hao chr 好吃

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye

2008-03-11T13:04:00.003+08:00

Well, my friends, the siren call of America is singing to us and we can no longer resist. Our time in Taiwan is coming to an end soon and we're moving back to the States.

I'm sad to say that once we're back I probably won't be updating this blog anymore, but never say never, right? In any case, I'll still keep Hao Chr up and hopefully it can still be a resource for those of you who live here or those who you are visiting.

We're dedicating these last few weeks to going back and savoring our favorite meals before we go. But I was wondering, does anyone have any recommendations for foods or restaurants that we HAVE TO experience before we leave? Like, our Taiwan experience wouldn't be complete had we not had these foods? Post in the comments or drop me a line!

Pot Pie Cafe

2008-03-04T16:01:00.006+08:00

Pot Pie Cafe has become our backup when we're not in the mood for hotpot, but still want some "soul warming food," as Luke likes to say. This homey little restaurant on Fuxing is indeed a great place to go when you're in the need for some comfort food, especially of the fresh from the oven, piping hot variety.

As evidenced by its name, Pot Pie Cafe dishes up a selection of pot pies, including favorites such as shepherd's pie and chicken with mushroom. For 280NT, these pot pies come with a bowl of clam chowder, a side salad, and coffee or tea. Or you can opt to skip the clam chowder and coffee/tea and just order the pot pie itself, with pies ranging from 150-180NT. Once you get your pie, dig into the fluffy mashed potato topping and meat filling. It's great.

(shephard's pie)

The menu also has other British fare like Fish and Chips (good, but too much for me to finish, as the portions are pretty hearty). They also serve breakfast all day, including the Full English Breakfast which comes with two eggs sunny side up, grilled sausages, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, bacon, toast and a grilled tomato (for 380NT). While satisfying if one is dying of hunger, as far as breakfasts go, I'd say there are better deals elsewhere. Stick with the pot pies.

(full English breakfast)

Oh, and make sure you treat yourself to dessert. Here's the apple and walnut crumble (150NT) we ordered:

The only minor quibble I have the place is that the only CD Pot Pie Cafe seems to own is Dido. Don't get me wrong, I like Dido for those moments where I just want to stare out the window at the falling rain and think anguished thoughts about unrequited love, but perhaps not so much on an endless loop throughout my dining experience. But other than that, Pot Pie Cafe is two thumbs up.

Pot Pie Cafe
www.potpie.com.tw
Fuxing South Road, Section 2, No. 325
(02) 2736-0905

Ali Baba

2008-02-25T11:20:00.004+08:00

Due to a stomach bug that has been pestering me and Luke for the last week or so, we've been reduced to eating one tasteless meal a day, where we spend the majority of it updating each other on our health status, like we're 80 year old geriatrics. It's been a rather sad couple of weeks for us. We haven't been eating anything very exciting lately, hence the lack of posts. We are starting to feel better though, so hopefully I will have some new restaurants to report upon soon.

Before we got sick, we tried Ali Baba's. We were in the mood for Indian food, but we didn't want to go to Aleja again, so we decided to try something new. But actually, I ended up wishing that we had gone to Aleja instead. It's slightly cheaper, and in my opinion, the quality is better. To be honest, I don't know very much about Indian food at all, so it's hard for me to tell if something is authentic or not. I just know what tastes good and what doesn't. Here is what tasted good at Ali Baba's:

(papadan)

(garlic naan)

(kama matter)

For our appetizer, we ordered papadan (90NT), which was a nice snack to munch on before our main courses came out. It was light and crispy, and topped with chopped onions and tomatoes. The garlic naan (70NT) was also pretty good, light and chewy, not too dense. And of course, garlicky. And I thought the kama matter (280NT) that we ordered as one of our main courses was pretty decent as well - nicely spiced, fragrant.

But the mutter paneer (about 260NT), which is always one of my favorite dishes to order at Indian restaurants, was a disappointment. The sauce was way too salty, and the spinach and cheese had a weird, slightly bitter taste to it.

So in conclusion, I found Alibaba to be pretty much of a let-down. Anyone have any other recommendations for good Indian restaurants?

Ali Baba
www.ali88.com.tw
Nanking East Road, Section 2, No. 56-58, 2F
(02) 2567-7163

Heng Ji Hotpot

2008-02-12T00:22:00.001+08:00

I find myself wondering quite a bit these days if I'm ever going to see the sun again. It's been what, three weeks now? of straight rain? And I can't believe that it's actually cold - we were in denial for a long time, sitting around our house wearing three sweaters, hats, scarves, etc. until finally our friend who was here from the East Coast informed us that is was in fact legitimately cold. Now we have a space heater that I spend my days parked squarely in front of.

But the upside of all this cold, drizzly weather is that it's great for hotpot! Growing up, we never had hotpot very often because my dad said it was like drinking water with some meats and vegetables thrown in, which I believe is actually something called "soup." But in any case, my dad didn't like hotpot, so it was a pretty rare occurrence in our house. But now we're here in Taiwan, and I'm prepared to take full advantage of being here to eat all the hotpot my stomach desires.

Tonight we hit up Heng Ji (亨記), located behind the old Sogo on Zhongxiao. I like this kind of hotpot - the kind that allows you just to choose what kinds of broth you want, and then you decide what you want to put in it and it's all you can eat - as opposed to hotpot places that come with set platters. I thought the selection here was pretty good also - there were the different kinds of sliced meats, seafood such as shrimp, oysters, and crabs, veggies, meatballs, noodles, different tofus, different fishballs. Oh! And they had ice-cream, which was better than I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be that icy, fake tasting ice-cream they often serve at places with free ice-cream, but the ice-cream here was not bad at all.

(our hotpot "liao")

We picked the pork based broth and the "ma la," which translates loosely to something like, "numbingly spicy." Oddly enough, even though I know what "ma la" means in Chinese, I didn't think it was going to be that spicy and so I foolishly took a big sip of it. Then I paid dearly for my mistake and spent the next several minutes gulping down many glasses of plum juice, which supposedly cuts down on the heat, but really didn't help that much. I seriously thought about just stuffing some tissues in my mouth to try to absorb some of the spiciness. So yeah, that "ma la" is indeed very spicy, to say the least.

I just looked at the weather forecast and all I see are little boxes filled with clouds for the rest of this week. Sigh. But in the meantime, go enjoy some hotpot!

EDIT: I just wrote this whole thing and I realized that I forgot to mention how much this costs! It's 389NT plus 10% service charge (cheaper on weekdays during lunch and late night).

Heng Ji (亨記) - Ding Hao branch (頂好店)
www.huang-chi-mala.com.tw
Fuxing South Road, Section 1, Lane 107, No. 40
(02) 8771 - 8960

Dozo

2008-02-11T18:17:00.001+08:00

Hello friends. Sorry about the lack of updates lately - a good friend of mine has been here visiting, and I've been busy showing her the best Taipei has to offer. And of course a big part of that has been introducing her to the fine cuisine here. On her last night here, my friend generously took us out to dinner and let us pick the restaurant. She said to pick something that we normally might not go to, so we decided on Dozo.

Dozo is a pretty upscale, trendy restaurant that offers a variety of Japanese food, from sushi to hotpot, at surprisingly decent prices. We ordered kimchi stuffed with chopped sushi tuna (180NT), a sashimi platter (420NT), okonomiyaki (like a cabbage/cheese/meat pancake for 160NT), skewers of different types of grilled meat (400NT), and deep fried soft shell crab (200NT). By the way, these prices are all approximates, as my friend was paying and it seemed a little rude to write down the price of everything in front of her. But if memory serves me right, everything we ordered was give or take 10NT from the above prices.

