Photo Courtesy of Manuela S. Zoninsein

Shanghai has long been known as China’s most progressive city. During the Roaring Twenties, local fashion, architecture and nightlife fully embraced cosmopolitan ideals, including jazz music, Art Deco design and looser social mores. At the height of the Second World War Europe’s Jewish refugees found a new home here, in the only city in the world that didn’t require a passport for entry. And while the rest of China was still crawling out from under Communism’s gray blanket, Shanghai’s business-savvy denizens were bounding forward, establishing a stock exchange, building thriving local markets, and creating a capitalist-oriented culture.

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Photo Courtesy of Tai Power Seeff

He’s a magician. An artist. A mad genius. Having earned his glowing global rep at Cyrus, the proud owner of two Michelin stars, Scott Beattie is now serving his artisanal cocktails at the wonderfully fresh and eclectic h2hotel’s Spoonbar. At last week’s long-awaited opening, farmers, artists, socialites, suits, tourists and old-timers all came out to hoist a glass and celebrate the town’s latest addition.

Welcome to Healdsburg, California. Located at the nexus of three prestigious Sonoma County wine appellations, it would be easy to categorize the tiny (pop: 10,700) town as just another postcard pretty wine country hamlet. Which it is. But like Scott’s Smokey Local—quite possibly the world’s most perfect Manhattan—Healdsburg’s appearance is deceptively simple. Give it a taste and you’ll find that the town possesses a rich and heady mix of history and Anglo-Italian-Mexican culture.

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Photo Courtesy of Oncle_Tom on Flickr

Some will argue that a good restaurant becomes a great restaurant with a thoughtful wine list, as if solid food alone is not enough to please palates and it is in fact the liquid counterpart that really makes a meal sing. And so if you’re anything like me, you feel the pressure to trust an over-educated server or even a sommelier to steer your experience to the sublime. But in Philadelphia, a city with a rebellion-colored soul, citizens are shaping their own dining destiny within its 250+ bring-your-own-bottle restaurants.

If you eat out a lot, you probably know that restaurants make their highest margins on alcohol sales. And so there’s a kind of mutual understanding between venues and patrons that good food usually comes at the cost of overpriced alcohol. It’s just one of the trade-offs of eating out; we don’t like it, but we accept it. Bringing your own, however, can tip the balance of power back in your favor. Read more »

Asia is the world’s largest continent, both in area and population. Danielle Chang has gathered thought leaders in the Asian food scene, such as David Chang and Eric Ripert, to create LUCKYRICE, an online guide to the Asian culinary world. They’re hosting their first Asian Food Festival this week in New York, and I grabbed Danielle for a brief chat on the changing face of Asian cuisine in the U.S.

You haven’t always been involved in the food world. What did you do before, and why did you change industries?

I’m an entrepreneur and have mostly worked in the media industry. I used to publish a lifestyle magazine that I founded called SIMPLYCITY, and right before starting up LUCKYRICE I was the CEO of Vivienne Tam. So I’ve been thinking about launching a lifestyle business around Asian culture for a long time. I’m a foodie, and a Chinese-American, so it made sense to create a business around these two central facets of who I am. But mostly I was reacting to America’s interest — almost borderline obsession — with Asian food.

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Why didn’t someone tell me before? All those wasted years.

That was my thought when I tucked into farm-fresh eggs for the first time. The color of the yolk was a rich, almost taxicab yellow. The flavor came at me on so many levels, like the mixed diet that the chicken had eaten. They even cooked better. Sunny-side-up the egg whites held together rather than spreading out all over the frying pan.

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