Better Late Than Never: Thanksgiving Part 2

I wanted to post about Thanksgiving earlier, but apparently Photobucket decided it hated me as well, because it wouldn't load any of my pictures. And Blogger was already being difficult. But after much weeping and fist shaking, and thanks to the kind comments left by people in my previous post, Photobucket, Blogger and I are all friends again. For now.

Anyway, onto Thanksgiving!

Here's our game plan. Yes, Luke actually scripted out a game plan, which I thoroughly endorse! Was that dorky? Don't answer that.

And here is what we made:

(cheddar and scallion biscuits)

(she-jump-up pot)

(sweet potato spears with bacon and scallion vinaigrette)

(cornbread, cranberry and sausage stuffing)

This is our Fantastic Roasted Chicken, which is indeed fantastic. And a picture of our spread. We also made green beans with ginger butter, and squash soup, both of which are in the bottom left hand corner.

And now we are still eating leftovers.

Blogger Hates Me

Blogger, why have you forsaken me? Why is it that when I create my posts and then view them in the preview, they look perfectly fine, and - dare I say - even pretty, but then when I publish them, they look nothing like what it looked like in preview mode? Why won't you center my pictures, even though I center them when I upload them, and they look centered when I preview them?

Why do I keep setting my font to "verdana," but then when I type, it's actually "trebuchet?" Why? Why? Then I have to click the font button a million times until I give myself corpal tunnel syndrome.

And then why do you randomly space my first paragraph 1.5 spaces, but then everything else is single spaced? I do not want it to be single spaced.

I don't know, Blogger. You and I do not seem to be getting along lately. We may have to take a break. You're giving me a facial tic.

A Wedneday Night Dinner

The best thing about living in Taipei is that we have the sort of lifestyle here that allows us to eat out several nights a week - something that time and money never allowed us to do back in the States. Here's a dinner we had last Wednesday:

(clockwise from top: deep fried soft shell crab, spicy tuna,

eel, shrimp and avocado roll, sirloin beef with mushrooms)

This fine Wednesday night dinner was at A-Plus Sake Bar, right by the Eslite bookstore on Dunhua. Good food; prices not bad considering you're eating sushi.

And if you finish eating before 8:00, head over to Ginjer, just a short walk away. Here you find an assortment of cupcakes (50NT each; buy 5 get one free), with flavors like chocolate chocolate, pear, and carrot cake. This was the first time I've had cupcakes in almost a year, I think, and after biting into the chocolate chocolate I remembered how much I like cupcakes, especially ones that are moist and oh-so-chocolate-y.

(We bought several different flavors to try,
but the clear winner was definitely the chocolate chocolate.)

So that was our Wednesday night dinner. Not too shabby for Hump Day.

A-Plus Dining Sake Bar
AnHe Road, Section 1, No. 33
(02) 2731-9266

Ginjer
http://www.ginjer.com/
Dunhua South Road, Section 1, Lane 223, No. 20
(02) 8773-3061

Another Thanksgiving Idea

T minus two days until Thanksgiving! Originally, I was going to post a bunch of links to recipes that we've used for side dishes, but then I decided that it's not like our recipes are all that special, and it's not like it's all that hard for you to google "mashed potatoes," (actually, try googling "smashed potatoes" if you want something a little different).

Instead, if I were to recommend ONE recipe that's always been a success, it would be this:

Provencal Tomato Potato Gratin

This is probably my favorite side dish ever. It's basically just roasted tomato and potato, but don't let the simplicity fool you. It's still very delicious and bursting with flavor. The downside is that it does take a little longer to make, but what's Thanksgiving without some slaving over the hot stove.

The other good thing about this recipe is that you can find all the ingredients here in Taiwan. Luke and I have been running around frantically these past few days trying to gather ingredients for our (psuedo)Thanksgiving dinner, an activity which is starting to make me want to claw my eyes out every time I think having to take yet another trip to the grocery store. Anyone know where we can find buttermilk (we've already tried Jason's, CitySuper, etc.)? Or unsalted peanuts for under 300NT? Or are we just kidding ourselves, trying to cook a Thanksgiving dinner here in Taipei?

