Cha Xiu Bao

The Japs are officially sicker than I am...

Fatty, marbled wagyu + iPod case = Some Japs to shabu shabu now!

Objects on Your Plate May Be Smaller Than They Appear

"The first thing I tell them is to round up every price that ends with 95 cents to 99 cents. You've got an item $10.95, raise it to $10.99. If it's $7.75, make it $7.79. All the chains have done it -- Applebee's, Chili's, all of them. It's just four cents and your customers won't notice, but that could easily mean $5,000 to $15,000 a year for the restaurant."

Inspiring read from the Washington Post on how restaurateurs fiddle with tricks to save costs against soaring food prices, which reminds me the sorry state of the supplier-driven dining scene here in Hong Kong, especially those in LKF, Soho, A-Ho and NoHo...

And always remember: eat smart, not hard. Mind over mouth, always!

No game for U.S. Olympians in Beijing

NYTimes report here:

Wary U.S. Olympians Will Bring Food to China

[Photo courtesy of Reuters]

Sorry to my fellow U.S. Olympians, so long for your cravings of Peking duck, xiaolongbao, jiaozi, baozi, lanzhou noodles and all that yums. You train years like mad to be the strongest in the world but your team cooks have you chicken out all because of a piece of frozen meat. And the gusto sabotage doesn't end there --

"Ms. Hamilton has lowered sodium, decreased fats and eliminated trans fats — even from rich dishes like macaroni and cheese and rice pudding — while preserving the flavor."

Well, last time I checked, the only thing that can do this trick is a) a kind of dark art or b) something called MSG; but you really have to sprint faster than Liu Xiang to make me believe Ms. Hamilton isn't adopting the latter... Sorry again folks, imported MSG is not welcome -- ours is much cheaper, even after the raging Chinflation!

A sweet spray of love to start the new year!

Campaign for Lynx (or Axe outside UK) new chocolate-flavored "Dark Temptation" deodorant. Man, you can almost smell the unbeatable choco-goodness if you gawk hard on the picture, if you gawk hard on picture!

Speaking of which, what better way to start the Year of the Rat with the ladies than a spray of this? Cheesy, creepy yet tasty. My kind of game.

And this one, yet more junky tweak to crack up the year of the Rat! I luuuv chocolate...

Sorbet for Adults

Let's get this right out of my chest first -- I was tempted to think about something a little bit more dynamite (something like this, to say the least) when I saw the title!

This is exactly the reason why we need a more rigorous standard on journalism nowadays!

[via wsjdigitalnetwork]

Perfect Christmas gift ideas

O, share some love, share some holiday spirit, share some lovesick cookies that reeked of "a-fro-di-si-a-k!"

Wish you all a very crunchy and raunchy Christmas [Pipparkakan]!

This woman wants you to drink rats' milk

One of the very first groups I joined in Facebook is the 'Save an Animal eat a Vegan' group. I know it sounds a tad childish but the home truth is, I find it ten times more altruistic to eat vegans around you than to preach people to cut off latte drinks so as to fight global warming while driving a Mercedes SUV at the same time!

A Star-studded Night for Tokyo

Photo credit EPA/ROBERT GILHOOLY (via atom4878)

As I mentioned, Michelin Tokyo 2008, out just now [full list available here].

The goof is in the pudding

["Haute" Chocolate from Serendipity 3, NYC. Photo courtesy of Chinadaily.com.cn]

From the place that brought you the most expensive dessert in the world last week to, THIS:

"Officials closed the restaurant Wednesday night after it failed its second inspection in a month. An inspector spotted a live mouse and mouse droppings, fruit flies, house flies and more than 100 live cockroaches."

Strewth, talk about slap-in-the-face irony publicity...

Not trying to sound schadenfreude here, but is it just me or the discovery of 100 rampaging cockroaches inside the kitchen reminds anyone of the ending scene in Ratatouille?

Thank you Japan, thank you!

[Picture courtesy of Reuters]

Maaan! The revival of chopstick using in the most tree-saving way! [Link of video here]