Even while I was exploring our fruited plains of Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, and Montana back in August, my eyes feasting on environmental wonders, my stomach was starving from cruel neglect. We are SPOILED in New York. New Yorkers are privileged. In New York, you can eat your way through most cultures in the world.

Optimistically reflecting, Middle America has “diversity” among its fast food. But like looking at the geographical crevices in this area, you must examine it reaaaaaallllly closely– the differences are minute. They’ve got everything!- Starbucks, McDonalds, Wendy’s … (haha, who am I kidding. Why aren’t we air-lifting food over to them?! We are monsters.)

Bison is actually among the leaner of meats (turkey is to goose, bison is to beef) It supposedly has a gamier flavor, but with the strong mix of the chili, it's hard to tell.

The McGriddle. Syrup on the biscuit, fluffy egg. Shamefully good.

Cooked to order, this Fuddrucker burger may be one of my favorite fast food burgers, rivaling even the juicy Shake Shack chain in NYC. It's plenty big, plenty American.

In Wyoming, after Ihop, we skipped over to Carl's Jr. for a special $5 for 2 burgers deal for More Food. Disgusting.

The infamous KFC double down: two fried chicken holding together a millefeuille of American Cheese and sizzling bacon. Reality: Skip this sandwich and go straight for the fried chicken.

On any highway, you can expect to see what I call the Rest Stop Trinity: Fast food joint, Steakhouse, and Chinese buffet

Burger King's Smokehouse XL with cheese, bacon, and char-grilled burger

Got to work this off somehow.

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The progression went like this: Staying at a 5 star hotel in Yi Chang, taking bubble baths, and eating lavish buffet breakfast platters of sweet mandarins and buttery croissants, while enjoying a sweeping panoramic view of this rapidly developing city..

.. to hiking atop the mountains of Dengcun, a tiny tea village, in 10 degree Celsius, the air thick and heavy with the concentrated fragrance of tea being processed by the ton, windows open to impressive blue skies and the sinusoidal curves of stately zeniths and nadirs..

.. to riding the current fastest bullet train in the world from Wuhan to the center of Guangzhou, a city of rainbow lights, reminders of old colonial days left by the French, Dutch, and British architecture perched along the Pearl River, and man-made rivers (revamped from the old sewage foundations) streaming underneath sky passes, churning sludgy waterfalls. I while away the days at spas and mega-shopping malls, consuming dim sum at all hours.

Which is why tales of debauchery in Asia are lacking on this platform as of late, but worry not, soon I shall pen my dramatic reenactments of how we went about INVENTING A TEA, how delicious chicken offals are, and how my uncle believes that kewpie mayonnaise is salad dressing. It will be, like, my magnum opus.

BY THE WAY! You guys! Some time ago, Deb, from Travel and Tea, interviewed me for her website about my blog and my tea-scapades in China. I never realized what an extensive community that has come out culture of tea until she intro’d me to her website, which is a nexus to the most beautiful tea photographs and interviews on people in the tea industry more knowledgeable than I.

But if you support my babblings about travel, life, and tea, go read the interview on TravelandTea.com!

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What I love about green tea is the vegetal flavor, the minimal to none processing,  the sparkling clearness of the liquor, the low caffeine content and the calming effect from the theanine. Now that the days are getting colder, the heat from a glass of hot tea warms my fingertips in a very pleasant way. Other than water, it is the only thing that I drink daily.

Tea tasting in Dengcun Lv Cha Factory, trying to figure out the best teas for Rocky Mountains Tea Co.!

Frolicking about the tea bushes. These are largely spring harvests, and will remain untouched and dormant until next year.

(More photos and tea-venturing on Flickr)

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My answer: a true New Yorker is someone who, even when physically 180 degree around the world, thinks about what they are going to eat in New York once they get home.

fluttering high above Columbus Circle, where the best memories were created

I have already bought a Groupon to be spent at a cupcake bakery on Lexington Ave. I am dreaming about brunch at Clinton St. Baking Co. on East Houston. I am planning an excursion to Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao (南翔小籠包) in Flushing; despite currently living in Nanjing, where juicy buns/ soup dumplings, Edward claims, have originated. (I haven’t found one that comes even close to touching the juicy buns in New York. The search continues.)

The most memorable dish of 2010: Tender suckling pig ragu in fresh sheets of pappardelle sprinkled with crunchy arugula that snaps like newborn spring leaves

Since this summer’s Restaurant Week 2010, I have been utterly smitten with Maialino, the new Danny Meyer restaurant that inhabits the Gramercy Park Hotel. In fact, I would want to stay at the hotel just so I can be up early enough to indulge in their breakfast over a cup of Mao Jian Green tea because, y’all, they have a tea bar. And for me, being an apprentice of the art of tea, that is a wonderful thing.

