When we think of Chinese feasts, we immediately conjure thoughts of Peking duck, pork belly buns and dim sum. But what about Mongolian beef, Sichuan pork, oysters steamed in the half-shell, shaved ice and other lesser known dishes? That's where Bee Yinn Low, creator of Rasa Malaysia, the biggest independent Asian recipes site on the Internet, comes in. Bee's new cookbook Easy Chinese Recipes promises to demystify and simplify dishes for the Chinese food aficionado. Read on for Bee's take on food photography and how to spot an authentic Chinese dish before you even order it. Easy Chinese Recipes is now available in Asia and on Amazon, but check out our book giveaway at the end of the Q&A!

FOODSPOTTING As a longtime food blogger, you know that food photos are necessary for sharing the experience with an online community. What are your thoughts on food photography online, in restaurants and even in cookbooks? Have you noticed any new trends?

BEE YINN LOW Food bloggers are producing some of the most amazing food photography online now. In fact, many of them leap from amateur to professional food photographers by shooting for cookbooks and restaurants. Even cookbooks are being styled and photographed by the authors. Case-in-point: I styled and photographed all the dishes you see in my cookbook. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to work with a professional food stylist and photographer, but I also think that an author who styles and shoots his/her cookbook adds a personal touch to the dishes and makes them seem more real.

FS What is your experience like in a typical Chinese restaurant? What do you order and why?

BYL I have this habit of tasting the soy sauce in the condiment canister whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant I have never tried before. A good soy sauce is essential to great Chinese cooking. If the restaurant doesn’t even have a good tasting soy sauce, the food probably is not going to be good. In that case, I will shy away from ordering dishes with soy sauce.

FS What is your favorite Chinese dish to eat? To make?

BYL Wonton soup or fried wonton, both which you can find in Easy Chinese Recipes. You just can’t go wrong with little morsels of meat and seafood wrapped with dough skin. There is a reason why the Chinese characters of wonton literally mean “swallow cloud!”

FS Last but not least, which dishes do you usually recommend at a Chinese restaurant?

BYL Dim Sum. Go to a great Cantonese dim sum restaurant and order siu mai, shrimp dumplings, pork buns, pot stickers, egg tarts, and mango pudding. If you can’t find a dim sum restaurant where you live, there is a “Dim Sum & Dumplings” chapter in my cookbook where you can learn how to make authentic and delicious Chinese dim sum at home!

Thanks to Tuttle publishers, we are giving away Easy Chinese Recipes to ten lucky foodspotters! To enter, spot Chinese dishes on Foodspotting and tag your sightings with #bookspotting. Contest ends Tuesday, October 11th. Winners will be randomly chosen from eligible entries. US and Canada only.

All food photos pictured in this post were found on Foodspotting.

Editor's Note: Today's post is by food writer Lindsey Tramuta, a Philly native turned expat living in the City of Light, an experience she blogs about with heart on Lost in Cheeseland. We first met Lindsey on Twitter when she asked when we'd bring Foodspotting eatups to Paris. Since we're a small team based in the US, we asked her to lead our first French Foodspotting gathering...

There aren’t many aspects to Parisian life that disappoint, but the active and accessible social food community in the States is unmatchable. I began using Foodspotting shortly after it was launched and started following their Facebook and Twitter accounts to be part of the rich community that was developing. I watched enviously from afar as my Twitter feed filled with messages of fun eatups in New York, LA, Washington D.C., Chicago and Orlando, so I messaged Amy, Foodspotting's Head of Community, “But when will you come to Paris?!” She threw the ball in my court and gave me the opportunity to organize Paris’ first eatup, an unexpected honor that I gladly accepted.

Choosing the venue for a Foodspotting event was a no brainer - it had to be my favorite local spot, Le Pearl. Still I wondered - Will the guests understand the purpose of the event? Will I fail as a host? Will there be enough space at the restaurant? So many questions, but the number of RSVPs quickly jumped to 30, 40 then 45 before settling at 48. The owners of Le Pearl were ecstatic but knew they'd have to come up with a feasible offer for everyone given their small kitchen and lack of staff. Thomas, the chef and owner, prepares everything himself from scratch so catering to 40+ hungry guests all at once would require finesse.

