Zou Shiming, China's gold medal-winning boxer in the light-flyweight division, slimmed down for the Olympics by eating a diet including pizza and hamburgers. Besides that he enjoys eating Western food, he says, "Chinese food is greasy so Western food is helpful when I am trying to control my weight."
Posted by Erin Zimmer, August 21, 2008 at 10:30 AM
This video funded by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Service's Small Step program features Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor (filmed before they won yesterday) plugging healthy food. Along with the cast of the animated Christian show 3-2-1 Penguins!, the women promote their idea of a "balanced" diet—one drastically different from that of fellow American athlete Michael Phelps.
Says Kerri Walsh:
My favorite snack is a banana because it gives me all the energy I need to before a big match.
A banana? No three sandwiches of fried eggs, grits, French toast, and chocolate chip pancakes? Phelps would scoff. Then he would eat a banana as if it were the Runts candy version. Watch the banana-promoting video after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 19, 2008 at 7:30 AM
According to Jennifer 8. Lee, the best bagels in Beijing (known as "beigu" or precious wheat) are at Mr. Shanen's Bagels, a shop opened by Lejen Chen, a woman in her late forties who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Ms. Chen makes 26 kinds including ham and cheddar, which are neither traditional nor kosher. No word on whether she makes decidedly non-kosher varieties like Peking Duck or twice-cooked pork bagels, which both sound good to me.
One bagel not in Beijing: poppy seed, because of the association with opium. Some other delicious tidbits from the story:
When you google bagel in China, it's defined as a doughnut-shaped Jewish bread.
Chinese workers in Beijing will buy a bagel, cut it up in noodle-sized strips, and stir-fry them with bean sprouts and/or cabbage. I think some bacon would add immeasurably to a plate of stir-fried bagels.
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 11, 2008 at 9:30 AM
As the Beijing Olympics enter their first full week, we thought we'd let you know that our friend Jeffrey Steingarten, writing in Vogue magazine, gives a list of his 18 favorite Beijing restaurants.
He also wants you to know that when noted Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop went to the Chinese capital on a recent trip, she took one of his recommendations, went to a restaurant even she had never been to, and said it was one of the best restaurant meals she had ever had in the city. That restaurant is:
Tiandi Yijia
Chang Pu He Garden, 140 Nanchizi Street
On the eastern side of the Forbidden City
Dongcheng district
天地一家:东城区南池子大街140号
+86-10-8511-5556 or 8511-5557
If you want the guide, here's the deal: You have to go to vogue.com and scroll down toward the bottom, where you'll see an item titled "Lost in Beijing." I'd give you a direct link if I could, but the Vogue site does not give you the option of direct-linking. Sorry.
Posted by Robyn Lee, August 4, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET is the premiere of the four-part documentary series The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World on Sundance Channel. The subject of the series, West Lake Restaurant in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, has 5,000 seats and over 300 chefs, and holds stage shows in addition to serving food. Watch the restaurant in action in a promo of the series after the jump. [via New York Times]
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 4, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Go-to Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop reported in the New York Times today on how dog meat will be taken off Beijing menus at the government's insistence, so as not to offend Western sensibilities. She points out that it was hardly a necessary step, as dog is largely a seasonal thing—it's one of the hottest of "hot" meats, according to Chinese folk dietetics and is "best eaten in midwinter, when you need warmth and vital energy."
Furthermore, she says that Chinese attitudes toward the dish are changing as more people there are keeping dogs as pets.
Related
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 31, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Nobody I know of in the West understands more about food in China than Fuchsia Dunlop. The author of two remarkable Chinese cookbooks, Land of Plenty (about Sichuan food), and The Revolutionary Cookbook (about Hunanese cooking), Dunlop was not only the first Westerner to attend the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, she spent the better part of the last 14 years traveling through China to explore the food culture. So when her newest book, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, was published a few months ago, I knew it was going to be good. I just wasn't prepared for how good.
The book is an evocative and emotionally resonant account of her visits to China, from the time she first went as a student in 1994 to the many trips she took after to research for her two cookbooks. In traveling around the country, Dunlop discovered just how much her feelings about Chinese food had evolved in tandem with how the cultural fabric of China had evolved in the post-Mao era.
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How can one couple run a restaurant for 21 hours a day without resting? They can't—but two couples of identical twins can! At a restaurant in Yiwu, China, the nicknamed "robot couple restaurant" is run by two couples where the men and women are identical twins. [via Neatorama]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, July 24, 2008 at 11:00 AM
That's too many seeds for a normal McDonald's bun. Spotted in Taiwan, the "Grilled Chicken Multi Grains" demonstrates the fast food industry's attempt to make us healthier—and what better way than with big, fat seeds. The sandwich isn't currently available in the United States, where the closest alternative is a Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich on a "toasted honey wheat bakery roll." (No seeds involved.)