(For more Summer RW 2010 visuals from Maialino, Dovetail, and Delmonico’s, see my Flickr set!)

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Commander’s Palace

Potato Croquette. I'm sure there was some sort of booze-y sauce. There always is.

A demi serving of three soups: Gumbo, Turtle, and Soup du jour- Chicken dumpling

A take on L'awlin's classic pastry with SLABS of foie gras. Bourbon braised fig and foie gras beignets with vanilla cracked coffee beans, foie gras café au lait (a "coffee" with extract of foie gras). UNHOLY.

Wild fish and gigantic gulf shrimp (not affected by oil spill, obvs). The best the ocean can offer.

Crispy Soft Shell Crab - Crowned with a chilled salad of local crabmeat, baby arugula, barbecued tomato, avocado and grilled jalapeño vinaigrette. The serving was so generous, my stomach was pulsating with effort at this point. But I had to torture it just a bit more.

The finale! I am about to tap out, but had to have the entirety of their infamous Bread Pudding Souffle (Eric could not stop raving about. I've heard about this souffle since I met him. That's like, YEARS.) Of course, the chef made a sauce out of Jack Daniels. This restaurant is not for AA patrons.

Eric and I each had a “Congratulations” fancily scribbled on the top, cos we are baller. Or maybe because we had the mental fortitude and stomach willpower to finish all that food. That needs congratulating. Or maybe, because it was his birthday, and we have jobs. The staff at Commander’s Palace also reads The Economist.

A really really huge Thank You to Eric’s family for treating us to their neighborhood restaurant. I cannot believe that they have Commander’s Palace as their “neighborhood restaurant”. What’s next, like, a cocktail bar with world class mixology as their “neighborhood bar”?

Uh, actually, yes. (Not Kidding.

Innovative cocktails. The Jackson 9 is mighty fine.

Can I move to Nola pls?)

Coquette

Bacon infused booze (with moonshine- classy and a little low, how I like it) It's such a cocktail fad to make bacon into some type of liquor, but I can never tire of it.

Could not leave Nola without indulging in Shrimp n' grits (with some sticky okra and loadsa cajun spices)

Airy, crispy beignets dipped in chocolate mousse and whipped cream. Had these sugary babes for brunch, and I would eat these lunch, dinner, and fourth-meal if I could.

Gautreau’s

Correctly cooked sweet breads may be my favorite offal. It's usually an amazing ratio of crispy to squishy, oooh that texture. Let me tell you, it's thyroid. Yeah, you don't want it. Give it to me.

Mad delish duck confit. Makes my tummy personify the emotion of joy.

Red fish drizzled in a light citrus sauce! with the crispiest snap peas I've had. This fish dish might even rival Jean George's skate, which is mighty good (but I've never been to Le Bernardin, master of fish dishes)

a banana split sundae, where the banana had a caramelized crust over it like a creme brulee. One of the best desserts I've ever had. To be honest, I like this better than the epic Bread Pudding Souffle at Commander's.

Acme’s Oyster House

Freshly shucked raw oyster. This was breakfast, by the way. Don't give me that look. It wasn't the first time.

Acme Oyster House, grilled oyster- with lots of cheese. I'm not in Nola to do slim fast.

There was more than this, but I think it’s better to pretend that I eat like a lady or something.

Good Bye swamps of Nola, for now!

Coming up on the list of backlogged cities I have eaten through but never talked about, but should because there’s some mind-blowing culinary talents:

Middle America: Yes, I’m clumping this into one. It’s going to be kind of low-brow. Oh, you dirty fry. You dirty, dirty, freedom fry.

Quebec City: Where I road tripped to see Rammstein back in July. The Canadians got tastes, but I might credit it to the French. The mounties can have T-Ho’s though.

London, Helsinki, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, Marseille: Do you feel that? It’s an earthquake.. of awesome.

In the meantime, tuning back into the People’s Republic.

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Mooncake market at Auchan. Some sell for as high as 400RMB. They all taste the same, probably even produced from the same factory with the same ingredients.

The mooncake market is for a large part a vehicle for corruption. Under traditional manufacturing norms, the box should not exceed the value of the contents by 10-20%, but for mooncakes, the box can be 70%+ more expensive. Officials are bribed with mooncake boxes made of gold, or mooncakes stuffed with shark fins and a new camera hidden in its lavish folds.

I think that the amount that people spend on gifting mooncake is appalling. In American terms (taking PPP, Purchasing Power Parity/relative market prices and whatnot into consideration), its like if an individual in America were to spend $400 on a box of munchkins to give as a gift for every one of your relatives and coworkers, every Autumn Festival. (The average US income of the middle class is around $50,000; the average, uh reported, Chinese income of upper-middle class is around 40,000 RMB. Gabe has an interesting post on that.)

