Spring is in the air, and since we're suckers for seasonal tasting menus, we raided almost every establishment for any spring offerings we could get our jaws around, including the Geisha. We'll admit, being curmudgeons when it comes to fusion concepts, we were a bit skeptical of the Geisha's Japanese-Western theme. Past East-meets-West dining experiences had convinced us that fusion concepts' sole purpose is to suck out all elements that make either cuisine great and replace them with bland and/or discordant flavor pairings. Hopefully, Geisha's spring menu would prove itself that token outlier. more ›

Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera demonstrates the process whereby pork is made to taste like beef. Gross? Yes. Unhealthy? Maybe. Illegal? Not in China. And to make matters worse, today we found out that 60% of China's 2,200 food additives can't even be tested for due to technical limitations!! more ›

We'd like to inform all our male readers, and those that could pass for male, that there's still time to take advantage of the 'Man Day' promotion from McDonald's. more ›

Is there no end to the food safety issues we have to deal with here? Luckily, this new scare doesn't seem to actually be harmful. Unluckily, this means that officials are "passing the buck" when it comes to actually dealing with it. more ›

Shanghai food safety officials are looking into beef products after shoppers complained that meat on sale at a local market had been injected with water to up its weight. The widespread practice of waterlogging beef helps sellers earn more money per actual product, but exposes the meat to contamination from spoilage, chemicals or industrial waste. Authorities have only confiscated about 5kg so far and strongly suspect there is much more of the suspect beef on the market. The majority of the beef came from suppliers in Jiashan. While China has been trying to improve its food safety standards, the vastly unregulated market is proving to be incredibly challenging to control. Source: International Herald Tribune more ›

Reuters reports that the use of melamine is "rampant among farmers and feed-ingredient manufacturers". The words of Sun Erwu,a feedmill owner in Hebei province, which is at the centre of the milk powder scandal, are enough to send tingles down our spine, and raise questions over what is happening to the entire food chain in China:

"It is like a chain... If cows are fed with poor feed and produce lower-protein milk, dairy plants will not accept the milk, so many add melamine," Sun told Reuters on the sidelines of a grains conference. more ›