My favorites were the sashimi platter, and the deep fried crab. The sushi was fresh and had that melt-in-your mouth tender quality that I love in sushi. And the crab was very well done as well, and came with a tasty, a little sweet, a little spicy dipping sauce. The pancake was good, but only in small quantities, as the cheese got to be overwhelming for me after awhile. The skewers were a bit of a hit-or-miss - I thought some of the meats, like the leeks wrapped in beef, were a bit tough, but other meats, like the chicken and chicken butts(!) were grilled to perfection and nice and juicy. Oh, and I didn't particularly like the kimchi. My friend (who is Korean), said that it was very authentic, which I didn't doubt, but I couldn't taste the fish at all in it - the kimchi was just too overpowering.

(kimchi ball with chopped sushi tuna)

(okonomiyaki)

(sashimi platter)

(deep fried soft shell crab)

(grilled meats on skewers)

For dessert we ordered fried mochi with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream (180NT), which was a hit with everyone. The mochi was only very lightly fried, so it wasn't oily at all, and went perfectly with the vanilla ice-cream. Yum.

Oh, and another plus of Dozo is that it's open until 3am. But you know what I liked the most about this place? It's that you know if this restaurant were in New York City, the prices would be triple of what it costs here, not to mention that all the waiters would be looking down at us because we were wearing jeans and sneakers. (Luke, in fact, walked in wearing one of those furry hats with the ear flaps and a green jacket, making him look like he was fresh from a hunting expedition.) I've really grown to appreciate just how refreshing the dining experience is in Taiwan, at least compared to the States. Even at the fanciest restaurants that I've been to, people don't have to be worried about being looked down upon if they aren't dressed to the nines. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against dressing up, but I am against waiters snickering at you behind their hands just because you're not wearing Armani during your meal. In Taipei, I've yet to encounter a snobby waiter. I love how you can just walk in to a restaurant with casual clothes, pay decent prices, and enjoy a nice meal. Isn't that what the dining experience is supposed to be all about?

And that's what we had at Dozo.

Dozo
Guangfu South Road, No. 102 (close to the Sun Yet-Sun Memorial)
(02) 2778-1135

Alleycat's Pizza

2008-01-28T18:20:00.001+08:00

This weather just makes me sluggish. All I want to do is lay on my couch (huddled under several thick blankets - it's cold!), drink hot tea and watch crappy TV. I also want to tell you about the pizza at Alleycats, but my brain can't form very long sentences right now. Blah.

Anyway, Alleycats. It's pizza, it's good, it's pretty cheap (a basic Margherita pizza is 80NT, and then it's 15 or 25NT depending on the topping you get; there are also several pre-set pizzas for 150NT), it's piping hot out of the oven, what more do I have to say?

Oh, and if you really can't get off your couch, they even deliver - well, at least the the Zhongxiao branch does (not sure about the other branches). Unfortunately, though, their radius seems to be fairly small, as we live pretty close to the Zhongxiao branch, but we're still outside their delivery zone.

Alleycats
www.alleycatspizza.com
various locations at:

Nei Hu
Cheng Gong Road, Section 5, No. 67-1
(02) 2630 - 6278

Tien Mu
Chung Shan North Road, Section 6, Lane 35, No. 31
(02) 2835 - 6491

Li Shui Street, No. 6 B1
(02) 2321 - 8949

Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, Lane 248, No. 2
(02) 2731 - 5225

Song Ren Road, No. 285
(02) 8780 - 5421

Forkers

2008-01-27T17:00:00.001+08:00

I know that in my last post it made it seem like I'm miserable here, but the truth of the matter is that I'm not. Sometimes I just get grouchy, I guess. In fact, there are a lot of things I appreciate about Taiwan, such as how easy and convenient it is here. Like, let's say I get a craving for a good hamburger. Then I can just hop onto the MRT, take it to Zhongxiao Dunhua on the blue line, and right around the corner is a fantastic new hamburger joint named Forkers where I can stuff my face to my heart's delight. It's ironic because back in the States, if I were to get this same craving, the only choices I'd have would be between McDonald's, Burger King, or TGIFridays. Funny how I had to move all the way across the world to get a good burger.

Forkers has been open for about a couple months now, though by the way their business is doing you'd think they've been around for longer. But it's not surprising that they're doing well. Just take a look at this hamburger here:

That's the Australian burger (260NT), which comes topped with bacon, cheese, a fried egg, beets, grilled onions, and a special barbecue sauce, as well as the usual lettuce and tomato. Yeah, it's a lot, but as Luke says, "Delicious!" I've also had their mushroom cheeseburger (good) and their fajita burger (good, but spicy). All their burgers come with fries (which if you add an extra 40NT or 50NT depending on what you order, you can get poutine, tex-mex or chili cheese fries). You also get a choice of salad with your meal (I like the Hawaiian Pasta Salad) and a drink.

If you're not in the mood for a burger, Forkers also offers other non-burger fare, like the grilled chicken quesadillas (260NT) that I ordered last time we went. It wasn't bad, but I do think that their burgers are definitely their strong point.

So if you're ever craving a hamburger with all the works, head on over to Forkers!

Forkers
www.forkers.tw
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, Lane 223, Alley 10, No. 8
(02) 2771-9285

What I'll Miss

2008-01-22T13:32:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'll miss about Taiwan when this adventure comes to an end, and the answer is...not all that much, actually. Sorry, Taiwan. It's nothing against you personally - well, ok, it is, but the amount of bitchin' and moanin' you inspire in me is too much for this post, and probably even this blog. Anyway, I guess I've been feeling rather homesick lately - I just miss my family and friends and Target so much. Then I read on Shu Flies about how she too has been feeling homesick, so she tries to think of things that she'll miss about Taiwan when she leaves. So I decided to try the same thing to try to make myself appreciate it more here, but my list looks like this:

1. the food
2. ?
3. ?
4. Come on, there has to be SOMETHING you'll miss besides the food! God, is that all you think about?
5. ?
6. Yeah, I guess I'll mostly miss the food.

Oh, the food in Taiwan. So tasty and so cheap. I will definitely miss so much eating good food, food that is simply prepared and just so honest, you know what I mean? I was recently watching Anthony Bourdain's show "No Reservations," and he said something along the lines of how you can tell a lot about a country by how the poor eat, and I think that's so true. I mean, we're not poor by any means here, but we're certainly not making the big bucks. And yet it's so easy for us to go out and eat a meal that fills our tummies and tastes good and is healthy, and all at such reasonable prices. Like last night, we went to Tu Hsiao Yueh, and our meal came out to 370NT, even after ordering two bowls of danzhi mian (50NT) with a meatball (10NT) and a hard-boiled egg (15NT) added on, plus a plate of tofu (30NT), some vegetables (40NT), and fried shrimp rolls (100NT).

See, these are the times when I feel warm and fuzzy towards Taiwan, instead of the weeping and gnashing of teeth of usually occurs when I think too hard about what I'm doing here. I miss my meal at Tu Hsaio Yueh already.

Tu Hsiao Yueh
www.iddi.com.tw
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, Lane 245, Alley 32, No. 36
(02) 2773 - 1244

Mmm, cookies!

2008-01-14T22:14:00.000+08:00

Today was rainy and cold, the sort of weather I thought I'd left behind back in the East Coast. But it's also the sort of weather that's perfect for baking cookies. Here's a recipe from the 2001 Food and Wine's Best of the Best cookbook - a cookbook I highly recommend, by the way. Food and Wine compiles what they deem to the 100 best recipes of each year, and this particular recipe for snipdoodles is from Christopher Kimball's The Dessert Bible.

Snipdoodles
makes 20 to 24 cookies

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened but still firm
1 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Beat the butter and 1 1/2 cup of the sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer or with a wooden spoon until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes. (Having neither an electric mixer nor a wooden spoon - I know, we're really rolling ghetto style here in Taiwan - I just used a rubber spatula, and I was prepared to be mixing all the live long day, but it wasn't too bad.) Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated. Add the milk and stir to incorporate.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the next five ingredients (flour through nutmeg) and then stir into the butter-sugar mixture. Chill dough for 2 hours. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

3. Shape dough into large, walnut-size balls, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Mix together the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Dip tops of dough balls in sugar-cinnamon mixture. Place balls 3 inches apart on lined baking sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet after 6 minutes. (I actually didn't do this because my oven is so small I didn't think it would make a difference, and it didn't seem to.)

