Every Saturday, if I am in Paris, I go to the street market that runs down the Avenue du Président Wilson in the smart 16th arrondissement. Even when it rains, it is a hugely enjoyable experience. The vegetables, the cheeses, the live langoustines are some of the very best you can find in the French capital, with prices to match.

There are always tourists taking snapshots of the well-garnished stalls, where Parisian bourgeois matrons queue-barge each other to be served. One of my favourite fruit and vegetable stalls is run by an extremely lively Chinese woman assisted by her hen-pecked husband and sons. The other Saturday, I was buying some spring onions, ginger and hot red peppers and I told her I had just returned from Chongqing.

Now, I don’t think everybody knows exactly where Chongqing is, or that it is one of the world’s biggest urban districts with a staggering 32 million inhabitants. But my stall keeper’s face lit up and she squeaked that Chongqing was one of her husband’s favourite Chinese cities because he simply loves its local culinary speciality – the hotpot, or huo guo.

Chongqing is one of the most disconcerting cities I have visited. The flight from Paris, with a change in Hong Kong, took around 20 hours. You are immediately struck by the frenetic construction in this metropolis on the banks of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers in the south-western province of Sichuan. There seems no end to the tall skyscrapers sprouting everywhere.

The city’s development has been spurred by the Chinese authorities’ “Go West” policy (intended to encourage investment in inland communities) and today many call Chongqing, an industrial centre with numerous automotive plants, “the Chicago of China.” Sadly, many historic buildings have disappeared and it is only recently that the city’s leaders have woken up to the need to make Chongqing a little more environmentally friendly.

That said, the locals can justifiably boast that when it comes to food Chongqing is hot stuff – literally speaking, for some say that the hot pot was invented in the city and even those who challenge this acknowledge that the Chongqing huo guo is by far the most addictive. It seems the locals cannot live without it, not least the husband of my Parisian exotic vegetable supplier at the Président Wilson Saturday market.

One of the high points of my trip was a hot pot dinner in the Hongyadong reconstructed stilted house complex by the river, which has recreated, Walt Disney-style, a bit of the old Chongqing atmosphere for foreign visitors.

There, around a big round table, each diner has his or her own pot of broth heated by some contraption under the table. The pot is in fact split in two; on one side the real hot stuff, or extremely spicy hong tang red soup, and on the other the much milder (so to speak) yuan wei concoction. All sorts of ingredients – some traditional and others positively strange – were diligently placed on the spinning table for each guest to dip and cook in either his super spicy or not so spicy broth.

There was beef, shrimp, cod fish rolls, lotus and other vegetables, and transparent vermicelli noodles. More unusual specialities included pig kidneys, brains, eyeballs, duck bowels and cow stomach. You can’t help being squeamish at first, but once you start dipping into your soup you experience all sorts of different, exciting tastes before your lips go numb – just like at the dentist.

每到周六，我若呆在巴黎，就会去逛位于时尚16区(16th arrondissement)、沿维尔松总统大街(Avenue du Président Wilson)一字排开的街头市场。即使下雨天去那儿，也定会让人不虚此行。在整个法国首都，当属这儿的蔬菜、奶酪以及活海螯虾(Langoustines)的质量最棒，价格嘛，自然也是“不甘落后”。

总有游客在这些装饰别致的摊位前合影留念，巴黎中产家庭的主妇们也很耐心地在摊位前排队等候。我最喜欢光顾的水果蔬菜摊由一位很会来事的中国妇女经营，帮手就是她那位惧内的老公以及几位儿子。有个周六，我在她的摊位选购香葱、生姜和红辣椒时，就告诉她我刚从重庆回来。

我觉得并非每个人都清楚知道重庆在哪儿，也不知道重庆其实是世界最大的都市区之一，拥有令人难以置信的3200万人口！但女摊主听后立刻喜形于色，并兴高采烈地对我说重庆是他老公最钟爱的中国城市，因为他非常喜欢那里的特色美食——火锅。

重庆是我去过的最让人诚惶诚恐的城市。从巴黎坐飞机（经香港转机）到重庆需耗时约20小时，一到重庆，你立刻会被这个大都市在长江与嘉陵江边成群成群的高楼所震撼，到处是拔地而起的摩天大楼！

这座城市的加速发展发仞于中国政府的“西部大开发”战略（“Go West” policy，旨在鼓励投资内陆地区）。如今，许多人把重庆这个拥有众多汽车生产厂家的工业制造中心称为“中国的芝加哥”(the Chicago of China)。可惜的是，许多历史建筑已经消亡，直到最近，该市的主政者才幡然醒悟：必须让重庆的环境更加优美。

据说，本地人信誓旦旦地说：不夸张地讲，一提到重庆的饮食，首推当属火锅，原因是许多人相信火锅源于重庆，即便有人对此有异议，也承认重庆火锅最具吸引力。本地人似乎离不了火锅，至少，我那位巴黎维尔松总统大街周六街市的外来蔬果摊主的老公就离不了它。

我重庆之行的“压轴戏”是在江边吊脚楼“洪崖洞” (Hongyadong stilted house complex)上享受的火锅宴。精心改建的吊脚楼糅合了沃尔特?迪士尼(Walt Disney)的风格，为外国游客重现一点过去老重庆的生活情趣。

围在一张大圆桌边，每位食客有一个由放在桌下的特殊装置加热的汤锅。事实上，汤锅被分隔成了两部分：一半是真正的麻辣汤料，也叫超辣红汤(extremely spicy hong tang red soup)；另一半则要温和得多，可谓原味清汤。所有的配菜——有些是传统菜，有些则很怪异——都被精心搁放在桌子的旋转平台上，每位食客既可以在超辣汤里、也可以在不太辣的汤锅里随意煮烫。

火锅的配菜料有牛肉、虾、鳕鱼丸、莲藕片以及其他蔬菜，还有透明细粉丝，更为独特的配菜包括猪腰花、猪脑花、猪眼睛、鸭肠和牛肚。一开始吃时你可能会有点别扭，不过一旦“开涮”，你会品尝到各种回味无穷的美味，一直吃得你嘴发麻——嘿嘿，与看完牙医后的感觉有一拼！