Editor's note: As interest in Yunnan cuisine increases around China and the rest of the world, GoKunming contributor Guo Duomi will occasionally offer recipes for traditional Yunnan dishes. If there is a certain dish you would like to see a recipe for, please send us your ideas via our contact form.

Yunnan goat cheese with broccoli and tomato - rubing chao xilanhua he xihongshi (乳饼炒西兰花和西红柿)

Yunnan goat cheese, known locally as rubing (乳饼), literally 'milk cake', comes as a pleasant surprise to most western – and Chinese – visitors to the province. Rubing is sold in markets throughout Yunnan as blocks of a firm white cheese with less of a pungent odor than goat cheese commonly consumed outside of China. It is often prepared as shuijian rubing (水煎乳饼) a simple dish in which slices of the cheese are fried and served with a salt and chilli or sugar for dipping.

Kunming kitchens are getting more adventurous with rubing these days, as exemplified by the addition of broccoli and tomato to the mix in this recipe.

Ingredients
100g of rubing*
1 medium sized floret of broccoli
1 large tomato
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp of soy sauce
2 tsp salt
Oil for frying

*Rubing is available from markets, some stores and a grumpy old fellow who often frequents the bird and flower market in Kunming. If you are outside Yunnan and cannot obtain it you may use the Greek style cheese haloumi as a substitute.

Method
Slice the rubing into small rectangles about half a centimetre thick. Peel the garlic and slice it thinly.

Chop the broccoli into small pieces and roughly chop the tomato. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok on a medium heat and add the rubing. Cook for around two minutes before turning over and cooking for another two minutes. The cheese is done when it has a nice golden brown coating.

Remove the rubing to a plate and keep warm, leaving the oil in the wok.

Add some more oil to the wok if needed and turn to high heat. Put the garlic in the wok followed by the broccoli and stir fry for two to three minutes, stirring constantly. Add the tomatoes, salt and soy sauce and cook for about 30 seconds before returning the rubing to the wok. Lower the heat slightly and stir fry for a further minute or so. Transfer to a plate and serve alongside the other dishes in your meal.

Happy Eating!

Editor's note: As interest in Yunnan cuisine increases around China and the rest of the world, GoKunming contributor Guo Duomi will occasionally offer recipes for traditional Yunnan dishes. If there is a certain dish you would like to see a recipe for, please send us your ideas via our contact form.

Yellow pot chicken - huang men ji (黄焖鸡)
In Yunnan, as in most of China, there is no wastage of animal parts. Thus in this dish after cleaning a half chicken is chopped up and cooked. The head and feet of a chicken are considered delicacies and will often be reserved for a guest as a sign of respect. There are many variations on this recipe, it is often made with a lot of sauce and potato added to make it a kind of Chinese curry.

Ingredients
One half chicken – medium size
2 teaspoons of salt
6 cloves of garlic
20 g of ginger
4 pieces of star anise
1 black cardamom pod*
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 sprig of spring onion
Oil for frying

*black cardamom (caoguo 草果), also known as brown cardamom or tsaoko, is a pod which is significantly larger than regular (green) cardamom. It is less aromatic and cooler in flavour than green cardamom, three or four green cardamom pods could be used a substitute if you are unable to obtain the black variety.

Method
Chop a chicken in half lengthways, then chop the bird - bones and all - into small pieces using a cleaver, a butcher may do this for you if requested.

Peel the garlic cloves and chop them into halves. Slice the ginger thinly without peeling the skin off. Chop the black cardamom pod in half. Chop the spring onion into 2cm lengths.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok on high heat and add the garlic, ginger, black cardamom pod and star anise. Cook for about 30 seconds then add the chicken and salt. Stir fry for five minutes, stirring constantly.

Add around one cup of water (not enough to fully cover the chicken) to the wok and cover. Cook on high heat for a further seven minutes, opening the cover to stir occasionally.

Add the soy sauce, cover again and cook for a further one to two minutes. Remove the cover and add in the spring onion. Stir fry with the cover off for a few minutes to drive off some of the water and the sauce has reached your preferred consistency.

Transfer the chicken to a serving dish, including the remaining liquid as a sauce. Serve alongside other dishes as part of your meal.

