Take, for example, the Beijing pancake (at least that's what I called it when I first arrived in the capital, back when it was still beautiful - full of bicycles and devoid of traffic jams). Every day, from the early morning - even if it was minus 15 degrees outside - a geezer wrapped in a blue military overcoat would be stood, right outside the gates of the Overseas Chinese Garden Hotel, over a coal-fired hot plate and a large vat full of pancake mix, whipping out pancake after pancake (they're actually called , or "fried cake").

I would watch for ages as he expertly spread batter in a perfect circle on the hot plate; let it fry, along with an egg, for a few seconds; dropped in spring onion and some crumbs of pickled cabbage, followed by soy sauce and chilli paste; added a fried dough stick; and, lastly, folded the whole thing up and cut it in half. All of this in just a few seconds.

It was the best breakfast I had tasted - ever; so good that I would sometimes have it for lunch, too. The price was one yuan and my first street argument in Beijing was with a pancake seller who outrageously tried to charge me two yuan. Beijing pancake became symbolic for me of my first, happy, carefree months in China.

You'd think I would hanker for this delicacy in Hong Kong - but no. When a fried cake shop, called Mr Bing, opened just around the corner from work - looking tackier than a McDonald's and twice as red-and-yellow - I reacted with dismay. Beijing pancakes belong on the streets of northern China, and in my heart. And they shouldn't be advertised in simplified characters.