4. Cookies will appear undercooked when removed from the oven; the centers will still be very moist and light. Remove cookies to a rack; as they cool, they will firm up. Repeat with a new sheet of parchment paper until all the dough is baked.

And enjoy!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Stinky Tofu

2008-01-08T11:24:00.000+08:00

I remember the first time my mom bought home stinky tofu when I was around nine years old, my brother and I flipped out. "What is that smell?!" we shrieked, and proceeded to make non-stop commentary about the tofu, which mainly included the words "gross" and "poop." 15-something years later, when I went to Taiwan for the first time since I was a baby and tried stinky tofu again, my description of it still included the words "gross," "poop," and perhaps some other more colorful language.

Then recently Luke and I were contacted about writing an article about Taiwanese street food, and what's an article about street food in Taipei without a mention of stinky tofu? A friend recommended that we try Kou Xuan Pin in the Tong Hua Street night market, and off we went, with me bracing myself all the while.

What a pleasant surprise! The tofu we had wasn't what I expected at all. The first bite was flavorful and spicy, but not too pungent. The "stinky" flavor was still there, but more in the background, not overwhelming the way I sometimes find it to be. It was really good. As the owner explained to us, they simmer the tofu in a broth with 37 different kinds of herbal medicine (don't worry, the tofu doesn't have a medicinal taste at all, and in fact herbal medicine is very common in Chinese cooking). And for 65NT for two generous pieces of tofu in said broth, it's really a bargain.

So thanks, Kou Xuan Pin, for making me like stinky tofu now!

Kou Xuan Pin (look for a brightly lit yellow storefront)
Tonghua St. Night Market
Lijiang St., No. 19-1
(02) 2707-1739

Shin Yeh Table

2008-01-07T12:26:00.000+08:00

About a month ago, Luke and I got to meet the awesome joanh of a hungry girl's guide to taipei, and we decided to have dinner at Shin Yeh Table, since none of us had ever been there before. Shin Yeh Table is sort of like Shin Yeh's hipper, younger sister. It offers a lot of the same things as Shin Yeh (like our all time favorite, the gua bao), as well as a drink menu (which I believe Shin Yeh doesn't have) and a more extensive dessert menu. The prices are cheaper also - between the three of us, we ordered about seven dishes and the bill only came out to be around 1000NT. Also, Shin Yeh is open until 2am, so if you ever get the late night munchies, it's the perfect place to go to satisfy your hunger. I'm not sure if it's like this every time, but the one time we went after 10, all drinks were buy one get one free, and all dishes were 40% off.

Some of the dishes that I enjoyed:

(deep fried soft shell crab)

(fried rice with salted radish)

(fried mushrooms with mussels)

(egg omelet with salted radish)

(I didn't try this, but I was wondering if anyone could clear this up for me - do people really drink vinegar as a beverage? Is it good? I don't know, but "prune tea vinegar" doesn't really sound all that appetizing.)

Shin Yeh Table
www.shinyehtable.com
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, No. 201, 2nd Fl.
(02) 2778 - 8712

Ruth Reichl's Mushroom Soup

2008-01-06T22:25:00.000+08:00

Speaking of mushrooms, here's a recipe for mushroom soup from Ruth Reichl's fantastic memoir Comfort Me with Apples. In the book, Reichl talks about how she made this soup every day during a particularly hard time in her life, because it's the most soothing soup she knew how to make. "It is the most perfect prescription for those in need of solace," Reichl writes. While I'm not experiencing any particular hardship now - well, I am sad that the writer's strike is still going on and there are no more new episodes of Heroes and 30 Rock for me to watch - this recipe is still great, especially for cold weather.

Mushroom Soup
Serves 4

1/2 lb mushrooms
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 small onion, diced
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup beef broth
2 cups half-and-half
salt, pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 bay leaf

Thinly slice mushrooms.

Melt butter in a heavy pan. When foam subsides, add the onion and sauté until golden. Add the mushrooms and sauté until brown.

Stir in the flour, and then slowly add the broth, stirring constantly.

Heat the half-and-half in a saucepan or in the microwave. Add it to the mushrooms, along with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and bay leaf. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes; do not boil.

Remove the bay leaf and serve.

The only problem I've encountered making this recipe has been in Taiwan, where beef broth is hard to come by. I've substituted using this beef stew paste I found in the Mitsugoshi supermarket (which came out fine) and vegetable bouillon (which wasn't so good). I guess you can also try using mushroom broth as a substitute? In any case, I still highly recommend it!

Mushroom Hotpot

2008-01-03T16:57:00.001+08:00

What is this new and unfamiliar feeling I've been experiencing for the past few days here in Taipei? Is it -- could I actually be...cold? I can't figure out if I'm legitimately cold -- I mean, it has been in the 50s (my East Coast friends in the States, don't hate me) -- or if I've just grown so used to being hot here that anything below 60F feels cold to me. (I drove my parents nuts when I went home over the summer to visit: "What? Why do you have the AC on? It's only 85 degrees out! I'm freezing!)

In any case, yesterday we had the perfect meal to fight off the chilliness and our resulting sniffles: mushroom hotpot! Seriously, I could not think of a more perfect meal on a cold day.

Doesn't that look good? Don't you all want some mushroom hotpot now? The broth is fragrant and because it's chock full of mushrooms, it's also super healthy! Our server explained that the various mushrooms prevented cancer and wrinkles and aided in digestion.

There are different types of set meals that you can pick from, depending on how big your party is, how much you want to eat, and how fancy you want your hotpot to be. Our set meal for two people was 520NT, and for that amount we were served an appetizer (cold mushrooms with soy sauce and wasabi dipping sauce), man tou (steamed buns with condensed milk), three different kinds of mushrooms that went into the broth, a plate of sliced beef, vegetables, and gong wan (which are sorta like meatballs) made with mushrooms and meat. Plus dessert (some kind of sweet soup). AND, the best part is, you can take the leftovers home, AND, they'll even add in extra soup! Some of you are probably rolling your eyes at my broadcasting this like it's groundbreaking news, because apparently this is standard practice at hotpot places, but I didn't know that and was super psyched. Plus you know you're all glumly eating your bein dongs for lunch, all jealous of me happily drinking my delicious mushroom soup.

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone! May this year be filled with many more good eats.

Mushroom Park Restaurant
www.baigu.com.tw
various locations, but the one we went to was at:
Renai Road, Section 4, Lane 71, No. 17
(02) 8773-3160

Fu Hang Dou Jiang

2007-12-17T16:48:00.000+08:00

A friend recommended that we check out Fu Hang Dou Jiang, and boy, am I glad we went! Watch out, Yong He Dou Jiang, there's a new rival in my heart for Number One Cheap and Tasty Breakfast Place.

You'll notice when you walk in that there are two lines. For those of you who can't read Chinese, the right line is for takeout, and the left is to stay. Also, these two lines can stretch for very long - sometimes all the way down the stairs (the restaurant is located on the 2nd floor) and out the door, from what I've heard. Part of the reason for that is because they're only open from 5:30am - 10:30am. The other part of the reason is because the food is delicious. We went on a Thursday morning, around 8:30, and the lines weren't too bad. Plus, they move pretty fast. But if you don't like waiting on long lines, then avoid going on the weekends.

Also, be forewarned that there is not a word of English to be found anywhere on the menu, and no one who works there can speak it. Pointing doesn't really help either, as there's not that much to point to. If you can't speak/read Chinese, I'd recommend bringing someone who can.

So what makes Fu Hang Dou Jiang so special, you ask? How is it better than Yong He Dou Jiang? Well, according to its owner, a nice 80 year old man who kept referring to my husband and I as "you Japanese tourists," the reason it's so good is because they use all traditional methods, bought over from Nanjing, which is where the owner is originally from. For example, instead of using yeast powder in their buns, they leaven it by using a piece of old dough. And, everything is made fresh, day of - the workers start preparing at 3am!

