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Here's a quick review of a place that most people who live in Taipei probably already know about, but I still wanted to give a plug anyway: Yong He Dou Jiang.
For those of you who don't know, Yong He Do Jiang offers traditional Taiwanese breakfast foods such as sao bing yo tiao, do jiang (you can get this in any combination of hot/cold and sweet/salty - oh wait, you can't get cold and salty dou jiang) dan bing, etc. It's also a chain, and my personal favorite branch is the original one located on Fuxing South Road (get off at the Daan stop on the Muzha line), as they seem to have the biggest selection, and everything just seems to taste better. It's also dirt cheap, and you can't ever beat cheap and delicious.
The last time we went, it was right as the weather was finally starting to cool down, and a soft wind was blowing. We sat outside, and you know, sometimes I can't stand it here, but then sometimes there's no where else I'd rather be, drinking cold, sweet dou jiang and biting into a deliciously flaky sao bing.
Yong He Dou Jiang
Fuxing South Road, Section 2*
*I don't know the exact number, but if you get off at the Daan stop and then at the intersection make a left onto Fuxing, it's right past a fire station, which will be on your right.
My mama always told me I needed to be more organized. I never paid her much heed (as anyone who’s ever roomed with me or seen my desk at work can attest). But once I started trying to cook semi-complicated dishes with more than ten different ingredients that needed to be prepped and at least half a dozen steps, I discovered that (gasp!) at least in this one area of life, maybe moms had a point.
Sure, Jamie Oliver can have three different pots and pans sizzling on high heat while he calmly dices up an onion into perfect cubes with one hand tied behind his back, but do I look like an exceedingly handsome blonde celebrity chef with a charming British accent? Don’t answer that.
My kitchen is still often a disaster zone, especially when cooking for guests, but I’ve found that doing as much of your prep ahead of time as possible really makes your life that much easier--and can make cooking seemingly fancy-schmancy dishes a piece of cake, even in a tiny Taiwanese kitchen. My wife (the Queen of Prep, whom I bow down to) would back me up on this, I’m sure.
So, maybe it’s a bit of extra work, but it’s well worth your while to have little bowls of chopped this and that all set up before you even turn the stove on, just like they do on TV:
Pictured, clockwise from the top left: minced basil (supposedly 1/2 cup, though I was a bit short), grape tomatoes (about 15 of them, halved lengthwise), minced parsley (2 Tbs), a can of tuna in olive oil, minced flat anchovy fillets (4 of them), minced garlic (3 cloves), chopped black olives (1/2 cup), a handful of capers in their juices, and dried oregano (a teaspoon).
That, and a half a package of thin spaghetti, is all you need to make Spaghettini Puttanesca*, one of the easiest (despite the somewhat daunting amount of mincing you need to do) and most satisfying pasta dishes you can whip up.
Once you’ve done the prep, the dish literally takes less than 10 minutes to put together, turning the above ingredients into this:
All you’ve got to do is:
On one burner, put a big pot of salted water on the other burner and start bringing it to a boil. On another, heat up 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil in a large heavy skillet (medium heat should do). Add the garlic, basil, oregano, capers, and half the parsley to the pan. If you want some kick, you can add a crumbled dried chili or a pinch of red pepper flakes too. Stir everything around and let it all cook for a minute or two, until the garlic softens.
Add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes until they get soft.
Finally, add the tuna (breaking it up into small chunks), anchovies, and olives. After about a minute, once everything’s heated through, remove the pan from the heat and season it to taste with salt and pepper (you probably won’t need too much of either).
By now your water should be boiling. Cook the spaghettini according to the package instructions (probably 8 or 9 minutes). Once it’s done, drain it, then put it back in the pot. Add the sauce. Toss. Sprinkle on the rest of your minced parsley.
And that’s it. Dinner is served, and all--for once--without even breaking a sweat.
* Roughly adapted from a recipe in Perla Meyers’ “How to Peel a Peach: And 1001 Other Things Every Good Cook Needs to Know”
We discovered this little gem of a restaurant a little while back, and it's rapidly become one of our new favorite Western breakfast places. It's hidden away in a small alley off of Renai, and I almost don't want to tell all of you out there in Internetland about it, since I don't want all of you (ok, like one or two of you) to rush over and take all the available seating. Yes, it's small, and probably seats about 10 people comfortably, 14 if you count the outdoor seating.