Well, wish us luck, and look for pictures to come!

abstract poet: Japanese BBQ takeout

So I got a phone call from Emily at around 6:00 a couple nights ago and found out she was ditching me for dinner. Doh! An empty fridge and no dinner date? In suburban New Jersey this would be a minor crisis, as I’d be forced to choose between dying a variety of slow deaths: fast food, bad Chinese takeout, Chili’s-to-go, etc.

But never fear! I live in Taipei, where a wide array of tasty, inexpensive and only moderately unhealthy takeout options are always literally just down the block. Down the block for us usually means walking down Section 5 of Zhongxiao E. Rd. to Lane 30 of Yongji Rd. (there’s a Crown & Fancy bakery/coffee shop at the corner), where there are a number of interesting food stands and little hole-in-the-wall spots.

Lately I’ve been much enamored with a little shop, about a five-minute walk down this lane, that specializes in Japanese-style BBQ. There’s no English sign, but the name of the place is 烤師傳 (Kao Shi Zhuan), which I guess translates to something like BBQ Master (fluent Chinese readers, correct me if I’m wrong).

Anyhow, if you like meat (and boy do I like meat), this place is great. They cook everything on a hot charcoal (I believe) grill, with the flames shooting up and everything, and you can pick from a wide selection. I highly recommend the BBQ Chicken Leg set（和風烤雞腿飯):

(sorry for the craptastic Photobooth photos)

It comes with a few generous pieces of grilled BBQ chicken leg (with not much bone to deal with), some green beans, half an egg, some bamboo shoots, a slice of sausage, and rice.

The BBQ here is nice and smoky-tasting, like the ideal of what you try to attain when you’re sitting in front of a campfire with your buddies. The marinade is flavorful without being too sweet and without overwhelming the natural flavors of the meat. I happen to like my meat to have just a little bit of a burnt flavor, and as far as I’m concerned they get it just right.

For only NT$89, it’s really quite a good deal. They also have rice sets that come with grilled beef or chicken breast or eel or a couple different kinds of pork. In the future I want to try their regular BBQ beef set (NT$69) and their garlicky grilled salt pork set (蒜香烤鹹豬肉飯, NT$89). You can also order grilled meat and vegetables a la carte, on skewers or otherwise, for about NT$30 apiece and up. The pork skewer I got one time was juicy and just the right amount of fatty.

There are maybe three little tables inside, so it seems like most of their business is takeout, and if you go by around dinnertime there’s often a sizable crowd of people waiting outside for their orders.

Incidentally, ordering consists of checking what you want on a slip of paper, and it’s all in Chinese, so be forewarned. If you call and order over NT$500 worth, I think they deliver.

On this particular evening, I also picked up an NT$15 xie ke huang (or “yellow crab shell,” which is really a baked sesame pastry with scallions inside) from a vendor across the street.

For about three U.S. dollars for everything, it didn’t end up being too shabby of a dinner at all.

烤師傳
Yonji Rd., Lane 30, Alley 151, No. 2-1, Taipei
(02) 2746-6632
11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.

Another Roasted Chicken Recipe

Quick post: here's another roasted chicken recipe by Jamie Oliver to consider making in lieu of turkey for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of this - surprising considering that we've made this a ton of times - but I swear, this recipe is a guaranteed hit. Everyone we've ever served this to loves it.

A few notes:

*You can find prosciutto at either Jason's (in the basement of 101) or CitySuper (in the basement of the new Sogo on Fuxing).

*If you can't find celeriac, or don't like it, you can substitute it with a couple of large carrots.

*Jamie's recipe says that the 2lb chicken will yield six servings, but I find this a little odd. At most, I think the 2lb chicken may yield three servings - unless you and your five other guests are on diets and want only teeny tiny portions. I would suggest getting a medium sized chicken if you want to feed more to your guests - you don't even need to adjust the proportions of the butter mixture, as it comes out to probably a little more than necessary for the 2lb chicken. This doesn't mean you need to make less of it for the 2lber though: as my husband always says, you can never have too much butter.

*If you have a small oven (does anyone in Taipei actually have a regular oven? Can I be your friend?) that cooks from the top, then you'll probably need to cover the top of the chicken in aluminum foil for the last 10 minutes or so of cooking time. Just keep an eye on it, and if you feel like it's getting too brown on top, cover it up.

