a thin layer of cream look almost too good to eat, especially since patissiers often line up 10 or 12 different kinds, from pinks to greens to yellows. As adults, we may be too old to salivate over cotton candy and lollie pops, but macarons still give us a chance to indulge in something bright and colorful.

Comptoirs de France also has canneles, tarts, and petit fours, but those are the subjects of another story. Not buying every flavor of macarons was an exercise in restraint. But I did try the Vanilla Bourbon, Caramel Fleur de Sel, Green Tea, and Chocolate Sichuan Pepper.