Another thing that stood out to me was that all the buns had this slightly sweet taste to it - really subtle, but definitely there. That's because they brush maltose sweet syrup on all their buns, so that they don't burn. What's that, you say? You don't know what maltose sweet syrup is? Well, I didn't either, and my google-fu failed me, as I wasn't able to find a very good definition. In any case, it's a syrup that gives all the buns a lovely golden color and a subtle sweet flavor .

Here's a look at what else we ordered:

(clockwise from top: salty dou jiang, shao bing you tiao, cold sweet dou jiang, dan bing.

By the way, the portion sizes are pretty large!)

So if you're an early riser, don't mind long lines, and/or want a cheap, fulfilling breakfast, I'd definitely recommend this place!

Fu Hang Dou Jiang Dian
Near Shandao Temple MRT (Exit 5)
Zhongxiao E. Rd. Sec. 1, No. 108, 2F
(02) 2392-2175

Restaurant Rundown

2007-12-09T19:56:00.000+08:00

I have this backlog of restaurants that I keep meaning to review, but then stuff like life and work and checking my Facebook every five seconds keep getting in the way. Damn you, Facebook, you're so addicting!

So here's a bunch of restaurants that I've been to in the past couple of months or so, but am too lazy to write an in-depth review for. So I'm just going to write a short review with a star rating, with the following criteria:

* = do not want, would rather eat my own vomit
** = pretty good
*** = delicious

Without further ado:

Mr. Paco's (Italian) **
Ren Ai Road, Section 4, Lane 345, Alley 4, No. 23
(02) 8771-3102

We ordered the pizza with anchovies, capers and olives. It was a tad on the salty side, because of the anchovies, but not too much so that it ruined it. It was also really cheesy. We also ordered the risotto with prosciutto and sun-dried tomatoes, which was pretty good. Maybe not as oozing and creamy as I'd like, but I've also learned to lower my standards for Taiwanese Italian.

Anzo (Japanese Tonkatsu) **
Fuxing North Road, Section 2, Lane 271, No. 2 (right by the Technology Building stop on the Muzha line)
(02) 2701-0298

You can order regular tonkatsu here, or get it fancied up in some way. Luke got his the traditional way, and mine was in a mushroom broth, which was light, yet still flavorful. It was a cold day (and for some reason the AC was on in the restaurant), so when my tonkatsu arrived in the bubbling broth, it really hit the spot.

Patio (Thai) ***
Dunhua Road, Section 1, Alley 247, No, 12
(02) 2731-5288

This restaurant used to be called Patara but for some inexplicable reason they changed their name to Patio, making it sound like an Italian restaurant instead. Order the pad thai (best I've ever had) and the lamb chops. They also have a unique pumpkin pudding dessert, with real pumpkin, not the kind you get from a can. Prices are a little more on the expensive side.

Makatoya (Ramen noodles) **
Civic Blvd., Section 4, No. 17 (right before the Breeze, if you're coming from the MRT)
(02) 2752-9393

What sets this place apart is that instead of making their broth from pork bones, which is what most other ramen places use, they make it from beef bones. I've only been here once, and I just ordered their original flavor at the suggestion of a friend, who said that it's the best. The side dishes - like kimchi or fried dumplings - were just eh.

Hmm, I didn't give anything one star. How lucky for me that I didn't have to eat my own vomit instead.

Respect the Coq!

2007-12-08T00:48:00.000+08:00

So I've really been enjoying Chubby Hubby's Singapore-based food blog, and he had a great post about how a lot of foodies tend to thumb their noses at that most generic (at least at a lot of restaurants in the States) of meats: chicken.

Was it Anthony Bourdain who said that chefs see chicken as the menu item for people who don't know what else to order? Anyway, Chubby Hubby gives a rather impassioned defense of chicken and ends it with a lovely recipe for his wife's version of Coq au Vin.

Coq au Vin is one of those daunting, oh-so-French sounding dishes that I've never even ordered, much less tried to make myself--and I really didn't even have any idea what it was supposed to taste like. But I was feeling ambitious and the recipe seemed simple (and made my mouth water just reading it), so I figured what the hey.

It'd be silly for me to copy and paste the whole recipe, so I'll just give the abbreviated version here. Oh, and I roughly halved the original recipe, since I figured 4 drumsticks is kinda sorta equal to 2 thighs (we couldn't find thighs), and I didn't want to end up with too much sauce for two people.

So first you need to chop up an onion and a clove of garlic, and dice a carrot and a few slices of bacon (pancetta would be better, but we live in Taiwan):

Okay, so maybe Mario Batali would mock me
for my uneven dicing, but I did my best.

Then, over medium heat, heat up a little bit of butter and olive oil in a heavy pot, put the bacon in and, after that gets some color, add the carrots, onions and garlic. Let the vegetables soften for five minutes or so, then, using some kind of slotted spoon, move everything in the pot to a bowl. In the oil that's left in the pot, brown the chicken on all sides. (Coq au Vin is normally made with rooster, but where was I going to get a rooster?)

Now turn the heat up, dump your veggies and bacon back in, and pour about half a bottle of Gewurztraminer (a sweet white wine) into the pot. Once it's boiling, turn the heat down and let everything gently simmer for about 25 minutes, flipping the chicken every so often.

When the chicken seems like it's done, fish it out and put it aside for now. Now add about a third of a pint of heavy cream (the recipe calls for double cream, but you can't easily get that in Taiwan or even the States).

Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar (optional) to taste. You'll need a good amount of salt and pepper, and depending on how sweet your wine is, you might want to leave the sugar out altogether. Add some chopped parsley (or dried parsley if you can't get a hold of fresh) and about a quarter pound of regular white mushrooms (cut into quarters). Now just let this sauce reduce and thicken.

Once the sauce is to your liking, just put the chicken back in and let it heat back up. What you end up with is this luxuriously creamy, subtly sweet sauce--and all the veggies and the bacon add different layers of flavor. And the chicken gets nice and tender, and absorbs some of the sweetness from the wine as well. Here's what it looked like on the plate:

Yeah, I know--it doesn't look super-appetizing. But it did taste good, I swear, especially with a nice loaf of French bread to soak up all the extra sauce and a glass of the Gewurztraminer we had left over. I don't know if anyone has suggestions for how to plate this more attractively.

And if I were to make this again, I'd try to cook the bacon a little bit longer than I did at the beginning--rendering more of the fat would have also meant there'd be more oil to brown the chicken in. I kind of flubbed that step. And I do think thighs would be preferable to drumsticks (more meat, less bone).

But anyhow, thanks to Chubby Hubby, it's good to know that you too can eat gourmet French cuisine, without having to go to too much trouble, even on a weeknight.

Better Late Than Never: Thanksgiving Part 2

2007-11-29T16:38:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-27T16:25:00.001+08:00

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

2007-11-27T15:50:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-20T20:32:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-17T16:52:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-15T09:45:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-14T10:20:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-13T12:58:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-03T10:23:00.000+08:00

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

2007-11-01T12:06:00.001+08:00

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

Food, glorious food

2007-10-30T17:15:00.000+08:00

Hong Kong was awesome! I got to soak up some atmosphere, meet some new people, see old friends, and of course, eat delicious delicious food. Check out below for a sample:

One new thing I got to try was the roast goose (first photo), which HK is known for. If you've never tried it, you're really missing out on some greasy, fatty goodness. If that doesn't sound good to you, then we can't be friends.

If anyone wants restaurant recommendations, drop me a line or post a comment!

Yong He Dou Jiang

2007-10-23T11:34:00.000+08:00

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.

abstract poet: Who You Calling a Puttanesca?

2007-10-19T21:38:00.000+08:00

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”

Omelet to Go

2007-10-18T11:23:00.000+08:00

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.