Enjoy!

A Very Taipei Thanksgiving

Last year for Thanksgiving Luke and I sat in Dan Ryan's, sadly eating our plate of overcooked turkey and too salty mashed potatoes. And it was just ONE plate. Contrary to popular belief, Thanksgiving is not the celebration of the day our forefathers came together with the Native Americans in giving thanks for their bounty. No, Thanksgiving is a holiday in celebration of gluttony. It is a day where Americans can actually feel good about stuffing themselves until they've swelled to twice their normal size. So, as you can imagine, it was blasphemy to us last year that we would only be served one measly plate (not to mention the ridiculous amount of money we paid for it), but what could we do?

The answer is, this year we are having our own Thanksgiving celebration with some friends. Granted, it won't be quite the same as the way we celebrate in the States, being that our oven is really just a glorified toaster oven, but surely (hopefully?) it'll be better than the way we celebrated last year. At the very least, we'll get seconds!

This week I've decided to dedicate some posts to those of you - here and abroad - who want to try your hand at cooking Thanksgiving dinner, or at least contributing to it. We're actually not making turkey for ours (again, one of the pitfalls of having an EZ Bake oven instead of a real one), and have decided instead to roast some chicken. Here's a simple recipe that I found in one of my favorite cookbooks, How to Cook Without a Book:

The No-Hassle Roast Chicken Dinner

Serves 4 (if you're using a 3 or 3 1/2 lb chicken; our chicken was about 2 1/2 lbs, which was enough for 2 people)

Basically, the secret of this recipe is that you cut out the entire back of the chicken (called butterflying). By using this method, the chicken cooks a lot quicker, and it's also easier to season.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon fine-grated lemon zest
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons minced rosemary leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lemon

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Rinse the chicken, cut out its back, flatten it with your palm or fist, and pat it dry. Then transfer it to a foil-lined roasting tray - make sure it's large enough to hold the chicken (and vegetables, if you're also roasting them along with the chicken) and shallow enough so that the chicken will brown well.

3. Mix above ingredients together in small bowl.

4. With the chicken on the roasting pan, pull back the skin from each leg, thigh and breast, and rub the herb paste under the loosened skin. If you want, you can add some of the mixture on top of the skin as well.

5. Pull the skin back in place and drizzle with a little olive oil, or rub with softened butter. Make sure the chicken skin is completely dry if you're rubbing it with the butter.

6. Roast chicken for 30 minutes. (If you're using a smaller chicken, then you need to adjust your cooking time. I don't know exactly how long we roasted ours for, but just make sure you keep an eye on it.)

7. Squeeze lemon over chicken and return to oven and continue to roast until juices run clear, about 5 - 10 minutes longer.

If you want to roast vegetables along with the chicken, tomatoes and potatoes go well with it. Arrange potatoes (halved, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper) in a single layer in the pan and roast alongside the chicken. After 20 minutes, add tomatoes (halved lengthwise, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper) cut side up. Continue to roast until the chicken is done, squeezing lemon juice on at the appropriate time, for 20 minutes longer.

And ta-da!


This method also makes it super easy to carve - just take some kitchen shears or a chef's knife, and cut down the middle. Then cut the skin holding each leg to the breast, and you're good to go.

People Restaurant

I hate trendy restaurants - I don't see the appeal in them at all. Perhaps it's just me, but the idea of eating in a cavernous, dimly lit warehouse while listening to trance music just isn't my thing. But, sometimes you have to overlook that in pursuit of good food.

The ambiance at People Restaurant is almost unbearably trendy (but that's probably just me, as my trendiness tolerance is very low), what with the dark lighting and the minimalist decor and the pounding music. However, there are two things that save it: 1) snobbery and pretension are nowhere to be found and 2) the fusion cuisine is pretty decent.

I usually don't pay all that much attention to presentation, but the presentation at People Restaurant definitely caught my eye. In particular, this appetizer:


This is a vegetable salad with fried pork rolls (NT280), and my favorite part of the meal. I liked plucking each piece of food out of the vase and dipping it into one of the two dipping sauces. The pork rolls were deep fried but not oily and the pork inside was quite tasty.