But that's what I like about it. It's homey. It's cozy. The chef is right out in the open, cooking on a traditional four burner gas stove. The waitresses/prep chefs are friendly and chatty (and also speak fluent English), and the overall effect is that you're in someone's kitchen, watching them prepare a fine meal for you as you chat with friends.
Besides an assortment of omelets (all 90NT each, but no sides), Omelet to Go also offers Mexican dishes (all around 150NT or so), which is awesome for me because I love Mexican food and have been hard pressed to find decent places. Luckily, I need to search no more. I was quite happy with my burrito that I ordered, and thinking about it now is making my mouth water.
Our waitress told us that David, the chef, likes to experiment a lot, and every Tuesday they offer a new creation of his on the menu. One of his experiments that has now become a staple, is the pesto fried rice. I definitely recommend it. It's different, and it works.
Last weekend we headed over to find a brunch special for 200NT. It came with two pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs, hash browns (these were really good), and sausage. I'm not sure if this was a one time special or if they're going to start having this all the time, but even if they don't, the omelets are always a good choice. Actually, everything is a good choice, so definitely try Omelet to Go!
Omelet to Go
Keelung Road, Section 1, No. 350-69*
(02) 2720-8782
*The address to this place is very misleading, because it's not anywhere near Keelung at all. It's in a small alley off of Renai, close to where Renai ends at Taipei City Hall. If you need more specific directions, drop me a line. Otherwise, I recommend calling for directions, because it's near impossible to find it based on the address itself.
You know that Nathan's hot-dog eating contest, the one where that tiny Japanese man can shove like 50 something hot dogs into his mouth in 12 minutes, without throwing up or exploding? I always wondered how he was able to do that, and apparently it turns out that they have to do intense training for it to stretch their stomachs out. After eating at Taoranting (陶然停), I have decided that I too will have to start a stomach stretching regimen in order to fully enjoy my experience there the next time I go.
Taoranting is known for their Peking duck, which is indeed heavenly. The skin is rendered very nicely, glistening with juices and perfectly crispy. The meat is tender, though I thought it could have been a tad bit juicier, but Luke pointed out that it was the breast meat, which doesn't hold that much fat to begin with - so I don't really have any complaints. For "liang3chr1 (兩吃)," which is 800NT, you get the duck prepared two ways: the wraps, and a soup. For 1100NT (san1chr1, 三吃), then a noodle dish (made with the duck) is included.
We opted for the 800NT deal, which was a pretty darn good deal. The soup that came with it was enough to serve at least four or five people, and try as we might - this is why I need to do those stomach stretching exercises - we still had more than half of it left over. Then, when we asked to get it wrapped, we discovered that they added more soup for us to take home! Three days later, I'm still drinking this soup.
We also ordered some sides of fried eggplant and scallion pancakes. The eggplant was good - each slice of eggplant was battered and fried, and there's a salt and pepper mixture on the side to dip each one into. As for the scallion pancakes, check it out:
This dish was only 30NT! Each pancake was nice and thick, with a wonderful chewy texture on the inside, but still crispy on the outside. And did I mention it's only 30NT? That's less than $1US! (Ok, it's like 98 cents, but you get the drift.)
Here's a picture of our fabulous spread, minus the soup, which hadn't come out yet:
The place was pretty packed when we went - around 7:30 on a Saturday night - so you probably want to make reservations. We didn't, so we just left our name, and they called us about a half an hour later. Oh, and if you want a duck - and you DO want a duck - you have to tell them in advance, either when you make the reservation or when you leave your name.
Well, enough writing about the Peking duck. Off to start stretching my stomach!
Taoranting (陶然停)
Fuxing North Road, No. 86, 2nd Floor*
(02) 2718-1975
*The entrance is a little tricky to find. It looks like you're going into a regular apartment building, but look for stairs that say "Ballentine's" on each of the steps, and the restaurant is on the second floor.
Guten Tag. We've been frequenting this one lane by National Taiwan University pretty often lately, because we like to eat at Sababa and Bongos, and every time we go we've noticed Goethe advertising their German cuisine. I guess I was always sort of hesitant about eating here, because when I went to Germany several years ago, I remember eating sausages, with sausages, and a side of sausages. It was just this never ending parade of sausages. I have good memories about every thing else concerning Germany, but god, the food sucked.