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 17, 2008 at 2:00 PM
fun.drno.de
No English speakers were involved in the making of the banner for this restaurant in China. I hope. As for the Chinese name, it's just "restaurant." "Translate server error" is definitely more memorable.
Related
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Posted by Emily Koh, June 30, 2008 at 12:45 PM
In preparation for the impending Olympics, the Beijing municipal government has released a 170-page book of standardized menu translations that eschews the strange literal translations of over 2,000 Chinese dishes and instead features names that make a little more sense. No longer will you order "pock-marked old lady's tofu" and "government-abused chicken" (that's mapo tofu and kung pao chicken, respectively). The less-than-palatable translation "husband and wife's lung slice" will now more helpfully be tagged as "beef and ox tripe in chili sauce."
Translating the names of certain Chinese dishes into English can be tricky—unlike Western dishes, which are usually named after their ingredients and cooking methods, Chinese dishes are more often named for their appearance rather than composition. Props to China for making food-ordering a little bit easier for foreigners. Still, you've got to admit that it does take a bit of fun out of perusing some creatively-translated Chinese menus. [via Cha Xiu Bao]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, June 11, 2008 at 7:30 PM
Forget the therapist—just see a vending machine. Usually designed to hold M&Ms and Fritos, this anger management device instead allows you to select a fine piece of china, then watch it fall to the ground and crumble. When enraged and craving comfort, skip the fatty candy bar and go for the fat-free china-smashing option. It's much better for you, and will hopefully goes to a nice mosaic-making foundation. [via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Posted by Hannah Howard, June 11, 2008 at 2:15 PM
How to live a less meat-centric life: Mark Bittman writes, "The arguments for eating less meat are myriad and well-publicized, but at the moment they’re irrelevant, because what I want to address here is (almost) purely pragmatic: How do you do it?" His answers are pretty simple: buy less meat, buy more vegetables.
Ago is a mess: Frank Bruni visits the self-proclaimed "hot spot" Ago, an Agostino Sciandri and Robert DeNiro venture in the new Greenwich Hotel in TriBeCa. It gets zero stars and some artful prose detailing Bruni's multiple meals gone awry.
Gardening as economic strategy: There hasn't been such an interest in growing food at home since the 1970s. Marian Burros points to higher grocery costs and a stumbling economy.
The man behind many a spectacular food event: Lee Schrager is a master event planner with a gift for using celebrity chefs to pull off big festivals that make big money.
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Posted by Emily Koh, June 11, 2008 at 11:00 AM
In an effort to curb pollution and litter, the Chinese government has issued a ban on plastic bags, which went into effect June 1. Customers must now supply their own bags from home or pay a fee to get one, and shops found to be violating the ban will face a fine or risk having their goods confiscated. Given that China uses 37 million barrels of crude oil each year to manufacture plastic bags and produces up to three billion plastic bags a day, it's a smart eco-conscious move—and might even bolster China's reputation, which hasn't been doing too great with scandals every which way.
China now joins the roster of countries who have gone plastic-free, like Ireland, Uganda and South Africa. Earlier this year, San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to outlaw plastic bags, and Whole Foods also stopped offering plastic bags as of April. Here's hoping it becomes the next big trend—it's certainly one worth following. [via Slate]
In order to gain more customers in China, Kraft reformulated their Oreo in different ways, including lowering the sugar content of the round sandwich cookies and making a new Oreo snack in the form of wafer sticks, now the best-selling biscuit in China.
Posted by Amanda Clarke, March 20, 2008 at 3:00 PM
A few pieces from ceramic artist Whitney Smith's collection.
My sense of impending spring began a few weeks ago when I awoke to a mourning dove’s lonely call. Just barely March, it seemed far too early then to raise much excitement, but the signs have become irrefutable – budding trees, blooming crocuses, a run of rainy 50-degree days, more bird song – and I am now, despite a certain measure of disbelief, firmly in the throes of spring fever.
For those of you thus afflicted, and for the others who are still soldiering through winter, I bring you this round-up of items embodying the effervescence of spring.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, March 18, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Haute genitalia is what you'll find at Beijing's Guo-li-Zhuang restaurant, including schlongs of water buffaloes, deer dick juice (sour as lemon, apparently), and yak's "goods." Our ears (and maybe other things) perk up, but after so much international coverage, aren't we over it yet? BBC and Telegraph News both covered it in 2006, and earlier this week, there it was again in the Times of London travel section. Whoop-dee-doo, they serve groins on platters! Earlier this month, Andrew Zimmern also swung by the testicle emporium on his show, making the obligatory phallic jokes (un-funny ones too).
