Starting from today you’ll be able to buy a nice crispy youtiao at KFCs throughout Beijing and around the country as the fast food giant has decided to add the traditional Chinese morning snack to their breakfast menu. The colonel is making a big deal of the fact that his KFC youtiao are safe, clean and free of the 明矾 (ming fan) or alum that a lot of the street vendors add to give their deep fried dough sticks that extra bit of puff.

Another mid-Autumn festival has come and gone, and that means boxes and boxes of unopened mooncakes – the "Chinese equivalent of the Christmas fruitcake" – in homes and offices across the city. But before you throw those salted-duck-egg-yolk stuffed-delights in the trash, consider this:

Fatburger has opened up a new front in Beijing's burger wars with their first Mainland China branch in The Grand Summit complex just north of the Kempinski Hotel. We dropped in for lunch today (hat tip to Beijing Boyce for his timely twitter post) and found the place hopping on this, its first official day of business after a slight delay due to some issues with sourcing their beef.  Business was so brisk, in fact, it was hard not to feel a bit sorry for the forlorn O'Brien's counter (owned by the same management) in the corner.

Settled in wood and wicker booths overlooking a warren of hutongs, diners straddle the border between Beijing and Bangkok at this refined Thai restaurant. With decorations, key ingredients (like galanga and lemongrass) and a chef imported from Thailand, Patara is rigorously authentic.

It’s been an age coming, but the CBD’s luxury Fairmont hotel is up and running. Lunar 8 is one of its food outlets – a large, pan-Asian a la carte restaurant in the vein of IFW and Made in China.