But I was curious as to see what this restaurant would be like, especially since we've been on a roll with the non-Chinese food here lately. And you know what? Goethe far exceeded my memories of those awful sausage meals I had in Germany. Who would have thought I would experience better German food in Taiwan, of all places?
Our timing was really good too, because we were there as they were running a promotion for Oktoberfest, so they were offering a set meal for 700NT which let you sample some of Germany's finest fare, such as: pig's knuckles, bratwurst, roast beef, and pickled herring.
I also ordered a sampler type meal, which included fried meatloaf with cheese, a curry sausage, fried ham, smoked cheese, and spaetzle, which are German egg noodles. They were actually my favorite part of the meal, and they made me long for a bigger and better kitchen here, because they seem to the sort of comfort food that you could just whip up on a chilly day.
Our meals came with soup and salad, which were mediocre at best. The soup was actually quite watery and seemed as if perhaps it was just made from some sort of packet.
But, we were also served bread and a variety of dipping sauces that made up for the poor quality of the other starters. The bread was warm and crusty, and came with free refills. The only complaint I had about it was that they spread garlic butter on it for you, which was fine if there weren't any dipping sauces to go with it, but I didn't really enjoy my strawberry cream cheese and garlic flavored bread all that much.
So while Goethe probably isn't going to become one of my favorite restaurants here, I'd say it's good once in a while when you want to mix things up a bit.
Auf wiederstein!
Goethe
goethe-gourmet.com
Roosevelt Road, Section 3, Lane 283, No. 11
(02) 2362-0060
For those of you sick of the long wait at The Diner, check out Bongos. I'm not saying that The Diner isn't good, because it is, but sometimes that wait time is just brutal. Also, whenever we tried to call for reservations, they never had any available the day of. Thank goodness for Bongos, then. Even without reservations, the longest we've ever had to wait for a table was about 10 or 15 minutes. And, more importantly, the food is definitely on par with the quality at The Diner - actually, at this point I would say that only thing The Diner has over Bongos is that they serve milkshakes.
In fact, I think I actually like the hamburgers at Bongos better, if only because I feel healthier eating them. They serve all their hamburgers on wheat buns, and in addition to the tradition lettuce and tomatoes, my hamburger came with alfafa sprouts. Here's the Deluxe Bongos Burger I ordered last time - it comes with bacon, Gouda cheese, and what they said was a "special" sauce, but tasted like Thousand Island dressing to me. I don't know, maybe that dressing is special here in Taiwan.
Another thing that I was really excited about at Bongos is that they have Mexican food on their menu, and it's actually quite decent. The chicken enchiladas are a thumbs up, and the chili is also good.
So, next time you call up The Diner and find that they're booked solid, head on over to Bongos.
Bongos
Wenjou Street, Lane 74, Alley 5, No. 3*
(02) 2365-6059
*It might be a good idea to call for directions, since Bongos is tucked away in a small alley near National Taiwan University (Exit 2 from the MRT Taipower Station). In fact, their business card says, "If lost, call Debby 0952-821-930."
I was really looking forward to eating at Canton Palace because Luke had said it was buffet style, and the thought of stuffing myself with all manner of Cantonese goodness just made my stomach happy. Sadly, though, we arrived to find that the buffet was only for the lunch hour; BUT, there was still an all-you-can eat menu where you picked one main dish and however many number of smaller dishes/dim sum you wanted, for 560NT a person.
Our waitress was very nice, offering several recommendations and urging us to order more food, saying that the portions were too small for two people. Though when the food came out, the portions seemed fine to us - except for perhaps the dessert, which were specifically for one person only, so we ordered two of each.
Though there was a ton of food, I would have to say that most of it was just ok. A lot of it reminded me of the sorta-good-if-you're-eating-this-in-Rhode Island variety of Chinese food you might find in the States, but now we're in Taiwan, and it's a whole different ball game. The dim sum foods were acceptable, nothing special. The chow mien was downright bad. Not so bad it was inedible, but the noodles weren't crispy at all, and the sauce had a strangely sweet taste to it.
The one redeeming aspect of the food was the crab. All the crab dishes were very well done - flavorful on the outside shell part, tender on the inside.
