KEY POINTS:
Chinese restaurants have been around in New Zealand since the first days of Chinese settlement on the Central Otago goldfields of the 1800s. After the gold ran out they dispersed to low-rent areas of the cities setting up cheap restaurants, boarding houses, gambling rooms and opium dens.
The restaurants served an exclusively Chinese clientele until the 1950s when, little by little, more adventurous New Zealand eaters started trying them out.
Now we consider bok choy, daikon radish, hoisin sauce, star anise and soy sauce to be a normal part of our cuisine. These items are in our cupboards alongside the tomato sauce and Vegemite.
We have many Asian super-markets so we can buy our tofu, Chinese sausages, wonton, five-spice powder and dried shrimps to cook Chinese at home. We have outdoor markets such as the one at Avondale in Auckland, bursting with fresh greens, banana flowers, lemon grass and exotic fruit.
Our very own Jenny Yee, who teaches Chinese cooking and hosts tours to food markets from Auckland to Asia, has written two helpful books for New Zealanders on Asian cuisine - Discovering Asian Ingredients and Chow Down & Chill Out. She always says that if you've cooked a good Cantonese dish the people will declare it song hou, meaning "pleasure in the mouth".
When I was shooting a story on Beijing for television a few years ago we ate fantastic food. Chinese cooking, along with French, are the two greatest cuisines in the world.
At the heart of Chinese cooking is a trinity of flavours - ginger, spring onions and garlic.
Beijing is the seat of imperial cuisine, Peking duck, hotpot and dumplings. The food is northern Chinese therefore carb-heavy with lots of rice, noodles, dumplings, bread, pancakes and congee (porridge) to withstand the harsh long winter and short scorching summer. Flavours are strong with lots of salty bean pastes, soy sauces and vinegar.
Believe it or not, they serve spring lamb on skewers - originally brought to them by the Mongol and Manchu invaders.
Near the Great Wall, there are dozens of trout farms, collectively called the Golden Mile.
Intrepid diners can catch their meal before it is roasted whole with chilli powder and spices.
In a tiny village called Gian Kou, I met Mr Lu, who took guests, fixed everything, built everything, made tofu and cooked the most incendiary stir fries this side of the Wall.
He made me an absolutely delicious deep-fried eggplant dish with spicy sauce.
I believe the secret was dipping the chopped eggplant in water then rice flour before frying. The contrast of the light, crunchy eggplant with the smooth, spicy sauce is most song hou. Mr Lu tossed the vegetables and sauce together at the last minute but when I was testing this recipe I found it equally good to just drizzle the sauce over then you get the yin and yang, crunchy and smooth, separate tastes and nice sounds in your mouth - so important to the Chinese.