Yunnan. Travelers to this fascinating province may want to check my article in Gourmet (May 2007) for many additional suggestions concerning hotels, inter-city travel, and the incredible out-of-town excurions available near the towns listed below.

Kunming. I had two favorites. The first was Baita Daiwei Ting (Baitai Dai Flavor Restaurant), a tiny place serving the very spicy, southeast-Asian-tasting cuisine of Yunnan’s Dai minority. I loved gui ji or ghost chicken, delicious even if it was almost too hot to eat, and the mouth-calming, simple, fruity boluo fan or pineapple rice, which is a room-temperature mix of Thai-style black sticky rice and pineapple bits, served inside a whole hollowed-out pineapple. 143 Shangyi Jie, 0871-364-5275. No credit cards. English menu. The second was Lao Fangzi, or Old House, a place that has survived since the 19th century and still manages to serve terrific food. Within 30 minutes of opening their doors for the evening they are packed; that says it all. Standout dishes include salt-fried sliced goose liver (yen bao er gan); elephant tusk ribs, or xiang ya paigu,  a dish of huge tusk-shaped pork ribs cooked to complex, chewy perfection; and, believe it or not, dishes cooked on antique clay tiles pulled from the 159-year old roof of the restaurant. Yes, you heard me – old roof tiles, used just the same way we use cedar plank to cook salmon sometimes in the Pacific Northwest. They serve beef (wa zhang niu rou), fish (wa zhang kao yu) and tofu (wa zhang tofu) cooked on roof tiles and the taste is truly unusual. It is something like fermentation; the flavor of great age. Kunming Lao Fangzi, Dong Feng Xi Lu, Ji Xiang Xiang No., 18-19, tel. 3644555. The restaurant is located off the main street in an alley. It’s well known locally, but you might want your hotel desk to call and write out Chinese directions for you. English menu.

Dali. Dali attracts a lot of international tourists, and is well known for having good pizza, pasta, cappuccinos, and steaks. I’ll pass on that. Restaurants of the local Bai minority also abound, but after a few dreary meals I embarked on a canvassing project, asking locals where I could find the really good Bai food. I was sent to Li Heng, where I returned again and again, never to be disappointed. Walk to the back of the tiny front room and step out into a beautiful old-fashioned inner courtyard. Be sure to have a shaguo dish; the shaguo is a local clay pot used for thick soups and stews which allegedly imparts a fragrance – something like black pepper – to whatever’s cooked in it. Shaguo dishes are all over central and northern Yunnan, a true local delight. Try Li Heng’s shaguo tofu; it’s wonderful. Rushan nailou is a local, leathery cow’s milk cheese which is deep fried until it puffs up in strange shapes, then served hot, dusted with sugar. Strange but interesting. Yunnan borders Sichuan, so Li Heng, like many Yunnanese restaurants, also serves many Sichuan dishes. Vegetables of the day are on a rack out front for your choice and delectation. Li Heng, Dali Old Town, Renmin Lu 117. Tel. (0872) 255-3316.

Lijiang. Lijiang’s old town is at once architecturally stunning and so crowded with tourists it sometimes verges on the unbearable. As you might expect, restaurants catering to tourists abound. One of the all around best is Mishi Restaurant, where chef Cun Yongheng, of the local Naxi minority, offers a surprisingly extensive and diverse menu of Naxi, Sichuan, Cantonese, and even Western dishes. When I asked him what he considered his best dishes, he thought silently for a full minute and then chose deep fried lotus root and Lijiang roast fish. We ordered the deep fried lotus root and indeed could not stop eating it. Mishi, Lijiang Old Town, Xin Yi Jie, Li Shi Jiang #52, Tel. 518-7605. Open 8 A.M. to 12 MN. English menu. 
Haku Café is a smallish place with consistently good food and a second-floor dining room so delightful, with its latticed windows open to the cobbled street below, that people eat and then stay on to play cards for hours. A computer stands by should you wish to check your e-mail. Full bar downstairs. Haku Café, Lijiang Old Town, #50 Jishan Lane, Xinyi St., Tel. 0888-510-5321. English menu.

Zhongdian or Shangrila. This former Tibetan logging town in northern Yunnan, on the Tibetan Plateau, was renamed Shangrila by the Chinese government in hopes of attracting tourists. The tourists have indeed come, and there are hotels and resorts there now which are as high-end as they come, but only one restaurant in town truly stands out: Arro Khampa. Run by three local Tibetans who went to India for 13 years and then returned, multilingual and multicultured, it is a sophisticated and welcoming place serving a thoughtful mix of Tibetan, Nepali, Indian and Western dishes. Chef Bhaskar Uday is from Nepal but has applied himself to mastering Tibetan food, and knowledgeably identifies dishes on the menu as representing the Khampa, Lhasa, or Amdo styles of Tibetan cuisine. Arro Khampa, Shangri-La Old Town, Pijiang Po, Tel. 887-822-6442.