IN 12 DISHES SERIES
RED PORK PRESS, P/B, $24.95

It can be baffling to land in a new city – what to eat, where to go? Cut through with these nifty pocket-sized guides to the go-to food cities of Asia. The books are built around 12 iconic dishes that define the destination, telling you what it is, how it is prepared, how to eat it and where to go to find the best. They assume that you want to hit the ground running – running, that is, to the best hawker centre, food stall or night market to sample the very best local dishes. There’s a fair amount of travel guide stuff slipped in among the
snacks, too, with short snapshots of local culture, neighbourhoods and sight seeing. What you won’t find is dense screeds of info about museum opening times, which bus to catch or where to stay – that’s what the internet is for, right? If your idea of holiday heaven is a slow meander from breakfast through snacking to lunch then a bit of grazing, moving on to drinks, dinner and maybe a little before-bed nibble, then slip one of these little guides in your kitbag. Destinations in the series include Singapore, Penang, Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City, with Bangkok and Hanoi in the pipeline. TW