6 thoughts on “Contact”

1. Hello Qin

   My husband is taking me to the Szechuan region for my birthday in October. Chengdu is on mY bucket list for pandas, scenery and of course the food!

   I wondered whether you could recommend and local guides to restaurants – a Szechuan equivalent of Zagats/Michelin if you will?! I would love to try somewhere extra special for my birthday and wondered whether you could give us any local advice, hints, tips?

   Do you have or have your written any local guides to eating, street food, restaurants that I could read? Maybe blogs or articles that I could access and read in preparation for my trip?

   Any advice from you as a specialist and a local would be wonderful

   Best regards and happy chomping and slurping

   Deb

2. Hi Deb,

   Thanks for getting in touch! Happy that you’re visiting my home town, where I am at the moment in fact.

   You can find some of my Chengdu recommendations in this month’s Olive magazine I believe.

   To be honest, Chengdu is more for casual eating when it’s just two people – you only get serious when you start going to banquets because, as I’m sure you know, eating in China is all about sharing from dishes in the middle of the table.

   That said, you could try 子非 (Zi Fei) in Kuanzhai Alley. It’s quite well known locally but they don’t have a website unfortunately. You might need to go a few days before to make the reservations (generally for restaurants in Chengdu you don’t have to make reservations). Otherwise you could try 喻家厨房 (Yu Jia Chu Fang or Yu’s Family Kitchen) – Fuchsia Dunlop has written extensively on them but the chef is in America right now until the end of October.

3. Thanks for your reply. I am more than happy to dine casually – especially if I am eating local specialities/cuisine. I am not one for seeking out the “tourist” destinations!

   I did in fact track you down from this months Olive Magazine – but their article on Chengdu does not include restaurant recommendations; but does explain local food specialities.

   Have you written anything else about dining in Chengdu that I could also use for reference purposes?

   Enjoy your trip and if anywhere else occurs to you – we don’t leave for another 3 weeks; so would welcome any additional recommendations.

   By the way – do you know anything about dining in the Guilin area?

   Best Regards

   Deb

4. Ah ok. There’s definitely some restaurant recommendations but they might be going up on the website instead so do look out for those. There’s some other stuff coming out but not in the UK. I’ll be posting them here when they come out but not sure it’ll be before you travel.

   I would say definitely don’t miss Jinli, even if it’s totally touristy. It’s hard to find such a concentration of traditional snacks elsewhere if you don’t speak Chinese – making an assumption here.

   Otherwise are you on instagram? I post quite a bit of food pics on there so if you see anything you fancy I can try to find out the address. I’m @qinxiesays

5. Hunan.
   Hope you can help me with this. First, what a wonderful book Hunan is. I am an enthusiastic amateur cook and own hundreds of cookbooks but this has shot straight in at number one for me. The accessibility of the recipes, the subtlety of the tastes and the revelations of small touches, like adding vinegar at the end of cooking, make this a wonderful thing to own. You should be proud of your participation.

   Anyway, I have a question about one of the recipes which you may be able to answer or may be able to let me know how I can find out. The stuffed aubergine recipe (p.68) says “slice an aubergine, at an angle, most of the way down so that it remains whole but opens up like a fan”.

   Does that mean multiple cuts or one single long cut?

   Thanks in advance for any reply.

   PS tried to email you direct but email address at the top of the page did not work.

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