Anyone who misses some Cantonese dim-sums and char-siew buns, should pay a visit to St. Anny Food in Düsseldorf. It is like a bakery, where you could buy ready baked char-siew buns, char-siew sor, egg tarts and mooncakes (during season) besides frozen dim-sums. The price is also reasonable, €0.80 for a piece of egg tart or char-siew bun. How does it taste like? Well, like at home. The company founded in 1996, these products are manufactured in Rotterdam. So, this guaranteed, what we eat are fresh. St. Anny Food BV could be found in a few places in Europe; Düsseldorf (the only one in Germany), Rotterdam, The Hague (The Netherlands), Antwerp, Brussels (Belgium). Website: www.annyfood.com

As an Asian living in Germany, I'm always looking forward to discover any restaurant and noodle house that serve if not original almost original Asian food. Düsseldorf has the biggest Japanese community in Germany, it is also not surprising to find good sushi bars and great Japanese food in this city. Naniwa noodles & soups is the imbiss type of eating place, very small and cram inside. Its speciality is noodle in soup, with the special single or double broth. Of course rice dishes and fried noodles can be found here as well. My first visit was on a Saturday and this noodles-house opened at 12pm sharp and the queue started at about 11.30am. We did attract a lot of curios eyes, since those who were in the queue were mainly Japanese and other Asians. What I found interesting was, the hot bowl of noodle was made there and then like at the hawker stall. One bowl of noodle is about €9

Another considered good restaurant in Altstadt, Düsseldorf. Baan Thai is a Thai restaurant, where I found the food are quite Thai. The menus are quite alright, I found some standard Thai food like duck with bamboos or Mango sauce, Massaman curry, Thai green curry etc. I do find the Vorspeisen and Suppen real good, it offers a bit more than what you can get from other Thai restaurant. I had the tom-yam-gung soup and requested it to be hot, and I got if burning my lips. For main course, we had fish and seafood and I must say it was tasty. What I like about this restaurant is the interior, it gave us a Thai feeling and I was happy to be able to sit on the floor (with a hole under the table) for dinner. How about the price? It is expensive.

It is a small restaurant that serves good noodles and rice porridge. The cooking is quite typical Cantonese style; yau-char-kueh with porridge, wan-tan noodle soup, char-siew noodle soup (these soupy things are rare in local Chinese restaurants), char-siew fun-cheong, many varieties of dim-sum, fried vegetables and another great dish would be the roast duck. This is also a place where you see about 80% Asians. The dim-sum is between €2-3++ and a bowl of noodle soup is about €8+. These are the simple food that we are missing so much, and I am really glad that I could find it in Düsseldorf. The only thing I miss seeing is the dim-sum coming in this steamer trolley and also I miss the noise that we are used to while having dim-sum on a Sunday morning in Malaysia.

Recently we celebrated the Lunar New Year eve (28th FEB 06) in Dschunke. Another good discovery! It will be a potential place for Belacan Club members to meet up in future. Dschunke has great fried noodles and other Cantonese dishes besides dim-sum. There are two car parks (Parkhaus) nearby, charging €1 per hour.

Busan is a small restaurant offers only buffet lunch and dinner. The Korean has a lot of small side dishes (both cold and warm) that consist of fish, vegetable, grill meat and tofu. These dishes can go with either noodle or rice. Since we have a good Korean friend in our midst, we have learned and tasted some typical Korean dishes before. Busan is where we have our weiter Bildung!

A cosy Japanese bar and café, where you can have a piece of Green Tea Cake and Ice Green Tea Latte at the same time. Is a perfect Treffen (meeting) place, a place where you can take your time to eat and sit for a nice chat after meal. RELAX offers some varieties of homemade desserts, rice dishes and Ra-men (noodle soup).

Sushi and more. Kikaku offers very good set lunch. I have been there a few times for lunch. Just be prepared if you arrive at about 1230 to 1pm, you might have to wait for a table. Kikaku has a sushi bar at the airport since 2005, can't tell much about the quality, I have yet to try. Since there are many Japanese passengers flying from Düsseldorf, I would think it won't be far different from what the city offers.