Eat Beat

BEIJING

Tastes of Chile

Paila marina, a traditional Chilean seafood soup or light stew usually served in an earthenware bowl, is said to have special powers. Locals crowd the central market in Santiago for a bowl after a night of hard partying, believing that the soup is a good hangover cure. Paila marina is also believed to have aphrodisiac properties. But no one will question your agenda if you drop by for a taste this week at the Beijing Hilton, where the One East restaurant and the Chilean embassy have teamed up to sponsor a food festival. Coco Pacheco, a celebrity chef from Chile, will be serving up an array of taste treats - perfect timing close to his country's National Day on Friday.

1 Dong Fang Road at North Dongsanhuan Road, Chao-yang district. 010-5865-5000.

'Enjoy with others'

As China prepares to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept 27, the Beijing-based company Dongfang Yarui is marketing mooncakes to highlight the festival's tradition for family reunions. A pictograph calligrapher has designed characters on its mooncakes, which are all handmade and follow the traditional craft. The Chinese characters include the word xiang (enjoy with others) in the pictograph, on which they resemble two people sitting across a table. Other characters represent the 12 zodiac signs. All the mooncakes are stuffed with wuren, literally five kernels, which feature the crunchiness of toasted almond, sesame, walnut, melon seed and pumpkin seed - the most widely eaten type of mooncake in China since the ancient times. A box of 12 small mooncakes embossed with a zodiac sign character is 358 yuan ($51), and a packaged 800-gram mooncake with the characters xiang and 12 zodiac signs costs 368 yuan.

010-5684-7075.

HONG KONG

Menu with a view

Two restaurants atop One Peking with commanding views of Victoria Harbor, Aqua and Hutong, will offer special menus for those seeking to combine a great meal with one of the year's best fireworks display. Highlighting the five-course set menu at Aqua is grilled beef tenderloin with sauteedgoose liver and wild cordycepes mushrooms, while the North China menu at Hutong features braised whole abalone and Japanese mushroom in oyster sauce as well as crispy deboned lamb ribs with Chinese pancakes in the nine-dish banquet. Both menus served only on Oct 1; HK$1,888 ($296) plus 10 percent service charge.

The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, International Commerce Center, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon district. Aqua 852-3427 2288; Hutong 852-3428-8342.