We settled on a mixed savory platter for one flat fee with reduced prices on cocktails. Guests would be able to order dessert off the menu but the savory dinner options would not be available. The hope was that guests would enjoy the preview and be motivated to return to test out the full menu. Given the great turnout I'd say people are likely to return!

Everyone was intrigued by Foodspotting and saw its potential in Paris, a city where food and dining out trumps virtually all other activities. More than that, they were enthusiastic to meet some new, international faces and chat over food and wine, like fellow bloggers and food lovers Anne Ditmeyer of Prêt à Voyager, Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day! and Kasia Dietz of Love in the City of Lights, among many others. I even got to meet Claire Goasdoue, the Brittany-native who recently opened her very own crêpe restaurant called Little Breizh in the heart of Saint-Germain.

The evening’s last guests started heading home close to midnight and I can only hope the second Foodspotting event in Paris will be as successful.

Read more about Paris' first Foodspotting event on Lindsey's blog, and click here to learn how you can host a Foodspotting eatup in your own home city.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lindsey Tramuta is a food writer and co-owner of Lola's Cookies, an online bakery based in Paris specializing in American-style handmade cookies, brownies and bars. Follow her adventures on Lost in Cheeseland, Foodspotting and Twitter.

All photos courtesy of the author.

Around this time of year every year, my mom calls to say "I'm going to Chinatown. Do you want any mooncake?" It's one of those things she asks again and again even though I remind her each time that the lotus seed paste gets stuck in my teeth and is a bit too sweet for my taste. Still, I love when she reminds me of Mid-Autumn Festival because that means there will be a full moon that evening!

Mid-Autumn Festival, which is based on the Chinese lunar calendar, is today. Traditionally, it's one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture where families get together to enjoy mooncakes filled with lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolks (to symbolize the full moon). There are numerous interpretations, but the legend of eating mooncakes during Mid-Autumn Festival goes something like this...

At the end of Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368, a dynasty ruled by the Mongols), the Han people’s army wanted to overthrow Mongolian rule, so they planned an uprising. However, they had no way to inform every Han of the time of the uprising without being discovered by the Mongols.

One day, the military counselor of the Han people’s army asked his soldiers to spread the rumor that there would be a serious disease in winter and eating mooncakes was the only way to cure the disease. Then he asked soldiers to write "Uprising, at the night of Mid-Autumn Festival" on slips of paper and bake them into mooncakes, which were sold to common Han people. When the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival came, a huge uprising broke out. From then on, Chinese people eat mooncakes every Mid-Autumn Festival to commemorate the uprising.

Though I am not a fan of lotus seed paste, I marvel that mooncakes have endured as a cultural symbol that encourages togetherness, sharing and good eating. Click here to see where mooncakes have been spotted near you. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everybody!

The history of Mid-Autumn Festival via source.

As more restaurants adopt social media as a way to engage with customers, there have been a wave of chefs joining the online conversations too. One early adopter is star chef Mario Batali who recently joined Foodspotting, sharing his favorite dishes from Seattle, Italy, New York and San Francisco! With so much on his plate, we asked the chef, restaurateur and soon-to-be TV star what his loyal food-loving following can expect next...

FOODSPOTTING How does social media play into your role as a chef and business owner?

MARIO BATALI We are just beginning to understand the kinds of relationships we can develop with our fans and customers. Social media seems to be interesting tools to engage both staff and customers in a dialogue that feels very personal.

FS Tell us about some new projects you have on the horizon.

MB We opened Mozza in Newport Beach last week and we also recently opened Tarry Pizza in Westport Connecticut. We just celebrated Eataly's first birthday! Later this month, we are debuting a daytime talk show called The Chew at 1pm on September 26th on ABC and, not to mention, I have a new cookbook coming out called Molto Batali – Simple Family Meals from My Home to Yours. As for new restaurants, we are looking to break ground in Istanbul and Shanghai before the end of the year.