I'd say that Canton Palace was a one time deal place for us. I'm glad we had the crab, but I'm not sure I would return even for that, because it's not like it was really spectacular or anything. Oh, and the 560NT all-you-can-eat deal is a promotion that only lasts until the end of the month. It might be worth it to go just for that, but after the promotion ends, I don't think we'd go back.
Canton Palace
located in the Sunworld Dynasty Hotel (next to the IKEA)
Dunhua North Road, No. 100
So far this past year living in Taipei, I've come to be more and more impressed with the international food scene here. I guess when I first came to Taiwan I expected that the Chinese food would be awesome, (which it is) and that the non-Chinese food would be like refried poo (which it's not). Aleja is such an example of a place that I had not-so-high expectations for, but then ending up really liking the place and returning whenever I find myself craving some Indian cuisine.
One of our favorite dishes here is the paleek paneer, which we order pretty much every time we go to Aleja. It's a spinach and Indian cheese dish, very flavorful, very delicious.
Last time we were here we also ordered the keema mutter, which is minced lamb with peas and spices. God, now I'm making myself hungry.
Each dish is about 200-300NT. It doesn't come with any accompaniments, so you have to order the rice and/or naan a la carte. The rice is 30NT a bowl (and not enough to share, either), and the butter naan is 50NT; the garlic 70NT.
I'm not an authority on Indian cuisine by any means, but Aleja tastes pretty good and authentic to me. The prices are reasonable, and the service is always friendly, so what's not to like? Check it out:
Aaleja
Yanji Street, Alley 5, Lane 70, No. 6
(02) 2773-3227
Here's another post from the beloved husband:
Now that the weather in Taipei has cooled down some, Emily and I have finally gotten back into our cooking groove. This past Sunday, for instance, I decided I was going to grill us up some steaks…or one steak for us to share, seeing as we’re ballin’ on budget.
You might call me a “steak purist” of sorts--I don’t have much patience for the multiplicity of sauces and toppings and other adornments that other people like with their steaks. And that corn-starchy abomination known as black pepper sauce preferred by local Taiwanese-style steak joints just makes me want to vomit. I like my cow to taste like cow. Rub that baby down with a generous handful of salt and freshly ground pepper, then sear it to a perfect medium rare. That’s all. At most maybe do a little beurre rouge (red wine reduction with butter swirled in) on top at the very end.
But I’ll admit that this minimalist approach works best when you’re working with the highest quality of beef, and unless you live in Argentina or in some quaint Italian village, that can be hard to come by. Especially in Taiwan, where American beef (which isn’t even that great) costs an arm and a leg.
So when I came across a recipe for a marinade for grilled ribeye steak in my 2001 Best of the Best cookbook*, I figured maybe this would be a good way to spruce up mediocre meat. But, just to be safe, I still ended up splurging on an NT$500 ribeye from City Super for my trial run. The recipe, which originally comes from Alfred Portale’s 12 Seasons Cookbook, follows:
The first thing you want to do is season your steaks on both sides with coarsely cracked black peppercorns (mine were just coarsely ground from my pepper grinder), pressing them into the meat.
For the marinade, the recipe calls 6 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons of chopped oregano, 1 tablespoon of chopped rosemary, and 3 cloves worth of minced garlic.
That’s for four 12 oz steaks, and I only had one 14 oz one, so I just guesstimated, putting in a little less than a third of everything. The recipe says you can substitute half the amount of dried oregano, which I did. I also used dried rosemary, about a quarter of the amount, which I crumbled as best as I could, but I really think fresh rosemary would have been better.
Anyhow, stir this mixture up and pour it over your steaks, coating both sides. Cover them up with saran wrap and let marinate 30 minutes at room temperature (or up to 2 hours in the fridge; just make sure you bring them up to room temperature before you grill). Here’s what my steak looked like as it marinated:
Right before you start grilling, season your steaks generously on both sides with sea salt or kosher salt. This recipe calls for charcoal grilling, but a grill pan or even a regular 12-inch skillet (which is what I used) would work nearly as well. Get the grill/pan nice and hot, and cook the steaks over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes on each side for medium rare, basting them with whatever’s left of the marinade for the first few minutes. Don’t fiddle with the steak too much when it’s cooking, and only turn it over once. It should get nice and charred on the outside. 10 minutes later, voila:
Of course any steak recipe that gives you a cooking time can only estimate, since your meat’s thickness and the heat of your stove/grill will vary. Here’s a neat trick for how to tell when a steak is done: Press the tip of your pinky and the tip of your thumb together (on the same hand). Touch the fleshy muscle in the palm of your hand, just underneath your thumb. It should be pretty taut--that's how a well-done steak should feel when you poke it with your finger.