How to Make Fried Tofu with Pork and Black Bean Sauce

2007-10-17T13:01:00.000+08:00

Click picture for better view:
Recipe found here:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/236021

Peking Duck at Taoranting

2007-10-15T11:30:00.000+08:00

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.

Goethe

2007-10-14T23:00:00.000+08:00

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

Bongos

2007-10-13T22:52:00.000+08:00

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."

Canton Palace

2007-10-11T13:31:00.000+08:00

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

Aaleja

2007-10-10T18:37:00.000+08:00

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

abstract poet: Comfort Food: Bread and Soup

2007-10-10T00:30:00.001+08:00

I won’t bore you with the recipe, but just for fun, here’s what we had for dinner the next night: Big bowls of egg chowder with bacon and new potatoes, along with an awesome loaf of crusty, chewy bread that we tore with our hands and slathered with butter. Yum.

The bread was from the Johan bakery in A8 of the Mitsukoshi department store by Taipei City Hall. I love their dessert-ish breads, but this beauty of a loaf made me feel like I was back at my favorite French bakery in Providence (and a bargain at NT$35!).

abstract poet: Sunday Dinner (or How to Make a Pretty Good Steak)

2007-10-10T00:00:00.000+08:00

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.

Dumplings

2007-10-07T13:47:00.000+08:00

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

Mr. Donut

2007-10-05T12:57:00.000+08:00

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

Yay! and Gross!

2007-10-04T12:45:00.000+08:00

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!

Hong Kong or Bust

2007-10-02T13:36:00.000+08:00

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?!

abstract poet: 33 Jian Tang

2007-10-01T22:11:00.000+08:00

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

Smith & Hsu

2007-10-01T13:41:00.000+08:00

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

Shanghai Shanghai

2007-09-17T09:33:00.000+08:00

The day my husband and I left for our little trip back to the States we decided that we would treat ourselves with one last authentic Chinese meal, as the Chinese food where we live back home is mediocre at best. The meal we decided to eat was at Shanghai Shanghai, located in A9 of the Mitsukoshi by Taipei City Hall. (This restaurant is a chain, so there are several other locations as well.)

We don't often eat at Shanghai Shanghai, not because it's not good, but because it can be a little pricey if it's just two people. When we go it's usually with family or friends, and then it doesn't feel like such a splurge. But then we heard that they offered our favorite thing in the world - the set menu, hooray!

For 450NT per person, you can pick three dishes, plus soup and dessert (you don't have a choice for dessert). Oh, and this is for lunch - I'm not sure if they offer a set menu for dinner.

One of their specialties, tiny shrimp with sweet peas. Yum.

I can't remember what this vegetable was called, but it had a wonderful crunchy texture, and it came with slices of pork and fermented soy beans.

Here is one of Luke's favorite foods ever: fatty pork. And my, was it ever fatty.

I didn't like the soup. Luke thought it was ok, but I thought there was way too much noodle, and the soup itself wasn't flavorful enough. Next time we go, I would order the other choice of soup.

Here's our dessert. I liked those square things on the bottom left hand corner the best. They had the consistency of marshmallows, but not as sticky or sweet. And you can't go wrong with watermelon. But I wasn't a fan of the sweet soup on the bottom right hand corner (but that's just me, I'm just don't really like those kinds of soups in general), and the dates with - I can't even remember what it was anymore; I've blocked it from my memory - were so gross I spit it out.

So the soup and dessert were the most disappointing part of the meal, but I think all the entrees were good enough that I was able to overlook everything else. And for 450 a person, it's really not a bad deal at all.

Shanghai Shanghai
www.shanghaishanghai.com.tw
A9 Mitsukoshi, Song Shou Road
(02) 8771-5511

2007-09-11T12:50:00.000+08:00

Oh, horror of horrors, I stupidly left my camera at my friends' apartment back on the other side of the ocean! Alas, it might be awhile then before I post about any new restaurants, as reading about food is not quite the same without the pictures to go with it.

In the meantime, here are some pictures to horrify you Taiwanese readers out there. My husband told me the other day that a study found that based on their BMI, 2 out of 3 Americans are overweight. You'll see why when you look at the picture:

Wait, you're saying, those portion sizes don't look big at all. That looks like the regular portion sizes you'd get at The Diner! Well, that's because I already ate HALF of my breakfast here. That empty space on the plate arrived completely dominated by a monster omelette and a pound of potatoes. Top that off with a stack of three pancakes.

I know I'm perpetuating all sorts of stereotypes about fat Americans now, and of course not every restaurant in the States is like this. But because my parents live in the suburbs, the only restaurants you can find are chain restaurants, where more often than not the portions sizes are enough to feed a small nation.

I might not have missed the heat and the hustle and bustle of Taipei while I was back in the States, but I definitely missed eating out here!

One Last Hurrah

2007-09-06T10:29:00.000+08:00

I'm heading back to good ole Taipei tomorrow. In honor of my last night here in the States, I decided to do all the things that I won't be able to do in Taipei for the next several months. So I went to Target and H&M, my two favorite stores here in the States. I visited my best friend's mom, one of my favorite people in the world. And, I made these Inside-Out Carrot Cake Cookies to commemorate the last time I will be cooking with a normal sized oven and without fear of cockroaches scurrying out to eat every last crumb (not that this even happens, but I'm paranoid).

I'll be back to my regular posting schedule sometime next week (depending on my jet lag), so look out for some new reviews!

Almond Cake with Berries (Happy Birthday to My Dad)

2007-08-20T19:40:00.000+08:00

It's my dad's birthday and so we baked him this almond cake with berries. We wanted to go all out with this crazy cake, but my dad is mildly diabetic and we didn't want to send him into insulin shock on his birthday. So we settled on this cake.

Back when we had a normal sized oven, we used to make this quite often. Sadly, the cake pan doesn't fit into our Easy-Bake Oven in Taipei, so we hadn't made this cake in quite awhile, which makes it seem to taste even better this time around.

The recipe is courtesy of Gourmet, and it's really easy to make - it takes about an hour or so, and in the end you get this delicious cake. It's light, it's summery, and it's pretty to look at. And every one liked it and I think my dad had a nice birthday.

Back in the USA

2007-08-18T21:01:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but Luke and I are back in the States for a short visit, and I guess with all the manic stuffing of ourselves with all the foods that we can't have in Taipei, I just haven't had the time to post anything.

We took some friends out to dinner at the lovely Del Posto the other night, and while it was one of the best meals I've ever had, it was also one of the most expensive also. Damn those taxes and tips! I've just been so spoiled not having to pay that for the last year.

On another note, we've been cooking again (yay!). Here's some stuff we've made:

Fig and prosciutto salad with basil and mozarella.

Gazpacho soup with grilled parmesan cheese sandwiches.

Fruit salad with mint and sugar.

Here's how my dog looked the entire time we were preparing these dishes. Poor Casper.

Ratatouille

2007-08-12T16:31:00.000+08:00

I know that every food blogger and their mom has posted about "Ratatouille" already, but this movie just came out in Taiwan a couple of weeks ago, so that's why I was slow in jumping on the "Ratatouille" bandwagon. But for food lovers and non-food lovers alike, this movie is definitely worth watching. Luke wrote a much better review than anything I could ever write here, so read his review and then go watch the movie!

Olala

2007-08-10T10:23:00.001+08:00

When my husband and I first moved to Taipei about a year ago, I would crave non-Asian food so much that I would force Luke to eat at all the American chain restaurants like TGIFridays, Chilis, and sometimes even – gasp! – McDonald’s, just to have a taste of home. It’s funny because these were the sorts of places that I looked down my foodie nose at back in the States – places that were too “mainstream,” not to mention unhealthy. But the first few weeks here, we didn’t know of any places besides the big chain restaurants, and sometimes I was really homesick and just wanted to be somewhere that reminded me of home, even if it meant that I had to eat hamburgers the size of my head.

