Appetite for China —

Cantonese Tomato Beef

Cantonese tomato beef is one of those dishes that make me nostalgic for Hong Kong. They can be found on the menus of western-style cafés all over the city, next to other east-west classics such as wok-fried spaghetti and macaroni with canned meat in Chinese chicken broth. While it’s also a fast dish that families whip up at home, I can’t help associating it with a cozy, slightly worn, Formica-laden interiors of Hong Kong diners.

Sometimes, your tomato beef comes to the table still hot on sizzling platter. Those were the best, the kind that reminded me of sizzling fajitas at stateside Tex-Mex restaurants. But even if you don’t have a cast-iron skillet at home to serve this in, the dish will still come out great. The recipe is rather fool-proof, and great for nights when you need a fast dinner.

Mapo Tofu Ramen (Mabo Ramen)

A couple of years ago, while in Japan for the first time, I took a day trip from Tokyo to Yokohama, which was only about half an hour away by train. I spent a few hours at the Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum, which is pretty much a mini indoor theme park devoted to Japan’s obsession with ramen. The basement had a collection of ramen houses highlighting specialties from regions around the country, and it was extremely hard limiting myself to just one shop and one bowl of ramen for lunch.

But the main reason I decided to devote a whole day to Yokohama on my short visit, other than the museum, was because of the largest Chinatown in Japan. A Chinatown which, incidentally, also felt like a theme park. It was, for starters, the cleanest Chinatown I had ever seen. The immaculate streets were lined with restaurants showcasing the best of Chinese plastic foods in outdoor display cases. On almost every corner, there were three- or four-story shops with pagoda-like awnings selling Chinese knick-knacks, and at least a couple of stores selling clothes and home decorations from craftspeople in Mexico, Peru, Cambodia, etc.

There were a few alleyways that brought to mind Beijing’s hutongs (but much cleaner). It was in one of these alleys that I found another ramen shop. Heck, there was not reason I couldn’t have two large bowls of ramen in a day. You only live once.
The special of the day, read the placard on the bar, was the mapo tofu ramen. Well, any dish that combined my favorite Japanese dish and one of my favorite Chinese dishes was a must. It arrived not long after ordering, bright red and still bubbling. And goodness, what a thick and spicy sauce! The cooks certainly maintained the textural integrity of Sichuan mapo tofu, and kept it fiery enough (if light of the Sichuan peppercorn) to warrant gulping down two Sapporos.

Hibiscus Mojito

I am sitting here writing this blog post in 100 degree (!!!) weather. The apartment I’m moving out of has no air conditioning, and all I have to prevent myself from melting is a fan and a hibiscus mojito. We hardly had a spring (at least here in New York), but summer came in full force!

A few years ago while living in China, mojitos became my de facto drink for cooling off during the muggy summers in Beijing and Shanghai. The main reason, other than the fact that mojitos are delicious, was that Bacardi rum seemed to be the only liquor that wasn’t outrageously more expensive than it is in the U.S. Don’t ask me why. When I traveled down south to Macau I could cool off with all the vinho verde I wanted, but up north in China, rum cocktails were the only good drinks I could have that didn’t break the bank. So when I found a great gigantic tea market on the outskirts of Beijing, I bought hibiscus tea in bulk and made hibiscus mojitos every week..

Letterpress Pork, Beef, and Lamb Posters

A while ago, while looking for something to jazz up my decor, I spent an evening browsing Etsy for food-related wall art. This  letterpress poster displaying cuts of pork immediately jumped out and just begged to be hung in the home of a proud omnivore. Now that I’m in the midst of an apartment search,

Black Pepper Beef Stir-fry

Back when I made black pepper beef in Beijing,  flank steak was surprisingly difficult to find. Sure, black pepper beef is more of a Cantonese stir-fry, and the Chinese eat pork way more than beef, but somehow I just didn’t expect to have to buy all my flank steak at a gourmet market for expats.

Soy Sauce Chicken

I first blogged about soy sauce chicken back in October, 2007, when my mother showed me her simple but fool-proof method for this Cantonese home-style dish. Really, who can resist juicy chicken wings braised in a bath of soy sauce, garlic, cinnamon, and star anise? (Probably only vegetarians and the alliumphobic.) I recently updated this

Shrimp Lo Mein

Greetings from Atlanta! I’m down south for BlogHer Food 2011 and getting ready for two days of panels, talks, and events with plenty of other food bloggers from around the country. I got in a few hours ago, wandered around downtown enjoying the sun, and even managed to find and scarf down some Cajun-Chinese food

Peanut Butter Carrot Salad

Lately, things have been pretty hectic here at Appetite for China. Recipe-testing for the cookbook is still in full force, and I have been finding myself eating 3 lunches a day. (Oof.) The site is also undergoing a much-needed redesign…nothing fancy, just a nice clean layout that’ll hopefully make reading and searching for recipes easier.

Stir-fried Tomato and Eggs

Within China, there are wildly divergent ways of cooking almost any dish. Take kung pao chicken, for example. The Sichuanese are wild about their version with smoky dried chilis and crunchy peanuts, while folks from Guizhou province love theirs with fresh chilis and absolutely no peanuts, and Beijingers are just fine with their mild kung .
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