Now try this using your ring finger (medium-well to medium), middle finger (medium to medium-rare) and index finger (rare).
You should feel that muscle getting squishier and squishier. After you’ve used this method a few times, you’ll get the hang of it, and you won’t have to keep flashing people the “okay” sign or the shocker.
Truth be told, this time around I made the rookie mistake of leaving the steak on the pan while I attended to something else, and by the time I got back and poked it, I knew I’d cooked it for a minute or two too long. So it was more medium than it was medium-rare. Not a fatal mistake, but not perfection either.
Now let your steak rest on a plate for five minutes (otherwise you’ll lose all the juices with the first cut) before cutting it into thick slices. We served it with a side of Asian-style long bean salad…
…and some smashed potatoes and an Italian red wine in the glass. Overall, I was pretty happy with the marinade. It took hardly any time to prepare, and it gave the steak a nice herby fragrance and a hint of sweetness without overwhelming the flavors of the meat itself. It was great with the ribeye, but I bet it’d work with other cuts, too, as long as they’ve got some thickness and some fat to them.
So here’s our Sunday dinner, on the plate. Not too shabby.
Loyal readers, if you’ve got any secret steak recipes of your own, feel free to share!
* The best recipes from the best cookbooks that year, as judged by Food & Wine. It’s a pretty kick-ass collection of recipes.
We were stuck inside all day on Saturday because of the typhoon, except for one venture outside to check to see if the dumpling place next door was open. Luckily, it was, and we got some tasty dumplings and shao bing (sesame buns) take-out to enjoy on that very windy day.
We like to eat at 周胖子餃子館 (or roughly translated as, Fatty Chou Dumpling House) when we want something quick and cheap, but still good. Though I do have to say that the dumplings are the only thing really worth going there for. The shao bing, which you can get with beef or pork, are also not bad. And I also like their vegetable tofu soup. But other offerings range from mediocre (their beef noodle noodle soup) to bad (hot and sour noodle soup). (By the way, the menu is only in Chinese, with no pictures.)
Shao bing with beef
But considering that we usually spend around 200 - 300NT, it's really a pretty good deal. The dumplings are 7NT each, which might be a little more than other dumpling places, but I do think the dumplings here are better than some of those places. Their meat is nicely flavored - they offer beef and pork, but we usually get pork because we think that tastes better.
One time when I was taking Chinese classes, my Chinese teacher asked me how many dumplings I usually eat. I replied that it was usually around 6 or 7 and that I also get other food to go with it, but she still let out a very shocked, "HHHAAaaaAAAhhh??!!" I don't know, according to my Chinese teacher, I guess people usually eat 15 or 20 at a time. That seems to be a bit too much for me, but if it's not too much for you, or even if you only want to eat a couple, try out 周胖子餃子館.
周胖子餃子館 (Fatty Chou Dumpling House)
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 5, No. 37
Oh Mr. Donut, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways: I love your bread-like, chewy texture; I love your funny shape and how I can pull off those little balls one by one and just pop them into my mouth; I love your unique and interesting flavors, like Green Tea and Red Bean and some that I can't even name.
Clockwise from top: coffee roll, glazed mo cha (Japanese green tea), glazed, glazed chocolate.
You will notice that we ordered a lot of glazed donuts last night. Though we do like the glazed donuts, there are definitely a lot of other flavors that we like better, which sadly at 9:30PM the Mr. Donut at the Breeze 2 on Zhongxiao seemed to have run out of. But some other favorites include the Konoko, which is dusted with a cinnamon-ish powder, and the Double Chocolate, which is chocolate glazed with chocolate. We also like their "stuffed" varieties, where they slice a donut in half and spread a paste or cream on the inside, so it's like a donut sandwich.
However, I would not recommend their "regular" donuts, meaning the non-ring kind. Those always taste dry and slightly stale. Nor would I recommend their coffee. Also, the donuts don't come cheap - it's about 35NT per donut.