Luckily for us and our waistlines, we discovered Olala not long after we came here, and were thrilled. The French cuisine at Olala is authentic and fantastic, with a cozy ambience and friendly staff.

For 1000NT, you can get a set meal that comes with a soup, salad, entrée, dessert and coffee/tea. I recommend going for this option, since unlike some other restaurants that have it so that you don’t have a choice of the entrée in a set meal, at Olala you can pick your entrée off the regular menu. You definitely get more bang for your buck this way.

Usually I’ll order the special set meal of the day, which doesn’t include soup but does include a pasta. My husband likes the duck confit, so he almost always orders that. The last time we went though, I ended up ordering the duck confit and he got the special set meal of the day.

Carrot soup with creme fraiche.

Romaine and frisee salad.

The skin on my duck confit was nice and crispy, and the meat was so tender that it just fell off the bone when you cut into it.

Here’s Luke’s steak and frites, cooked "si fen so" (medium rare). Last time he ordered his steak "wu fen so," (medium) and he said it's better "si fen so."

For dessert I had the crepe flambee with a scoop of strawberry ice-cream, and Luke had the crème brulee. As an added bonus, the ice-cream was from Movenpick, which happens to be my favorite brand of ice-cream here.

Oh, and they also have special nights that feature salsa and other kinds of dancing. I think they might have lessons on those nights as well. We’ve never been to any of those, but maybe we’ll check it out sometime.

Olala
Ren Ai Road, Section 4, No. 371*
(02) 2773 – 9577

*I would recommend calling for directions; it might be a little bit hard to find the first time you go, since it’s a little hard to spot it from Ren Ai.

Shin Yeh

2007-08-08T10:18:00.001+08:00

We discovered Shin Yeh back when we first moved to Taipei, and my father-in-law was here on some business and very thoughtfully lugged along all our Gourmet magazines that we had been missing so. Flipping open the October 2006 issue, we discovered that an entire article had been devoted to the food and restaurants in Taiwan. What luck! Shin Yeh was one of the restaurants not only mentioned, but also glowingly praised, so we were intrigued and checked it out. Now it’s one of our favorite places to eat.

Most of the time when we go, we try to order a mix of old favorites and new dishes. The portions are a little bit on the smaller size, so we usually order about four dishes and a bowl of di gua zhou (sweet potato congee), and we find that that’s a good amount for two people.

Last night we tried for the first time the clams (NT160). The description in the menu said that these were supposed to be served with leeks, but when the dish came out there was not a leek in sight. No matter. Instead, we were treated to a dish of cold, tiny clams with raw garlic. Each clam was bursting with juices, and the garlic provided a nice kick as you slurped it down.

We also tried the beef tenderloin with Taiwanese barbeque sauce (NT285). While the dish was cooked perfectly fine, it wasn’t that exciting, and my husband says that there’s another beef dish on the menu – the beef with garlic – that he likes better. I can’t remember the dish, so I’ll just have to take his word for it. His palette is better than mine, anyway.

Whenever we come to Shin Yeh, we almost always order the egg omelet with salted radish (yum) and the gua bao, which is a steamed Taiwanese bun with sliced stewed pork. When I was a kid – ok, up until maybe last year or so – the thought of eating pure fat would make me throw up in my mouth a little. And be forewarned, this bao is really just fat in a bun. Sure, there’s some vegetables and meat, but the main component of this bao is the FAT. And I thought I’d never say this, but what delicious fat it is indeed. Mmmm, fat.

For dessert we like to order the dan ta (egg custard tart). They always come up piping hot from the oven, with the egg custard sweet (but not too much so) and silky, and the crust nice and flaky. You also get served complimentary mochi rolled in sugar and peanut flour.

We like to bring friends who are visiting us to Shin Yeh to give them a taste of traditional Taiwanese cuisine, albeit Taiwanese foods kicked up a notch. It’s a great way to showcase all the delights Taiwan has to offer, food-wise. Or it’s just a delicious meal on a Tuesday night. Either way, it’s always a treat to eat at Shin Yeh.

Shin Yeh
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, No. 112, 2nd Floor
(02) 2752-9299

Sababa

2007-08-07T12:07:00.000+08:00

Let’s say if you wake up one morning and you think, Man, I could really go for some bacon and eggs with a side of hummus, and a falafel on top, then Sababa’s the place for you. Though it’s not the best breakfast food I’ve had in Taipei – and to be honest, I think their hummus is good, but not as great as I’ve heard some people rave – it’s decent fare and it is something different from the old bacon/eggs/do jiang/you tiao standby.

I got the regular Sababa breakfast (NT158), which comes with eggs, pita bread, a chopped salad, and hummus. I also added bacon for NT18, and all breakfast plates come with either coffee or tea. Like I said before, the hummus was good, but I thought it could have been a little bit more garlicky.

My husband got the same thing, but insisted that I also take a picture of his breakfast, because his was “prettier.” Oh, and he added a falafel to his, also for NT18.

While we were satisfied with our meals, we weren’t really blown away. And to be fair, we did order the most boring things on the menu, so I would like to go back sometime and check out their other dishes.

Sababa
Roosevelt Road, Section 3, Lane 283, No. 17
(02) 2363-8009

海老天

2007-08-06T13:48:00.000+08:00

The thing I’ve really grown to appreciate about eating in Taipei is the quality of the food courts here. Back in the States, a typical food court consists of a McDonalds next to a Burger King next to an Americanized Chinese take-out joint, and so on and so forth. The awesome thing about the food courts here are that you can get a tasty and relatively nutritious meal that’s also cheap. We’ve been hitting the food courts pretty frequently lately, since we’ve been too hot and lazy to cook.

We found a pretty good udon and tempura place in the food court located in the basement of New York New York. I actually still like the udon a lot better at the place over on Fuxing, but the tempura at 海老天 (hai lao tian) is a lot better, since that’s their specialty there.

I usually get either the udon or soba noodle soup set meal, which comes with tempura, salad and a small bowl of seaweed. Not too shabby for NT420.

Last time we were here, my husband got the curry udon noodles. He did not like them. There was too much curry, and because the tempura came with on top of the noodles, it got all soggy. He does recommend that if you happen to order this, ask for the tempura on the side.

So if you’re ever in New York New York and want a decent meal quickly and for pretty cheap, check out 海老天.

海老天
New York New York, Level B1
(02)2729-1100

Sumie

2007-08-05T20:31:00.001+08:00

Last week was our one-year anniversary, and we celebrated by treating ourselves to a fabulous dinner at a Japanese restaurant named Sumie. It is a bit on the pricey side (we ordered the second to least expensive set menu, which was NT2000 per person), but worth every penny. This was truly Japanese cuisine in its finest form.

We started off with this, uh…jello ball? (Unfortunately, I don't know what anything is called beyond its generic name, because the menu didn't list any names or descriptions with its set menu, probably because it changes frequently.) Basically, it was a ball of gelatin filled with shrimp, abalone, and okra, served with vinegar and soy sauce. It sounds weird, but it was very light and refreshing and just what we needed to whet our appetites.

Then out came the sashimi. I almost didn’t want to eat it because it was so pretty. In fact, the presentation of all the dishes at Sumie was absolutely stunning. Our sashimi came served inside a long, thinly sliced piece of cucumber, and topped with a huge leaf of some sort. I think about the guy whose job it is to slice all these perfect, thin slices of cucumber, and I feel sort of bad for him. But he sure was good at it:

For our sashimi we got a piece of toro and some other fish whose name I don’t know but was incredibly good. It was very lightly grilled, and there was just a hint of smoky flavor to it.

Next we got baked eggplant topped with a miso paste. Inside the eggplant were pieces of shrimp and scallop. This was my husband’s favorite.

I liked that our salad wasn’t just your typical garden salad. Ours came with pieces of bamboo and crispy noodles sprinkled on top, and the vinaigrette was made with passionfruit and pineapple.

