Over the past year or two, some of the fanciest coffee shops, bars and bistros have mushroomed around the intersection of Wangfu Da Jie (王府大街) and Nantai Xiang (南台巷). The Sauce, Wine Thieves, Bitter Brew, Southern Trip, Staff Only, Cherry Bomb, Y&T… the list could go longer. If you have been following The Nanjinger, chances are that many of the names sound familiar to you. But have you ever walked around that area early in the morning, like 08:00?  “What for?”, You might wonder. The time is indeed too early...

“No duck leaves Nanjing alive.”  Statistics show that the City of Nanjing consumes over 100 million ducks each year. Everyone has heard of Nanjing ducks, but they are too often misunderstood. Visitors and tourists to Confucius Temple feel obliged to order salted duck from the restaurants nearby. They would find the duck unpleasantly salty and no more authentic than what they have already had in their home cities. Nevertheless, they would bring back some vacuum-packed duck as souvenir gifts because they find nothing else worth buying in the vicinity.  That, of...

We are not expecting Nanjing to have the finest restaurants when Shanghai is only 1.5 hours away by train. That said, when it comes to Huaiyang cuisine, one of the eight major culinary traditions in China, Nanjing is certainly blessed with some top-tier restaurants in the field. Huaiyang (淮扬) cuisine in its broader sense is also known as Jiangsu cuisine (Sucai 苏菜). Strictly speaking, however, it refers to the culinary tradition that originated from Yangzhou, a city about 90 kilometres from us which used to be the Manhattan of imperial...

Nanjing’s long-standing food vendors and eateries in downtown neighbourhoods offer a real taste of city and local life. I go back to those places when I can, preferably later in the afternoon to bring something home for a simple supper, and, like many other Nanjingers (or the older ones perhaps), I always get a bag of “shaobing” (烧饼). You must try them if you haven’t, but it is even better to appreciate these humble pastries in some cultural context. “Bing” apart from being a search engine which you’d use only...