Exposing this long-standing Chinese culinary tradition is almost guaranteed to garner enough web buzz for most-emailed article status, potentially saving a frenzied newsroom. "Send another reporter to that penis restaurant, quick! Nobody is reading us!" And with the Beijing Olympics in August, we can assume to read a few more articles when foreign correspondents inevitably get desperate for non-sports-related human interest coverage in China.
If this topic interests you, please see the nine other Serious Eats related posts tagged with "penis." (Aside: Is this the most e-mailed story of the day yet?)
Erin Zimmer is a new media analyst who frequently writes for Washingtonian, DCist, and other D.C. publications.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 22, 2008 at 2:45 PM
According to Business Week, bigwig Western chocolate companies like Nestle and Hershey are trying to please Asian tastes, given a booming chocolate industry there. Say hello to azuki-bean Kit Kats in Japan, green tea Hershey's Kisses in China, and ginseng-enriched confections in South Korea. Here we thought Abba-Zaba was crazy! Check out the article's matching slideshow.
Eat chicken in China and you might fail a steroids test. Because of issues with tainted food in China, the United States Olympic Committee has made arrangements with sponsors like Kellogg's and Tyson Foods to ship 25,000 pounds of lean protein to China for the Olympic games. Local vendors and importers will be used to obtain other foods and cooking equipment.
Posted by Ed Levine, December 16, 2007 at 4:00 PM
A truly terrifying story on Chinese fish farms in toxic waters. We should be very scared.
Michael Pollan frames the sustainability issue in a whole new way, and in doing so he makes us see how sustainability relates to the story above.
Is Francis Ford Coppola aiming to become the George Foreman of the espresso set? It will set you back $699 to find out in April when Coppola's Illy Francis Francis X7 hits stores everywhere.
According to the New York Times, "China and the United States, seeking to ease the furor over the safety of food exports, signed an agreement today calling for a greater United States role in certifying and inspecting Chinese food exports, including an increased presence of American officials at Chinese production plants."
Posted by Amanda Clarke, November 1, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Lidded eggplant teacups can be perfectly repurposed to serve soup—while also keeping it warm.
In the midst of planning and executing a Thanksgiving feast, few of us have the time or even the space for elaborate table decorations. And with a meal that tends to consist of so many textures, colors, shapes, and sizes, there’s little need for extensive embellishment, anyway—usually just a few small flourishes are all it takes to elevate the most basic table setting to the occasion.
Here are three of my favorite time- and space-friendly picks for adding detail and dimension to this year’s Thanksgiving table.
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2007 at 6:30 PM
- "Chef Tell," early TV chef, dead at 63: Paul Erhardt was one of America's first and best-known telechefs. "...it was his persona as the jolly chef with an impenetrable German accent, sharp knifework, cutting wit and easy recipes that made him an indelible fixture of TV pop culture, from regular appearances on Regis and Kathie Lee to comedy spots on Saturday Night Live." [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- Nestle to focus on "extreme food": The company plans to boost its lines of food aimed at diabetics, cancer patients, athletes, infants. "We deal with consumers at the extreme: extremely old, extremely young, extremely frail, or extremely fit," a Nestle executive said. [Reuters]
- Chinese arrest 774 in food scandal: Though the government is touting the move as a big step toward food and drug safety, it admits that "only 82 per cent of food tested in medium and large cities in China met safety standards." [Sydney Morning Herald]
- Enterprising San Diego surfer serves up coffee on the beach: "[Coffee truck owner David] Wasserman studies the surf report and decides where he is likely to find the most customers along the San Diego coast on a given day." [Reuters]
Quanjude Restaurant, a chain in Beijing, claims to sell more more than 2 million ducks a year, hung and roasted in wood-burning ovens. "Our server handed me a red-and-gold card stating that our main course would be the 115,273,748th roast duck sold by the company since it was established in 1864, the third year of Tongzhi, Qing Dynasty. The preposterous precision was a taste of the showmanship of the place, on many a tourist itinerary."
Posted by Amanda Clarke, September 13, 2007 at 12:45 PM
Fashion plates: A creamer from Esther Derkx, a Cj O'Neill plate, a cup from Joanna Meroz's Crackery collection.
Most of us have at least a few pieces of cracked, chipped, and mismatched tableware that haven’t seen a table in years, languishing in some dark upper cupboard, evidence of life past. But some gifted designers are proving that new life can be coaxed out of such old pieces, yielding functional, provocative works of art, worthy of any table.