With 2009 just 55 days away, it's almost time again for GoKunming's annual Best of Kunming reader survey. On the first of December we will open voting for your favorite venues for food, drink, entertainment and the arts. Here are nominees for this year selected by the GoKunming editorial board:

Food: Best Chinese Restaurant
Heavenly Manna
Shiping Huiguan
Gingko Elite
Panlong 17
Yi Dong Yang Lou
Huatongqun
Xiangyun Huiguan

Food: Best International Restaurant
Moonlight Corner (Expo Garden)
Salvador's Coffee House
Indian Kitchen
Meijiya
Totem Village

Food: Best Fine Dining
Moonlight Corner (Expo Garden)
Gingko Elite
España Restaurant
Blue Bird
1910 La Gare du Sud
Panlong 17

Food: Best New Restaurant
Moonlight Corner (Green Lake)
Lazy Bones Pizza

Drink: Best Café
Salvador's Coffee House
Chicago Coffee
The Silver Spoon Café
French Café
Mazagran Café
Prague Café
Vintage Café

Drink: Best Teahouse
Yihuchun Cha Lou

Drink: Best Bar
Chapter One
Halfway House
SoHo
Speakeasy Bar
The Box
The Hump Bar

Drink: Best Wine Selection
Pizza da Rocco
Moonlight Corner (Green Lake)
Gingko Elite

Entertainment/Arts: Best Gallery
TCG Nordica
Yunart Gallery

Entertainment/Arts: Best Live Music Venue
Laowo Bar
TCG Nordica
Speakeasy Bar
Halfway House
SoHo

Entertainment/Arts: Best Dancing Venue
Speakeasy Bar
Uprock

To nominate any places we are leaving out, please send us the names of the places plus the category you are nominating them for via our contact form.

For a look at last year's winners, click here.

Thank you in advance for your nominations.

Editor's note: As interest in Yunnan cuisine increases around China and the rest of the world, GoKunming contributor Guo Duomi will occasionally offer recipes for traditional Yunnan dishes. If there is a certain dish you would like to see a recipe for, please send us your ideas via our contact form.

Yunnan-style hash brown - ganbei yangyusi
Whilst known as tudou (土豆, 'earth bean') elsewhere in China, in Yunnan it goes by the name yangyu (洋芋, 'foreign tuber'). The potato is popular in Yunnan, where it is featured number of classic local dishes. The Yunnanese take on the hash brown, known as ganbei yangyusi (干焙洋芋丝, 'dry baked potato strings') can be eaten any time of the day and goes well with most other dishes. It's also simple to make:

Ingredients
2 medium sized potatoes
1 tsp salt
2 small dried red chillies
Oil for frying

Method
Using a cleaver slice the potatoes into extremely thin slices. Cut the slices into equally thin strips as shown, then place in a bowl. Slice the chillies into a few pieces and put these along with the salt into the bowl and mix with the potato strips.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok, then dump the entire contents of the bowl into the wok in one go. Using a spatula press the mixture around the surface of the wok until you have formed a reasonably thin layer taking the shape of the wok.

At this point it is time to get funky with your wok handling skills. In order to ensure you evenly cook the potato you should move the wok around, placing the flame directly below various points of your hash brown and frying for around 30 seconds at a time.

After a few minutes of this you need to turn your hash brown over so it is time to get even funkier with your wok. Remove it from the heat, hold it as far away from your body as you can and flip your hash brown – yes, flip that sucker just like a pancake. You can flip it more cautiously using your spatula if you wish.

After flipping you need to cook the hash brown evenly around its circumference for another few minutes. When done remove the wok from the heat and drain the remaining oil into a bowl (for future use – nothing is wasted in a Yunnan kitchen). Transfer to a plate and serve.

This dish is served alongside the other dishes in a meal without any specific accompaniment. It is humbly suggested that serving with a small dish of soy sauce for dipping makes for improved eating.

Happy Eating!

Finished ganbei yangyusi photo: www.169trip.com

Editor's note: As interest in Yunnan cuisine increases around China and the rest of the world, GoKunming contributor Guo Duomi will occasionally offer recipes for traditional Yunnan dishes. If there is a certain dish you would like to see a recipe for, please send us your ideas via our contact form.

Yunnan Style Spring Rolls (春卷, chunjuan)

The Yunnan version of the ubiquitous spring roll is generally made larger than its Cantonese cousin. It is also made using a thicker and more porous pastry which gives it a more deep-fried flavour.

Ingredients
1/2 bunch (approximately 100 grams) chives
250 grams bean shoots
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
100 grams minced pork (vegetarians can use chopped tofu and/or mushrooms as a substitute)
1 tablespoon cornflour
oil for deep frying
30 pre made spring roll rounds -These rounds can be made at home with wheat flour, egg white and water or purchased in a local market.

