Somewhere along the lines of traveling and blogging, I realized how much I write about, talk about, and just plain eat…food.  It’s like the chicken or the egg sometimes: Do I love to travel because I love to eat yummy foods or do I eat great food because I love to travel?  Just take a look at my food category and you can see I’ve been obsessed for quite some time.

It recently occurred to me how much my love of food has grown over the last decade, from producing restaurant and food stories in Chicago at my previous job – getting to know chefs, restaurateurs, and understanding more about what we eat, to my travels all over the world trying as many savory treats that I could fit in my mouth and stomach.  I finally realized that I was more excited to check out the dining suggestions in my Lonely Planet, than the standard sightseeing stops.  I was creating a tour for myself of cafes, restaurants, and fascinating supermarkets – the real key to local culture.  I mean if food isn’t the great uniter, across all races, backgrounds, and ethnicities, than what is?

Here we have the real deal: some fabulously beautiful wheels of aging parmigiana reggiano cheese from a small family producer in the center of the Italian cheese universe.  I was fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes tour from a local producer in Parma. Too bad I couldn’t fit one of these wheels in my suitcase.

New York City’s food scene changes as fast as the taxis whiz down 9^th Avenue.  Since I’ve been traveling and somewhat removed from Manhattan, there’s no way I can keep up with the hot spot’s openings and closings.  This would be a full time job (one I hope to have someday). On a recent visit, to take the pressure off myself, I just enjoyed some new random spots that were either recommended to me by friends or places that I’d been to before that have stood the test of time (a pretty big feat in NYC).

My current favorite spots

Red Cat – Great neighborhood gem holding court in Chelsea for more than a decade with Mediterranean-American flavors & a cozy white-painted wood-paneled New England charm.  I’d eaten here with my grandmother (who lived just a block away for about 30 years) a few times, so besides the warm, inviting atmosphere, and especially tasty food, Red Cat holds special memories for me.

Birreria Eataly – I recently wrote about this fantastic rooftop bar and restaurant in the Flatiron District.  After enjoying the gourmand’s wet dream downstairs, climb up for some great views and tasty views under a retractable roof and cozy heat lamps.

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Typically big-box stores (a la: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, etc.) and over-sized supermarkets have been an American import slowly spreading their bland conformity across Europe and beyond.  But this is a switch.

I first visited the mega-sized specialty market, Eataly, in Turino, Italy, in 2009.  I’d pegged it as an all-Italian ‘Whole Foods’.   My mouth watered and my eyes glazed over as I roved the many, stark-white aisles filled with sexy bottles of truffle-oil, silky gelato, and an amazing array of fresh meats, pastas, cheeses, and breads.

The Slow Food organization serves as a consultant to Eataly, and the artisinal super-store has adopted its three principles.  Slow Food is good, clean and fair food. 

• Food must taste good
• Food must be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health
• Food producers should receive fair compensation for their work

Like Santa bringing us gifts at Christmas, one red-faced, jolly Mario Batali, has now brought Eataly to all New Yorkers.   The huge store sits just across the street from the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park and is a mecca of Italian foodstuffs, various fancy bar ‘stations’ (more like mid-store restaurants), and boisterous espresso and wine bars.

Upstairs, on the roof, Birreria opened this past summer.   The huge outdoor space is more than a beer garden, as sometimes described, even though they do brew some of their own ales as their name suggests (Birreria means brewery in Italian).   For me, the food is the draw here as the menu is stuffed full with all the delightful fixin’s of an ‘Italian picnic’ – charcuterie, cheeses, mushroom dishes, and other assorted savory morsels.   It’s not cheap, but the views are pretty priceless with the Empire State building looming overheard to the north and the Flatiron building just to the west, across the street, so close, you feel you can touch it.

See photo gallery here. Roll-over & click on each for larger image slideshow.

As a follow-up to my food porn photo essay on Hong Kong, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include these scrumptious photos of the morsels we enjoyed in Shenzhen.  From a private dinner in the Futian Shangri-La’s presidential suite (wow) to a personalized multi-course meal at the Shang Garden, the food didn’t suck (see menus below). Eating like this was so decadent, but not so good for my waistline.  The only thing I would have preferred was to mix it up with the masses some more and actually eaten off the regular menu at times instead of being cordoned off and not be able to soak in some of the ‘real’ Shenzhen culture.

Dinner Presidential Suite Futian Shangri-La

Amuse Bouche
Steamed Cauliflower and Truffle Custard

Salmon Four Ways
Smoked Salmon Tartare, Quail Egg Sunny Side Up
Smoked Salmon Ravioli and Caramelized Beetroot
Sugar Cured Salmon
Smoked Salmon and Dill Mascarpone Mille Feuille

Confit Duck Leg Tortellini
Green Pea Puree, Dried Parma Ham, Thyme Jus

Refreshment
Lime and Bubbles

Roasted Angus Beef Filet
Rosemary Mash, Sauteed Mushrooms, Broad Beans,
Pan Seared Fois Gras with Red Wine Jus

Dessert
Valrhona Dark Chocolate Mousse served with Espresso Granita

Lunch Shang Garden

“Huaiyang” Appetizer Combination

Crab Thick Soup Braised with Minced Vegetables

Wok-Fried King Prawn with Mustard Sauce and Lemon Juice

Braised Boneless Beef Rib in “Yanzhou” Gravy

“Yangzhou” Shredded Dried Pressed Bean

Sauteed Pea Sprout with Pumpkin Sauce

Red Bean Paste Cake & Baked Minced Pork,

Chicken and Bamboo Shoot Puff Pastry

Seasonal Fruit & Chilled Sago Cream with Mango and Pomelo

Disclosure:  My trip to Hong Kong & Shenzhen was provided by the folks at Cathay Pacific & Shangri-La Hotels.  All views, writing, and photos are my own.

Eating and traveling. Traveling and Eating. The more I travel, the more I learn about food, the more I love to eat. I love everything about it – the background on where it came from, the smells, the preparations, and of course the flavors rolling around in my mouth.  It’s been an ongoing learning process for years now as my taste buds and waistline continue to battle it out.

When I’ve traveled on a budget I’ve had to let go of the idea of being able to try lots of ‘hip’ restaurants or pricey ‘in’ places and just enjoy cheap street food eats which, as I’ve mentioned are often even more tasty and authentic.

But this visit to Hong Kong was completely different. I was being treated to some of the best food around – even going on what was dubbed a “Culinary Journey” at the Island Shangri-La Hong Kong.  Or what I like to call the best restaurant crawl…ever.  We indulged in seven different courses at the hotel’s six different restaurants in one night – starting with flutes of Veuve Clicquot and an amuse bouche in the lobby bar and ending with dessert and live music at the Lobster Bar and Grill with amazing morsels of sushi, savory dim sum, succulent rack of lamb, and fresh seafood, in between.

Between the eating and drinking with every course, it was a decadent night to say the least. I loved every course – and by the end I was stuffed, sated, and sleepy.  I loved the fact that all I had to do is take the elevator up fifty floors or so to my plush room and climb into my thick king-sized bed and doze into a fat and happy slumber.

Renowned as the culinary capital of Asia, Hong Kong has more than 11,000 restaurants, according to the Tourism Board.  Many of these offer some of the best Cantonese and regional Chinese food in the world.  Local must-try dishes are dim sum (tasty Chinese ‘tapas’ or ‘snacks’ including dumplings served steamed in bamboo baskets) and amazingly fresh seafood.

Disclosure:  My trip to Hong Kong was provided by the folks at Cathay Pacific & Shangri-La Hotels.  All views, writing, and photos are my own.