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 6, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Don't blame us, say U.S. ethanol makers, in response to the high price of food. [Washington Post]
Meanwhile, European food prices surge, too. [Reuters]
A new foot-and-mouth scare in England. [The Telegraph]
French couple raises the country's only certified-organic snails. Vive le free-range escargot! [The Telegraph]
In Japan, fast-food chains jump on the trans-fat–banning bandwagon. [Asahi Shimbun]
And China and the U.S. reach a food-safety agreement while Chinese officials plan to use GPS to track and safeguard Olympic food shipments. [Voice of America; AP]
Back to the U.S., and there are more recalls on canned food. This time it's green beans. [Detroit Free Press]
File under "obvious": For pre-schoolers, flashy packaging more important than flavor. [Fox News]
Your RDA of Levity: A mountaintop hot dog cart celebrates its 25th year in business at the junction of California highways 9 and 35: "[John] Hagen [pictured] works seven days a week and said his constancy has earned him the endearing nickname of 'mustard' from family, friends and customers."
Posted by Ed Levine, July 19, 2007 at 4:10 PM
According to Reuters, the Chinese government has arrested the Chinese television reporter who allegedly fabricated the story of finding cardboard in the pork buns sold on the street in Beijing. Here's the scoop:
A report directed by Beijing TV and played on state-run national broadcaster China Central Television last Thursday said an unlicensed snack vendor in eastern Beijing was selling steamed dumplings stuffed with cardboard soaked in caustic soda and seasoned with pork flavoring.
Beijing authorities said investigations had found that an employee surnamed Zi had fabricated the report to garner "higher audience ratings", the China Daily said on Thursday.
[via Serious Eater Prairie, in Talk]
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 17, 2007 at 5:00 PM
With the priority that the Chinese place on food in their culture, it's a shame that the recent food scares have been tinged with a hint of racism, says Jeff Yang in the Washington Post:
That's troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture. Chef and gustatory adventurer Anthony Bourdain may have said it best in a 2006 Salon interview in which he noted that there's "something kind of racist" about culinary xenophobia: "Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people."
Posted by Ed Levine, July 12, 2007 at 12:30 PM
According to CNN, some street food vendors in one neighborhood in China are making their steamed buns out of, among other things, cardboard:
Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said.
Gives whole new meaning to the "tastes like cardboard" comment we all often use in describing food we don't like. Someone here at Serious Eats world headquarters says that this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that pork really does make anything taste better.
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 10, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Ahead of next year's Summer Games, the Chinese government pledges that its food will be safe for "athletes, coaches, officials, and others" attending the events.
"All the procedures involving Olympic food, including production, processing, packaging, storing and transporting will be closely monitored," Sun Wenxu, an official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, told reporters Tuesday.
In a related move, the government also executed a former food and drug chief there who was found guilty of taking cash in exchange for approving six untested medicines.
Posted by Ed Levine, June 28, 2007 at 4:44 PM
Andrew Martin in the New York Times reports that "The Food and Drug Administration today issued an alert challenging imports of five major types of farm-raised seafood from China, including shrimp and catfish, because testing found recurrent contamination from carcinogens and antibiotics. The alert means that the fish will be allowed for sale in the United States only if testing proves that it is free of certain antibiotics and carcinogens found previously."
Here's the kicker: "In May, for instance the F.D.A. turned away 165 shipments from China, 49 of which were seafood. Monkfish was rejected for being filthy. Frozen catfish nuggets were turned away because they contained veterinary drugs. Tilapia fillets were contaminated with salmonella."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 29, 2007 at 1:00 PM
OK, so as a visual spectacle of hot pot cooking, nothing beats the world's largest hot pot I posted about last month, but this 1.5 mile-long hot pot table that sat 100,000 people is still pretty amazing, especially when you consider they "ate about 30 tons of tripe and 20 tons of duck intestines."
I do not envy the clean up crew!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 2, 2007 at 2:55 PM
It's tricky because they're so big, but cows are roasted on spits whole all the time. Boiled? Not so much. According to Weird Asia News, "during a Food Festival in Sheng Yang China, one company boiled a 1,500 lbs cow. It was 1.3 meters long and 2.5 meters high." The boiler itself was capable of containing three tons of water, and it took ten hours to boil the cow.
(The photos might make you squeamish, so if you're in doubt don't click through!)
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 12, 2007 at 6:59 PM
A woman from Liaoning, China fell head over heels for a restaurant manager after eating dinner at his restaurant and subsequently had dinner there every night for the next two months, until she ran through her entire life savings of 10,000 yuan ($1,233). You'd think that would've stopped her, but no—she mortgaged her house and would've spent all that money at the restaurant too, except the object of her affection finally called the police. I don't know what else to say, other than that I hope the food at the guy's restaurant was delicious.
Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 24, 2007 at 8:31 AM
One of the most surprising vistas in China is the Starbucks tucked into a corner of Beijing's Forbidden City, which has sold coffee to all and sundry since 2000 (at the behest of palace managers, who needed to raise money for maintenace of the villas and gardens). Apparently it may not stay there much longer.
Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 17, 2007 at 4:20 PM
Chinese researchers breed green pigs.
I think the writer puts it best when he notes: "Jokes about fluorescent green SPAM are probably apropos."
