"Sadly, we cannot offer the definitive guide to Beijing cuisine in this space. Charged with the most grueling and time-consuming assignment at these Summer Games – covering Michael Phelps and his quest for eight gold medals – we've had little time for culinary adventure. Much of our dining has come in between assignments and interviews in the first-floor cafeteria of the Main Press Center. As Kevin would attest, McDonald's is one of the more popular options – for both American and foreign journalists. During the past two weeks here, there are a couple of meals, however, that do stand out.

We arrived for a Phelps-related appearance this week about an hour early, certain that our cab driver would get lost, as every previous one had. Oddly, this one didn't, and with an hour to kill, we wandered into a restaurant called Fat Mother for lunch. It was a hot pot restaurant and there was a hole in the middle of our table with a burner beneath it.

Once we ordered our soup broth, a pot was placed in the hole and it wasn't long before the soup inside started to boil. We'd innocently ordered a chili soup, thinking we could tackle the fiery challenge. With tiny red peppers swimming about, the soup looked very much like a juicy lava. We'd soon learn that it tasted this way, as well.

The Fat Mother staff brought trays of food to our table – uncooked mushrooms, spinach, beef, prawns, potato noodles, ham. Using chopsticks, we dunked our food item in the soup, allowing it to cook sufficiently before pulling it out, cooling it off with a peanut dipping sauce and enjoying. It was relatively easy to eat – mostly because after just the tip of any food item touched your mouth, your tongue went instantly numb.

Like I said, we mistakenly ordered the lava soup. The heat never seemed to cool. We went through a pair of Cokes apiece and I had a pile of about a half-dozen crumpled napkins that had tended to my running nose. The eyes and antennae scared Kevin from even biting into a prawn, but he didn't want to offend the staff at Fat Mother, so he dumped half the slimy critters into the bottom of the soup.

We left with a sense of accomplishment from dipping into the volcano in the middle of our table and bragged to many people throughout the day. Unfortunately, only three or four hours passed before my stomach began to rumble. It felt like a troop of 12-year-old Chinese gymnasts were performing deep inside me. Needless to say, Fat Mother left a lasting impression.

We've had a couple of meals here that cost in the $25-$50 range. But my best meal came from outside of Beijing and cost just dollar. Visiting the Szechuan province, devastated by an earthquake four months ago, we stopped and ordered a bowl of noodles from a storefront restaurant. We ate on a picnic table set up on the sidewalk.

The long flat noodles were in a red spicy broth – the heat, tolerable but noticeable – and was topped with parsley and a fried egg. The flavor was thick and soothing, hitting your nose long before the chopsticks even reached your mouth. The meal was packed with superlatives: For this trip, it was the cheapest meal, the biggest serving and the most flavor, a taste I'll dream about back home for years to come."

(Photos of the hot pot and the noodle dish by the boys)