FS What foods do you look for when you travel?

MB Anything and everything. Both dishes and ingredients that speak to me of the geo-specificity of their soil, people and traditional culture.

FS Where are some of your favorite places to travel? Where are you visiting next?

MB I love Italia, Southeast Asia, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean. I love to travel, and China is probably next.

FS Tell us, what's next on the menu?

MB The fabulous awakening of the North African spring will lead to a boom in real North African flavors around the U.S. as we discover the delicious and mysterious world of flavors from Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and even Morocco, previously hidden from us by politics and separatism.

For dish recommendations straight from the chef, follow Mario Batali on Foodspotting.

Our friends at AskMen.com, the world’s biggest lifestyle site for men, love helping guys (and gals) find the best things out there. Now they're looking for your help in their hunt for the most macho meal that has ever existed. Do T-bones induce testosterone? Will a bacon burger explosion put hair on your chest? Is there such a thing as a manly salad? You tell them. Simply snap a photo and add it to the Alpha Meal Contest Guide.

The best submissions will be featured on AskMen in a Top 10: Manly Meals slideshow - that's 17 million AskMen readers who will see your pick! One grand prize winner from the top 10 will also be awarded the ultimate mini-fridge from Micro Fridge – actually shaped like a tool box! – for all those manly leftovers, plus some AskMen schwag.

Go out and add your sightings of the manliest meal you know to the guide! Contest ends on September 5, 2011. Submit as many manly entries as you'd like.

Editor's Note: Tis' the season for traveling and with so many dining options in any given destination, we're thrilled that Foodspotting helps us navigate, giving us "X-ray vision for food" as we call it by showing us the tastiest looking dishes nearby. Still, a friendly food tip goes a long way, which is why we asked Emily Cavalier, all around awesome food writer and digital strategist, to share her favorite sightings on a recent trip to New Orleans...

I just returned from a week-long trip to New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, a conference for those in the cocktail industry as well as cocktail enthusiasts. I made sure to set aside enough time this year to hit up some of NOLA's best eats.

Muffaletta Sandwich @ Central Grocery

This is no ordinary Italian sub. Invented at Central Grocery, one of our nation's oldest delis, the muffaletta is layer upon layer of cold cuts and provolone cheese topped with Central Grocery's signature olive salad (a chopped mix of green olives with pimento, pickled veggies, olive oil and spices). With a flaky outer layer like a croissant and an soft inner crumb that's almost cake-like, the bread is an addiction all it's own. The meats and cheese are piled on a round loaf, quartered, wrapped up and then usually rests overnight to let the olive salad work its wonders as it soaks into the bread. There are many muffalettas to be had in NOLA, but this is the one you shouldn't miss.

Shrimp and Grits @ The Old Coffee Pot

The Old Coffee Pot has been around since 1894 and touts itself as "the best breakfast in the French Quarter." They serve traditional Cajun and Creole cuisine and good ol' Southern standards. This dish is so simple that it's not even on the menu. These, hands down, are the best shrimp I've ever eaten, and you can get 'em grilled or fried. Add some biscuits and some made-in-New Orleans Tabasco, and you've got yourself a true NOLA meal.

Soft-shell Crab Po' Boy @ Stanley

Everyone in NOLA will argue over where to send you for the best po' boy, a sandwich comprised of some sort of fried protein topped with slaw and different dressings. While the more traditional po' boys carry loads of fried shrimp or oyster to your mouth, Stanley offers an off-the-charts delicious soft-shell crab version that manages to be decadent and delicate at the same time. The crab legs were extra crispy and well-seasoned. One of the best po' boys I've had.

These are just three of my favorites from this trip, but I've already set my sights on the following for my next visit...

Fried Chicken and Jambalaya @ Coop's
The Lunch Buffet @ Dooky Chase
Shrimp Po' Boy @ Domilise

Check out my website Mouth of the Border for more photos and tales of my trip to New Orleans!