Ok, now comes the best part of the meal. Actually, this wasn’t even included in our set menu, but we ordered these lamb chops because we had heard they were good. Oh, they were so, so good. Just so juicy and tender and bursting with flavor…I’m sorry, I have to take a minute to wipe the drool off my keyboard.

Our sushi rolls were good, but nothing to write home about. But we were also in a rush to make it to a concert we were going to on time, so at that point we were just stuffing everything into our mouths as fast as we could, so that could be the reason why we didn't think they were that special.

Our last course before the dessert was a miso soup with lobster. I liked this soup a lot and really wish now that I had taken the time to savor it, especially the lobster.

Finally, our dessert was a mochi filled with custard and sprinkled with chocolate powder on top. It tasted like a tiramisu mochi. I ate this in one bite. God, now that I think about it, I hope no one was watching us eating. We must have looked like jackals or something.

All in all, though, this was a delicious meal. Maybe not the sort of thing you’d eat every day, but definitely great for special occasions.

Sumie
Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, No. 172
San Want Hotel, 4th Floor
(02) 2781-6909

Hong Kong

2007-08-01T13:29:00.000+08:00

My dad is Cantonese, so I’ve always had an especial fondness for Cantonese cuisine. In fact, one of my favorite foods in the world is “xi fan*,” otherwise known as congee. Yes, I know it’s considered a “low” food, but in my opinion there’s nothing better than a bowl of xi fan on a cold winter day. Though there aren't really any cold winter days here, so I guess maybe I meant to say there’s nothing better than xi fan on a sweltering summer day at high noon.

But I digress. Anyway, Hong Kong (in Chinese it’s called 茶水攤) is my favorite Cantonese restaurant in Taipei, though sadly, they don’t seem to serve xi fan. Bummer. But, there’s still a ton of other fantastic dishes on the menu, like this rice and meat combo that my husband always orders. It’s this mishmash of fried ham and fried pork chop topped with an over easy egg (hmm, I guess if you have heart problems you should avoid this dish) served with some rice and vegetables.

I myself like to order the he fen, which are wide rice noodles served with beef (you can also get it with pork.) The beef is tender and well seasoned, and the noodles are nice and firm. Add a dash of hot sauce, and it’s perfect.

HK also serves up a variety of “小吃,” where you’ll find all the typical dim sum favorites. Definitely try their buo lo mian bao, which I actually haven’t seen at any other Cantonese places. This “pineapple bread” is their specialty, and it is scrumptious indeed. So simple, but so good! All it is is a piece of buo lo mian bao, lightly toasted – and this is the key part – with a slice of cold butter inside. The cold butter is genius, because it melts as you eat it, so that your bread doesn’t get all soggy before it comes to your table. Even though we’ve only eaten this during dinner, I actually think that this would be a perfect breakfast food.

Here is a curry squid ball/other unidentifiable foods dish that was NOT good. Do not order this. My husband decided that because there was a picture of it on the menu, it must be good, but alas, it was not. It was the equivalent of eating a sponge soaked in curry.

However, everything else we’ve ordered we’ve usually been satisfied with. The desserts are also really good. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of the desserts. Probably because I was too busy shoveling them into my mouth. The prices here are really reasonable as well – we usually spend no more than NT800**, and that’s because we order a lot of food. This is definitely one of those places where you can eat really well for just a few hundred NT. But before you all rush out to try this place, though, be forewarned that there is almost always at least a 15 minute wait, and they don’t take reservations. Also, the menu is entirely in Chinese. My husband and I aren’t fluent readers by any means, but between the two of us we can cobble together a decent understanding. There are some pictures that you can point to, but for the most part, if you don’t speak or read Chinese at all, it might help to bring someone who does.

(By the way, this place is in the same alley as the jin bing/beef noodle place I reviewed in a previous post, so if the wait is too much for you, you can just pop over there instead.)

Here’s a picture of the outside of the restaurant. You can see all the people waiting. That’s me in the gray tank with the bad posture, trying to use my laser eyes to burn into the minds of the people inside to hurry up and finish eating.

EDIT: *My husband read this, and he says that what I mean is actually "zhou." He says that "xi fan" is just the plain white rice congee, and that zhou is the Cantonese style one with the duck egg, pork, etc. added. But in our house it was always the other way around. Anyone care to clear this up?

**Apparently I just wrote everything in this blog wrong. Again, my husband read this and then very adamantly burst out with, "We have NEVER spent NT800 there! Never never NEVER! The MOST we've spent is 500!" Ok there. I guess I take back what I said, and the most we've spent at HK is NT500.

Hong Kong 茶水攤
Yangji Street, Alley 136, No. 6-2
(02) 2772-5252

Arggghhh

2007-08-01T11:31:00.000+08:00

Is there something wrong with blogger, or is there something wrong with my head? Why do my pictures from my previous post and from my header keep disappearing? I've re-uploaded the pictures from my VVG Bistro review FIVE times now, only to have them keep on mysteriously disappearing into the void every other day. It is driving me insane! Hopefully everyone can see the pictures from VVG Bistro now, but if they go again, then I give up and everyone will just have to use their imaginations. Grrr.

VVG Bistro

2007-07-29T12:26:00.003+08:00

Today we enjoyed a lovely brunch at the very very good VVG Bistro, sister restaurant to the VVG Table that I reviewed in a previous post. Since VVG Bistro also offers a set menu that's pretty similar to the one we had at VVG Table, I won't go into a full review. I'll just say that everything was delectable and post some pictures. For my friends in the States, these are to lure you here so you'll come and visit.

Actually, before I post the pictures, I would to say how much I like the idea of set menus here in Taiwan. In the States, set menus are pretty rare - unless you count tasting menus, and those are usually really expensive. The only place where you'll be sure to find a set menu is at McDonalds. But in Taiwan, set menus are much more commonplace and you definitely get more bang for your buck. And, it always includes the perfect amount of food, so you don't have to worry about ordering too much or too little, which sometimes happens when you order a la carte. The set menu at VVG Table is NT500, which is about $15 US, and probably a little bit on the steep side by Taiwanese standards, but in my opinion still a good deal nevertheless.

And now on to the pictures:

Here's a picture of the complimentary "ice lolly" that came before our meal:

For some reason, the coffee came in a giant bowl.

Here's a picture of my husband drinking from his bowl o' joe.

Our set meal. Clockwise from upper left hand corner: deep-fried fish with seaweed and rice; almond milk panna cotta with macerated blueberries; summer juice with honeydew, muskmelon, and watermelon; shrimp steamed egg and squid steamed egg, shrimp roulade with silver sprout, water chestnut and spinach; tomato, basil, and parmesan bread served with prosciutto, tomato, and cheese.

Some close-ups:

Also, check out the decor in this place. It's so quirky and eclectic. I love the pink refrigerator.

VVG Bistro
Zhongxiao East Road, Lane 180, Alley 40, No. 20
(02) 8773-3533

Flavor

2007-07-28T09:55:00.000+08:00

For those of you who know me in real life and for a while, most of you are surprised by how far I’ve come in my eating habits. Just a few short years ago, I hated all sorts of foods – mushrooms, fish, cheese, tomatoes, anything with skin on it, anything that still had its head attached and seemed like it was looking at me…on and on. But then my husband eventually wore me down by cooking all sorts of fabulous meals using the very ingredients I hated, and now I love all sorts of food and am 15 pounds heavier.

Flavor is a testament to how differently I feel about food now. This is the sort of meal I would have hated a few years ago. Fish – yuck! Raw fish – double yuck! Mushrooms – grotesque beyond belief.

My meal tonight included all the foods that I previously disliked, but if only I had eaten meals this majestic growing up. Then I wouldn’t have been so picky. And I would be taller today. (Milk was also much hated.)