Mooncake innards are also recycled or “reworked,” a term describing a practice where factories take leftover or rejected ingredients to be used for a new product. Considering how many mooncakes are churned out every year for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the amount of waste and unsold mooncakes from each year, the odds are that most mooncakes on the market currently (even some of the ones made “fresh” from bakeries) have leftovers in them from as long as five years ago.

Just coat it with a new shiny coat of preservative splendor.

I just don’t think about it when I pop each 1000 calorie worth of lotus paste or red bean mooncake into my mouth.

Yum!

As “good will” gift for this holiday, Bank of China cleverly gives VIP patrons 500RMB gift cards  in a red envelope instead.

月下獨酌 Drinking Alone by Moonlight

李白 Li Bai

花間一壺酒。 A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

獨酌無相親。 I drink alone, for no friend is near.

舉杯邀明月。 Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

對影成三人。 For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

(The poem continues with the poet getting completely smashed. Google/Baidu the rest. If you don’t know who Li Bai is, I shake my finger of shame at you and come back to me when you’re more literary.)

Chilling with my home-boy, poet Li Bai

中秋节快乐

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Random chat with Harbin stranger about Chinese business atmosphere

But my friends, I have discovered that in lieu of facebook, China has QQ, which is something like a cross between gmail, MSN, twitter, farmville, etc. where I can make and add my new Chinese friends and build simulation farm property.

I might have Chinese friends, y’all.

And in lieu of Google, China has Baidu.

It’s a whole new digital world out here.

Of course during this time, my leet hacker skills have not been idle and I have used my cyber savvy to penetrate the Internet Blockade to access the aforementioned forbidden URLs, but dude, who needs that when I can Perapera-kun my way through random Chinese chats and Chinese search results to Chinese fluency.

(Seriously, download that Firefox add-on. Then you can make sense of my random Chinese insertions like you native or something. 白人都看得懂！)

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桃花嶺酒店, 宜昌

Today, I was chauffeured to Yi Chang, put up in the same hotel that Kim Jong-Il and Henry Kissinger once stayed at, and was treated to a glorious dinner personally designed by the executive chef at the hotel in a private dining room replete with an automatic Mahjong table.

What did I do in my past life to deserve this?

I bit into a fluffy shiitake mushroom only to find out that it wasn’t shiitake, but a steamed bun 饅頭 that was shaped and colored like one. There were other surprises throughout the meal:

Tang Yuan: mochi stuffed with sesame shaped to look like smooth pebbles in a dish of clear water

Quite a contrast: from slumming in an industrial town with high-school graduate factory workers to playing business games with government officials and bankers.

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飛雲鎮 Flying Cloud Town street market where I had breakfast and dinner most days

Breakfast time: one yummy sesame coated red-bean mochi, hot and crispy

My enthusiasm for Sichuanese yakitori is overwhelming

Fujianese beer, tastes like Natty light

Tragedy seen from a distance

On a sadder note.

There was a massive fire next to the main road to and from Flying Cloud (飛雲） town (where Xiao Peng’s factory is, where we work) last night. It took over an hour before this road was reinstated to Rui’an city proper and we got on our bus out to Nanjing within a hair’s breadth.

From the car window we could see twisting billows of opaque, black smoke engulfing the sky. One of Xiao Peng’s acquaintances owned that factory, which produced foam pillows and mattresses. The fire was initiated from one small spark, and because China is notoriously lax in safety regulations, what would have been an easily controlled situation snow-balled into an entire factory meltdown. Insurance isn’t going to cover this.

The smoke diffusing into atmosphere is as poisonous as it can be, given the chemicals involved, and the rain that came pouring down only moments after the explosion did nothing to quench the thirst of the fire, but only served to pollute the rice fields with its newly strengthened toxicity.

A child raised in this environment

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我吃蛋塔吃肥。

When we wandered into a small restaurant earlier for lunch, Edward, with infamous Chinese tact, asked the owner-lady, who was illustrating the many delicacies available in her southern hometown, “So are you fat because of all the food in Fujian?” and she fired back, “No, I live here.” Looking around Rui’an, the chubby to thin ratio is appallingly un-Chinese. Most men have enormous Buddha bellies, grossly disproportionate to their skinny limbs, and the women can be described as Rubinesque. The town center is a curtailed area that spans four city blocks, unlike in bigger Nanjing, where walking from the bus stop to the subway stop to whatever destination involves a marathon of sorts.

Living in this small town (small by Chinese standards, pop. 1.12 million), it would take practiced and dedicated frivolity to exceed a liberal budget of 100 元/day ($16 US). Food from ordinary stalls start from 0.50元 ($0.08), and rarely cost more than 10元 ($1.75).

The only thing that could make a dude go 700,000元 ($100,000) in debt in Rui’an and being rejected by 5 loan sharks is bad business with African con artists, nightly KTV with expensive booze, and cavorting with prostitutes, but I shall not finger who the indulging victim is.

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