Part one – Preparing the filling
Fill a wok halfway with water and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, add chives. Boil for around 30 seconds to blanche the chives and then remove. Chop the chives into 2 cm lengths. Add bean shoots to the water, boil for one minute and then remove.

Place chives, bean shoots and minced pork in large mixing bowl. Add soy sauce, salt and a tablespoon of cooking oil and mix thoroughly.

Mix cornflour with about 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl. Keep this 'glue' handy.

Part two – Rolling
Place a small amount of the mixture onto a round and spread it lengthways approximately 1/4 of the way into the round. Roll up the round until about halfway then fold in the edges after applying a little of the cornflour 'glue' with a finger to each of them. Apply a little glue to the end of the round and roll along to complete the rolling process. Place completed spring roll on a plate and then repeat with the next round until the filling is used up.

Part three - Frying
Heat a sufficient depth of oil in a wok to just under a boil and place the first spring roll in. After a short while add the second. Cook each roll until nice and brown, which will require turning them over in the wok. Ideally, you will want to have your own 'production line' of 4-6 rolls in your wok at any time with a new roll going in one end as the longest-cooked roll is taken out the other.

When browned each roll should be removed from the wok and placed on a plate, ready for eating. The spring rolls are ordinarily served hot without any dipping sauce alongside the other courses of a meal.

Yunnan coffee has long been somewhat of a secret known primarily to residents of Yunnan and travelers that come passing through the province. It seems that in the next few years the secret may get out to the rest of the world. Starbucks Corp has indicated that it has plans to add Yunnan coffee to its roster of coffees in China and perhaps in other countries as well.

In a Reuters interview on Tuesday, Starbucks China President Wang Jinlong said that Starbucks representatives had been meeting with coffee farmers in southern Yunnan to assist them in meeting Starbucks sourcing standards. The Seattle-based company has also sent shipments of Yunnan beans to the US for testing, Wang said.

Some analysts speculate that Starbucks - the world's largest chain of coffee shops - is interested in sourcing Yunnan coffee to avoid steep coffee import tariffs in China, However, the company's Shanghai office told Reuters that sourcing coffee from Yunnan would be done to add new flavors to its outlets' menus, suggesting that it could be marketed as a product of Yunnan in China and abroad.

Starbucks' Wang said that the company's sales in China were growing faster than 25 percent annually - significantly higher than its global sales growth objective of 18 percent. Starbucks currently has 246 outlets in mainland China, but the figure should be in the thousands "in the near future", he added.

Tomorrow Salvador's Coffee House will celebrate its third birthday with all day coffee specials and happy hour cocktails.

From 9:00 am to 11:00 pm Salvador's will be serving half-price espresso drinks including americanos, lattes, mochas and cappuccinos - all made from Salvador's own special blend of Yunnan beans.

Salvador's will also be celebrating its birthday by extending its happy hour cocktail specials from open to close. Salvador's famously strong screwdrivers, vodka tonics, gin tonics and rum and Cokes will all be on offer throughout the day for the special price of 10 yuan

Salvador's Coffee House
萨尔瓦多咖啡馆
76 Wenhua Xiang, Wenlin Jie
文林街文化巷76号
Tel: 5363525

This week the Yunnan Bureau of Statistics (YBS) released economic data for the province for the period from January to July of this year. One of the more significant statistical trends can be found within Yunnan's consumer price index (CPI) - a statistic based upon a basket of common consumer goods that is used to illustrate trends in the cost of everyday living.

Yunnan's CPI for the first seven months of this year grew 5.7 percent on the same period in 2006, one-tenth of a percentage point higher than the national average. Yunnan's rural areas experienced slightly higher CPI growth at 5.8 percent year-on-year.

Food items experienced some of the higher price increases, with pork prices in the first seven months of this year jumping 53.2 percent over the same period last year. According to YBS statistics, average food prices in Yunnan in July of this year were 13. 4 percent higher than July 2006. In comparing July 2007 prices with July 2006 prices, grain prices are up 5.6 percent, fresh eggs are up 23.5 percent, fresh vegetables up 22.9 percent and food oils up 33.4 percent.

In addition to higher prices at the market, restaurants in Kunming and throughout the province have begun raising prices or are preparing to raise prices. According to one Kunming restaurant owner: "We can only absorb so much in terms of food price increases before we have to start raising our prices… our restaurant and most others are likely going to raise prices in the coming weeks."

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