Guest writer Emily Cavalier is the founder of Mouth of the Border, an online community for lovers of ethnic food and culture, and Midnight Brunch supper club. Emily consults on event and digital media strategy with brands like Conde Nast, The Vendy Awards and Google. Follow her on Foodspotting and Twitter @ecava.

(Trolley photo by Adam Reeder on Flickr)

"Live every week like it's Shark Week," said Tracy Morgan's character on 30 Rock. If there is a more inspiring quote, we don't know what it is, and it so happens that this week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. In the spirit of scary creatures and menacing beasts, the Foodspotting team put together an abbreviated list of some of our favorite ferocious-looking foods spotted around the world recently.

MENACING MOCHI

Our co-founder Alexa and her husband Seth returned from lunch last week thrilled with their latest food discovery: lavender with fig mochi @ Ebisu Restaurant. Sounds innocent enough, right? When we saw it, our Android developer Bob remarked: It looks like the sarlacc monster from "Return of the Jedi."

18-INCH CORN DOG

If you have a snake phobia like I do, look away! Seeing this 18-inch monster gave me the heebie jeebies. It was spotted by Ms Fatty at a county fair in California. She says she ate it all. (Gulp.)

SCARY SEA CREATURE

Some foods look so freaky, they make you worry and wonder "Are you sure it's dead?" Case in point: grilled whole branzino @ Inakaya New York. How can something so ugly taste so good?

SQUID INK PASTA

We're quite fond of the friendly earthworm, but we sure as hell don't want to see it at the dinner table. While we highly recommend trying delicious squid ink pasta at least once, be warned that you may want to avoid ordering it on a first date unless your dining companion digs ink-stained teeth.

CREEPY CARCASSES

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it's harder to stay neutral about the way food looks on a plate. While we are big fans of all pig dishes – pork chops, porchetta, pork belly, bacon, you name it – we find this crispy close-up of whole roast pig just a bit disturbing.

Now that you've seen our favorite frightening-looking foods, let us know if you spy any unusual dishes worth investigating, and be sure to check back again soon for Shark Week on Foodspotting Part 2!

No Photoshop needed.

Last week, we asked why you wanted to win a new Cyber-shot WX9 courtesy of our friends at Sony. We had a ton of entries come in from Twitter, Facebook, and right here on our blog. We loved all your answers and, yes, it was difficult to choose! As mentioned in the rules, our team picked the winner based on answer creativity and active participation on Foodspotting, meaning we were looking for spotters who are often spotting, leaving comments, engaging with other users, and us! After much discussion, we came up with our WX9 winner and three runner-ups who will get $25 Sony gift cards. You guys all rocked the contest, but here are the winning reasons...

WINNER At Foodspotting, we live to share and we devote our days to making sharing your favorite foods easy and fun. And when you spend as much time as we do with each other, your co-workers become like your adopted family – one with whom we enjoy many meals. We loved foodspotter Ann's entry for precisely these two reasons, so congratulations, Ann! We hope you like foodspotting with the WX9 as much as we do.

Ann said... I want to win #fsgiveaway because sharing food photos with my sister is like having her with me. #imissmysister

RUNNER-UPS We also loved Madam Charcuterie's entry because it hit our other goal in the head – Foodspotting is a way to share foods you love, not the ones you hate.

Madam Charcuterie said... I want to win #fsgiveaway because a Sony WX-9 will help me share the power of positivity at Foodspotting.

With over 500 sightings, we were excited Super Spotter Rodney wanted to get his wife into Foodspotting, too. Rodney said... I want to win #fsgiveaway because I want to get my wife hooked on Foodspotting, and being able to stash one of these cameras in her purse would help her be able to spot at a moment's notice.

Last but not least, we want you guys to know we value you not only for the number of dishes you share, but also for the quality of interactions you have with other users! For that reason, we want to say thanks to Yellowflip for often being the first to give other users positive feedback and for constantly encouraging fellow spotters to keep foodspotting.

Both photos taken by myself on the Sony Cyber-shot WX9.