To be honest, I was skeptical at first. I'm not sure what an "authentic" Chinese restaurant would have looked like to me, but this one—complete with a goldfish tank, elevator music, and an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet—didn't look especially convincing. More

In the latest issue of the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin takes up with a group of Mid-Atlantic food-board members obsessed with the comings and goings of Peter Chang, a talented Szechuan chef who moves from one nondescript Chinese restaurant to another. This story alone is worth the cover price. More

Beijing-based blogger and cooking instructor Diana Kuan, of Appetite for China, shares her recipe for Sichuan favorite laji jiding. Chicken pieces are shallow-fried for some serious crunch, before being stir-fried in a pungent sauce containing—yikes—eight to ten dried chilis and a handful of Sichuan peppercorns. Diana describes the crispy, spicy chicken dish as a "more sophisticated version of kung pao chicken"; my cohort Tam calls it "a lip-numbing form of popcorn chicken." Kung pao popcorn chicken—how can you go wrong? (KFC, take note.)... More