Look at their cutely designed bags, with Mr. Donut and his cute little donut friends.
Get thee to a Mr. Donut!
Mr. Donut
located in several places, these are just the ones I know of off the top of my head:
NYNY
Breeze 2
YongKong Street
Taipei Main Station
Our dear, beautiful camera is back in our loving hands. Check out this picture from it:
People, this is a Chicken Cobb Salad Bowl I ordered at one of the chain restaurants that my hometown is sadly overpopulated with. Look at the salad dressing on the side! That's salad dressing! Not soup! Is that not the most ridiculous thing ever? Although perhaps the mentality was that you actually needed that much dressing for the MONSTER salad. I have never seen a salad this huge in my life. There was so much salad it went off the plate, into that bread bowl you see in the background. The whole thing reminded me of that Horn of Plenty that the Native Americans and Pilgrims had during Thanksgiving, though if I remember correctly, that was for like 140 people, and this was for one person.
We were in the restaurant for about an hour or so, and though I ate steadily the whole time, I guess this salad bowl was truly a horn of plenty, because no matter how much I ate, my salad portion never seemed to decrease. In fact, when I asked to get it wrapped, they had to give me this special big box to put it in. I think it's the box they put cakes in.
Alright, enough with me talking about the huge American portions and our fat asses. Now that we have our camera back, look for some new updates soon!
To the 10 or 11 of you out there who read this blog, have any of you been to Hong Kong before? We're going for a friend's wedding at the end of the month, and we're super excited because we've always heard that HK has some incredible eats. Anyone have any recommendations? Recommendations on things to see/do would also be appreciated, but the most important thing is: where should we eat?!
Emily asked me to do a guest spot for the blog, and [gasp] we're still camera-less. So if you have the patience for all words, no pictures, here goes nothing...
At risk of sounding hopelessly old and unhip, let me start by saying this: I hate Ximending. I hate the flocks of oh-so-cool adolescents who loiter on every street corner and pollute the main pedestrian area with their cheap cigarettes and their ridiculous hairstyles. I hate how there are a hundred trendy clothing boutiques and none of them seem to carry a T-shirt or a pair of jeans I can squeeze into. I don’t understand cosplay. Most of all, I hate how poorly the streets around there are labeled, so that every time my wife and I go with the intention of finding some restaurant or other we’d heard good things about, we end up getting lost, cranky and, most likely, in a fight.
Thankfully, this time around I did my research and, after only a little bit of purposeful wandering toward the outer edges of Ximending, we found ourselves at the door of what proved to be a most pleasant—if not exactly quiet—retreat from the excesses of the local youth culture: 33 Jian Tang （三十三間堂） or, as it’s called in English, 33 Rooms.
Make sure you take off your shoes as you walk in (holey sock wearers beware!), unless you want to catch grief for tracking dirt on the restaurant’s polished wood floors. Emily and I were seated up in a little loft we had to climb a ladder to reach, overlooking the main dining room. The table was low, and we sat (or, in my case, reclined) on cushions one of the barefooted waitresses laid out for us.
Just as memorable than the restaurant’s ambiance and excellent food is its owner, an older Taiwanese woman whom the word “flamboyant” hardly does justice. When we hesitated for a moment upon arrival, she shrieked, “Come in!” and then remarked, to the entire restaurant it seemed, on how hard it was to make any money on a party of two (later, she said of another table, “They don’t eat sashimi; they don’t eat beef. I don’t know what I’m supposed to sell them.”).
Rather than take offense, the regulars eat this shtick up. 33 Jian Tang is very much its lao ban niang’s restaurant. She orchestrates the whole show, yelling at waitresses one moment, doing shots of sake with a table of businessmen the next, and prone to suddenly burst into Japanese opera, much to the amusement of her captive audience. The woman is LOUD, perhaps the loudest Asian woman I’ve ever encountered, and I’m pretty certain she was quite drunk by the time we went up to pay the bill at the end of the evening. "I'm sorry I didn't make it over to your table to yell at you tonight," she said, flirtatiously. Yes, I think maybe she was flirting with me.
