[Photo/China Daily]

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.