Chirashi. Japan

Japan, again. It seems that we can’t help it but eat Japanese food all the time in our house. It’s so good. And so healthy too. No guilt. Just pure love and pleasure. The Chirashi bowls are very trendy at the moment. Chirashi litterally means in Japanese “not assembled sushi”, which lets us understand that…

Asian-style Beef & Citrus Salad over Niçoise Socca

This one definitely is the pure expression of Staycation-on-a-plate. Fusion food being the ultimate trend for the past 15 years, it goes without saying that the various influences of my travels push me every now and then onto mixing cultures in the kitchen and combining ingredients from different parts of the world for the sake…

Tel-Aviv like a Local

Last year in May, I travelled with my entire family to Israel for my cousin’s wedding. My husband and I found it really fun to meet our siblings, parents, grand parents, uncles, aunts and cousins right across the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea, and have this unique experience of a traditional ceremony in the…

Chicken Curry. Sri Lanka

There are, at times, travel destinations that suddenly come out from the unknown and become the ones that everyone around me is interested in. Lately it’s been the combined tour of the Maldives and Sri Lanka. The Maldives, of course, are worldwide famous already. But who actually goes to Sri Lanka, this magnificent autonomous island…

Coriander and Lemongrass Beef. South-East Asia

I have been having a lot of thoughts lately about Thailand, Vietnam, and all of the other countries that are located in the South-East Asia peninsula. However not for the reasons one would expect. It’s been raining awfully lots in Nice, France, during this de facto uninteresting month of November, and I don’t know if…

Lahore style Chicken. Pakistan

About five months ago, I watched with passion the TV cooking show called Million Pound Menu on Netflix. It showcasts British amateur chefs who started a small food truck business or the like in whatever small town England, and who are now competing to get the chance of opening a three-day ephemere restaurant in Manchester,…

Soy Chicken

I am always on the lookout for new cooking books, leaflets, dictionaries and anything readable about food, local traditional cooking techniques or – the opposite – trendy and new combinations of flavors. Ten years ago, when I moved out of China and met my husband’s family in France for the first time during the week…

Roasted Butternut with Zaatar and Tahini Sauce

Three Christmas trees ago, my dad offered me this fabulous cookbook, Jerusalem, by Yotam Ottolenghi. At that time, I had in mind that complex flavors necessarily meant complex recipes and techniques, but Ottolenghi proved me otherwise with this book. The only truth though is that the list of ingredients is rarely short, and the combination…

Soba Noodles in Broth with Shrimp Tempuras

This dish clearly has been inspired from my trip to Japan in 2016. It’s something I have loved eating since I have found out how easy soba noodles are to digest. Indeed, they are made of buckwheat and don’t make the stomach swell while it processes the food down. The clear broth makes it a…

Spring Break for Adults in Dubai

I have finally travelled to Dubai! Voilà! Dubai is so shiny that you can’t just cross-check it from your bucket list without telling all about it. I stayed four days and had plenty of time to enjoy the city. It is very extended though, but the local transportation system offers multiple options for all budgets….

Egg Tarts, Macau.

In the Spring of 2004, when I was living in Guangzhou, my best Chinese friend Gisèle and I went for a weekend away in nearby Macau. It was only a couple hours drive away from home, and the perfect getaway for anyone who needed a break from the craziness of China without totally leaving the…

Mouhalabieh. Syria.

Long gone seems to be the era when one talked about Syria for its culture, its folklore or its food. Partly because of that, and partly because I never really wondered about it before, my own knowledge of Syrian food actually is close to none, and although what I know of Middle-Eastern food encompasses the…

Udon. Japan

Since our trip to Japan in 2016, our love for everything Japanese has been an ongoing phenomenon. My husband and I have recently been experimenting new foods in several Japanese restaurants that opened in Nice lately. We are always curious about tasting new flavors, and beyond that I am myself very much into trying to…

Stir-Fried Beef with Greens and Scallions

Time for a new challenge. I read so many blogs that sometimes, telling myself I’d love to cook this or that is too overwhelming. I often get the feeling that I see a lot but don’t do as much. So I’ve made the decision to regularly make a selection of the dishes I “like”, whether…

Bo Bun. Vietnam.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my old friends from Vietnam that I have known since living in China. She, as I, has a totally different life now that she has moved to the US, but both of us can’t help it but miss a lot our country of adoption, PRC. Joyce…

Asian-Style Mixed Vegetables, aka Chop-Suey

Asian-style Mixed Vegetables can be such a delight and a convenient weeknight dinner, with a light soup on the side or over Cantonese stir-fried noodles. Over the years, I’ve come up with various recipes that include different combinations of vegetables, and that’s actually what’s really convenient about making Asian-Style Mixed Vegetables, aka Chop Suey: you…

Sichuan Eggplants

I have traveled to Sichuan province (China) in 2003. Departing from Beijing with a friend, we had made the decision to experience traveling like the Chinese do when they go home, twice a year, when come the National Holidays, the first week of May and then the first week of October. All transportation modes included,…

Lamb Chops and Ribs Rack in Chinese Spices

Lately at home, we have come to realize that artisan work is so much worthwhile that it absolutely has to be saved, or at least preserved. Small businesses need everyone’s support today more than ever. For this reason, my husband insisted that we, from now on, help local shops that are neighbors to our own…

Chinese Sweet and Sour Crispy Chicken

Seven years living in China, I’ve eaten Sweet and Sour Crispy Chicken countless times. I was young and eating sweet dishes was not an issue, I could use high levels of sugar to hang out all night long and have fun in clubs even during week nights, then go to work in the morning and…

Indian Butter Chicken, Cheese Naan and Fried Momos. Nepal

I first found out about the great flavors of Nepali cuisine about ten years ago… thanks to Hugues, a dear French friend of mine in Shanghai who took me to this restaurant called Nepali Kitchen! In 2006, Nepali Kitchen was the only Nepalese restaurant of the city, but I heard that now there are several…

Pad Thai. Thailand.

I love Pad Thai. I think I even love them more than Chinese stir-fried noodles. Mmmm, well, actually, just writing it, I’m not so sure about that anymore. The two just can’t compare. Both noodle types don’t have the same consistency at all, Pad Thai are large flat rice noodles, but Chinese noodles are thin…