We also ordered the fried shrimp with pomelo and lime sauce, tofu with miso sauce, and kou rou (fatty pork). All entrees are in the low to upper 300NT range. Out of these dishes, I liked the fried shrimp the best, especially with the tangy sauce, though I thought the shrimp itself could have been more flavorful.




Then for dessert Luke and I shared a tiramisu (about 200NT or so), which was a little different from traditional tiramisu, but in a better way - the cake part was thicker, and the sauce was creamier. There might not have been as strong a coffee taste, but we were satisfied nonetheless.


There's also a bar/lounge on the other side of the restaurant, where they serve all kinds of crazy drinks. We didn't order any, but from what we saw of other people's drinks, some of them are pretty out there. There was one that looked like it was served in a giant glass bubble, and had all this smoke billowing out of it. I think that was called - aptly enough - Smoke Bomb.

So while I don't think People's Restaurant is a place where I would return to all that often, I do think it's still worth a look.

People Restaurant
Anhe Road, Section 2, No. 191, B1
(02) 2735-2288

饌王: Beef Noodle Soup

I can't believe I've been in Taiwan for so long, and it was only a couple of nights ago that I had tomato based beef noodle soup. It was a revelation. Just wondrous. The tomato flavor is subtle enough that it doesn't overwhelm the beef flavor, but still strong enough to give the soup that something extra. I really, really recommend it. And where can you get this divine tomato beef noodle soup, you ask? Why, at 饌王 (Chuan Wang), last year's first place winner of the yearly beef noodle soup competition*.


For 180NT, you can get a nice big (ok, medium sized, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? And it's still a substantial amount) bowl of steaming beef noodle soup (it comes in tomato, regular, or spicy broths), with pieces of tender beef and pickled vegetables heaped on top. A small bowl - but why would you deny yourself? - is around 150NT; large is about 200.


The most expensive item on the menu is "gan ban mian," which is a dry noodle (NT330). Luke ordered this last time, and he said it was pretty good. It's sort of like zha jiang mian, but with a lot more different types of meat:


It also came with a soup and some pig knuckle. And some plastic gloves so you don't soil your hands as you're mixing everything around. So thoughtful.


Has anyone been to the beef noodle soup competition yet? Any other recommendations? Let me know!

*Updated to add: I heard that they cheated in last year's competition - you could vote online, and they flooded the polls and voted for themselves! I don't know if it was psychological or what, but then the next time I went, my meal didn't seem to taste as good.

饌王
www.chuan-wang.com
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, No. 94, 2nd Floor
(02) 2711-0388

Gusto

To be honest, no me gusto Gusto (sorry, that was just too hard to resist). It wasn't bad, but my reaction to most of what we ordered there was, Eh.

A look at what we ordered:





The paella (about NT260, prices vary on which type you order) was decent, and came with a good amount for two people, so I guess I can't really complain. Fine, I have one complaint, which was that I wasn't a fan of the huge chunks of broccoli randomly thrown in. Our sampler salad of tomato, mushroom, grilled chicken and seafood salads (NT240) also wasn't bad, but really just ok. The mackerels were disappointingly tasteless, but the spicy meatballs were not. They were tender and flavorful, and the one tapa I would recommend.


Dessert was interesting - we ordered the baked apple - and surprisingly, the drinks were my favorite part of the meal. I ordered the Madrid hot chocolate, which wasn't too sweet, but plenty chocolate-y. Luke had the Spanish coffee, which he also seemed to enjoy, especially the pieces of lime zest they shaved over the whipped cream on top.

To be fair, we did go there later in the evening - about 8:00 or so - and they had run out of many of the other tapas. The restaurant only orders enough ingredients for one day at a time, so that everything is fresh. So perhaps those dishes that we missed out on were better. But then again, we randomly ran into my cousin here, and she said the dishes she ordered weren't much better.

If you decide to try this place out and have a better experience than I did, do let me know. I like tapas, and I was saddened that this place wasn't what I wanted it to be.

Gusto
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/gusto-tapa
Fuxing South Road, Section 1, Lane 107, Alley 5, No. 23
(02) 2731-3267