Anything’s better with bacon, worshippers of the Church of Bacon claim. Who am I to argue? Ever since I was small, bacon has been a favorite. To this day, we split bacon fair and square at my house, with skirmishes erupting when I try to sneak some off my mother’s plate. So what happens when bacon comes to Krispy Kreme?

I received an intriguing invitation. They were launching a new product, obviously, but what did the question, “Are you sweet or savory?” mean? My first guess was, “THEY’RE PUTTING BACON ON KRISPY KREMES!” My heart promptly skipped a beat, imagining how lovely the fusion would be.
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The second part of dementedchris’ food adventures in Beijing. Crazy eats! Reward her for finishing everything. Support her story, A Kind of Flotsam, by casting your vote for it in the Philippine Graphic Fiction People’s Choice Awards. Who knows, we might be able to persuade her to eat crazier things if she wins!

“You have to try some silkworms,” my friend John Rae urged, as we made our way back from the Great Wall. Not that I really needed much urging at that point; I was determined to try something out of the ordinary. And Donghuamen Night Market’s Snack Street, a colorful row of food stalls to the left of Wangfujing, is anything but ordinary.

Here, the everyday meets the exotic. Bowls of steaming noodles sits beside stalls selling sea snakes and sheep penises. When my friends and I were there last summer, it was early evening, and the string of stalls was slowly filling up with people — local teenagers pulling each other in search of a snack, foreigners eager for a taste of adventure. I noticed that a good number carefully watched what everyone else was trying first, in what I would suppose passed for calculated deliberation (or another version of eeny-meeny-miny-moe) in a circumstance like this. Snack Street has plenty for everyone, something you’ll discover as you stroll down the brightly-lit stalls and catch bits of the vendors’ enthusiastic sales talk. Most of the vendors can speak a little English, but the prices are printed on huge boards atop the stalls if you’re not in the mood to negotiate. Even if you end up not trying anything, the experience is an interesting way of spending an evening in Beijing.
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My daily routine after work usually takes me past Caffe Murano and Art Shoppe in Greenbelt 5. I’d always try to steal looks inside the shop, curious about the various Murano glass displays for sale. There are tables inside, with people having some drinks or grabbing a bite but I always assumed they friends of the shop owners or something. That’s why I was quite surprised when I received an invitation to try their food.

I’ve encountered Murano glass before—a friend once got me a pair of Murano glass earrings as a souvenir from his travels, but seeing Caffe Murano’s displays up close was a different experience. From accessories to larger art pieces, they possessed exquisite, attractive colors that surely draw the viewer’s eye.
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I was a teeny bit nervous when I stepped inside Chateau 1771. It was a glorious looking place, with the big windows and elegant tables—definitely not a place where a t-shirt + jeans + ratty-sneaker-wearing person would belong.

But the maitre d’ invited us in ever so nicely (They had a maitre d’! Should I be in a skirt and heels?) and seated us by the windows, so I followed her meekly. It was good I did, fear of a bazillion pieces of silverware set aside, as the food was good, and the meal memorable.

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