But lest you think the restaurant is all show and no substance, let's move on to the food. 33 Jian Tang doesn't have a menu, so the owner just picks out what's going to be served each day. That's not to say that you don't get billed for each individual dish, but it's the sort of place where asking what something costs before you let them bring it to you would seem poor form. Don't go, then, if you aren't prepared to pay a rather hefty bill--at least NT$1,000 a person, but more likely upwards of NT$1,500 if you're drinking plenty of plum wine or ice-cold sake, as we were. Later I read other reviews that talked about how you can tell your waitress how much you want to spend, and they'll customize what they bring you accordingly. This time around, we just put ourselves at the mercy of the chef, but I was happy with what we got for the money.
We had plump oysters, six of them, brought raw to our table and simmered in a small hotpot in a fragrant miso sauce. They were still half raw when we ate them, positively bursting with ocean goodness. We had big king crab legs that were served propped up, on a bed of ice, in front of a perfect yellow orchid. Alongside was a small bowl of rice vinegar for dipping.
There was a big platter of super-fresh Japanese sweet shrimp sashimi (heads attached). There was the surprising combination of a fried fish fillet served over half a pink grapefruit. As you ate the fish, you dug into the flesh of the grapefruit with your spoon and poured some of the juices on top, mixing it with a light cream sauce. There was the tray of grilled fish livers that I gobbled up, seduced by their earthy depth of flavor. And, when we were nearly too full to eat another bite, there was a generous portion of cold beef salad with a peanut-vinegar dressing, featuring some of the most tender slices of perfectly rare steak I've tasted.
There are other dishes I'm forgetting to mention, at least ten of them in total. Each was beautifully presented, a miniature work of art (I thought Emily was going to stab herself for not having our camera with us); the flavors were clean and unpretentious. The only courses I didn't like as much were the snails-on-a-skewer (which were fine, but nothing special) and the seaweed soup (which I'm just not a huge fan of generally). For dessert we had a refreshing mixture of sweet red beans and chestnuts with almond tofu.
All in all, it was one of the best--and definitely the most unique--Japanese meals I've ever had, though I'll admit I'm far from an expert. For obvious reasons 33 Jian Tang wouldn't be the best choice for the thin-skinned or the budget-conscious. By the same token, the food we ate that night veered a bit more toward the adventurous side of Japanese cuisine, at least by Western standards. If you're not the adventurous type, you could, of course, tell your waiter or waitress what types of things you aren't willing to eat up front, but then what's the point? Half the fun is not knowing what they're going to bring to your table next.
If you want more conventional, but equally excellent, Japanese food with a quieter ambiance, try Sumie or, from what I can gather, any of a number of other restaurants in Taipei. But if you're in the mood to try something a little bit different, 33 Jian Tang is well worth a visit. I'm glad I’ve found at least one place in Ximending I won't mind going back to.
33 Jian Tang （三十三間堂）
116 Kangding Rd., Taipei (台北市康定路１１６號）
(02) 2361-0807, 0806
Alas, my camera is still back in the US of A, but thankfully one of Luke's mom's friends is coming to Taiwan this week, and we should have our camera back soon! Hurray.
Anyway, I was going through some of my old pictures, and here's one from Smith & Hsu. Located very conveniently practically right next door to us, Smith & Hsu is a small cafe that serves tea, cakes and sandwiches. When it first opened, we were convinced that it'd be gone by the end of the month, since real estate prices are pretty expensive in the area and their business didn't seem to be that good. But nowadays, Smith & Hsu seems to be doing well, perhaps even prospering. It's not our favorite cafe, as their prices are a bit more expensive than average (think Starbucks, and Smith & Hsu is in about the same range), but we do like to pop in once in awhile when we're in the mood for some tea and scones with homemade jams.
If you're feeling particularly ambitious, or if you're with a few people, you can order a set meal that comes with a couple of sandwiches, your choice of three cakes, and four scones (two plain, two raisin) with your choice of jams. It also comes with two teas that you pick from the wide variety of choices - I prefer their fruitier teas, but there are also a lot of green, red, and milk teas as well. It comes to around 600NT, and it's definitely more than enough for two people - in fact, we could only eat one of the cakes and had to bring the rest home.
The cakes aren't anything great - you'll find better at 85° C Cafe - but I do like the scones a lot. And the sandwiches are pretty tasty, but the portions are pretty small. Nevertheless, it's still worth the trip, if just once in a while.
Smith & Hsu
www.smithandhsu.com/en/intro.php
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 5, No. 33
(02) 2459-5899