(By the way, before I go into the full review, I would like to apologize for the poor quality of these pictures. I don’t know, I’m not as bad as I used to be, when I would get up and go to the bathroom so as not to be associated with my husband if he so much as took out the camera, but I still feel sort of silly about it even now. It’s not so bad when you’re in a crowded, well-lit restaurant that doesn’t require the flash, but Flavor is a small, cozy and dark restaurant, and every time I took a picture the room would light up. So I took these pictures very hastily and as a result none of them really do the food justice. Alas, and apologies.)

The food at Flavor is authentic Swedish cuisine, as the owners – a husband and wife couple – both lived and studied cooking there. The husband, who happens to be the head chef, is an actual bona fide Swede.

When we went tonight they were offering a special set menu, since they had just come back from a vacation in Sweden and bought back all sorts of goodies with them. Our first course was a cream of potato soup with truffle oil. It came with homemade bread seasoned with cumin, and it was quite tasty. I asked my husband just now how he would describe the soup and the bread, and he replied, “Delicious.” Well, that’s a good a description as I could have come up with, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Our next course was an appetizer of smoked salmon and toast. The smoked salmon was prepared two different ways – on the left is the smoked salmon with a mustard sauce, and on the right the smoked salmon is with honey, sour cream and dill. Yum.

Afterwards came the four entrees: cod with horseradish, chicken seasoned with thyme and wrapped in bacon, pork with a game sauce and, of course, the house specialty: Swedish meatballs. The thing I like about Flavor is that each dish feels like it’s been prepared just for you. Maybe it’s because when we go we’re usually the only patrons – though this time we weren’t – but the way everything looks so nice and perfect makes me think that the chef made it that way just for me. I don’t know, maybe that’s my megalomania speaking. But everything was cooked to perfection – the meats were all the right tenderness, the sauces complemented everything just right, and with the chicken came a little whimsical potato box. The pictures below are of the chicken wrapped in bacon and the Swedish meatballs.

Ok, now on to the best part of the meal: dessert. I wish I had the words to describe how much I love this dessert. This apple pie dessert is the best apple pie I have ever eaten in my whole entire life. Ever. It is the perfect apple pie. When I accidentally dropped a morsel off my fork, my husband and I both gasped in horror. Thankfully, it just fell onto the table, and yes, I still ate it. It’s so good I would have still eaten it if it fell onto the floor. The textures and tastes just work together so well. The crust is the exact right crispiness and the apples are soft, but not mushy, and everything is drenched in this delicious foamy cream. I know I keep saying this, but it is truly perfection. Sadly, this picture is a really horrible one and does it no justice whatsoever. Just go and try it yourself.

Flavor
http://www.flavors.com.tw/
SanMin Road, Lane 107, No. 8-3
(02) 2769-1971

中國牛肉麵

2007-07-24T22:30:00.000+08:00

Our lives pretty much ground to a halt this past weekend with the release of the last Harry Potter book. I forsook sleep, personal hygiene, going to the bathroom, my husband, etc. for the Deathly Hallows, but did I forsake food? Nope. Of course, we had to shovel the food into our months as fast as possible to get back to the reading ASAP, but we still managed a decent meal at 中國牛肉麵 (zhong guo niu rou mian).

Anyway, so I might not be the best judge of this place since I was speed eating my way through the meal, but luckily, I’ve been here before. Or more accurately, I’ve been to 中國牛肉麵’s original location by the Sun Yet-Sen Memorial Hall. This past Saturday’s meal was at their other branch in A5 of the Mitsukoshi by city hall. And I have to say, the one by the SYS Memorial is much, much better than the one in the Mitsukoshi. In fact, the only reason I could possibly think of to eat in the one in the Mitsukoshi is that that one is perhaps a little nicer and cleaner. Yes, the other restaurant might be considered by some to be a bit of a hole in the wall, but it's not that bad, honestly. It's definitely tastier, and less expensive.

中國牛肉麵 is known for their jin bing, which is somewhere between a crepe and a scallion pancake (but without the scallions). Here’s a picture:

You can eat these with just sauce and scallions, or you can also order something more substantive to go with it. We ordered the jin jiang rou si to accompany it, which is tender strips of beef and scallions stir fried in a sauce that’s reminiscent of the sauce you eat Peking Duck with.

中國牛肉麵 is also well known for their beef noodle soup. You can pick between two different kinds of soups: the hong shao, which is the spicy flavored beef soup, or the chin dun, which is their lighter, clear broth. I usually get the chin dun. Sadly, the broth in the Mitsukoshi restaurant wasn’t as flavorful as the one near SYS. Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t bad, just not great. The broth at the SYS branch is really good. Also, their meat is nice and tender – it feels like it melts in your mouth. The meat at Mitsukoshi was a lot tougher – so much so that there were some pieces that I couldn’t even eat.

So I’d still recommend this restaurant, but only the one by the Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall. There’s actually a few really good restaurants in the same alley, which I’ll review another time.

By the way, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was excellent.

中國牛肉麵
Yanji Street, Lane 137, Alley 7, No. 1
(02) 2721-4771 / (02) 2771-1004

101 Recipes in 10 minutes or less

2007-07-20T14:49:00.000+08:00

This is going to be my salvation this summer. 101 recipes to make in ten minutes or less! I will the master of the 10 minute recipe by the end of this summer (which is in October here in Taiwan).

Penne Carbonara Recipe

2007-07-17T14:44:00.001+08:00

The other night I made penne carbonara and thought I’d share the recipe with the three, maybe four of you who read this blog. This is one of the few dishes I can stand making in the summer here – our kitchen is super small and heats up really quickly, especially since there’s no AC in there. Plus, I have an unnatural fear of hot splashing oil, so whenever I’m frying something, I have to wear long sleeves. So as you can imagine, it gets unbearable pretty quickly.

Anyway, with this recipe I don’t have to worry about the suffocating heat because it’s a super fast recipe. And super easy. This recipe is actually adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe. As an aside, for those of you out there who are beginning cooks, I’d really recommend Jamie Oliver, because all his recipes are delicious and fairly simple to make. He hardly ever bothers with standard measurements, instead using measurements such as “a wineglass full” or “ a handful,” which I found to be infinitely helpful for those times when I was first learning how to cook and would run around the kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off.

So onto the recipe. You’ll need:

4 slices bacon, chopped
I clove garlic, smashed with the back of your knife
2 eggs (try to get the freshest that you can – this is what makes or breaks the recipe), beaten
Parmesan cheese (fresh, not the Kraft kind), about 1/3 cup
About ½ box of penne pasta
Olive oil, 1 tablespoon

Serves 2

So what you do is first put the water on for the pasta, (make sure you add salt to it), let it come to a boil, and cook your penne until al dente, which is usually around 10 or 11 minutes. While you’re waiting for your pasta to cook, add about a tablespoon of olive oil to your frying pan and fry up the bacon until the fat is rendered. When it gets close to being done, add the smashed garlic to the bacon and oil and leave it in for about a minute so that it can flavor the oil. When the bacon’s done, remove from pan and drain on paper towels. Leave the oil in the pan, you still need it later.

Now beat your eggs together with the cheese. When your pasta is ready, drain the pasta, BUT save about a half cup of the pasta water. Add your pasta to the oil, put back the bacon, and toss.

This next part is important. The key to a good carbonara is all about the sauce. You don’t want to egg to cook, otherwise you end up with scrambled eggs. Add the egg and cheese mixture to the pasta and toss thoroughly. Add some of the cooking water (not too much), if you feel like you need to make the sauce a bit smoother. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you like, you can also add some extra cheese on top.

And that’s it! Here’s what it should look like:

This recipe takes no more than 15 minutes to make, and paired with a nice salad, it’s fast and easy, not to mention pretty darn tasty.

Chocoholic

2007-07-15T21:58:00.000+08:00

The Chinese palette’s sensitivity to sweetness has its pros and cons. On the one hand, at least I’m not going to give myself diabetes and/or have all my teeth rot and fall out of my head when consuming desserts with the frequency that my husband and I do here – which is every single night. On the other hand, sometimes you just can’t taste anything, especially things that are supposed to have chocolate in them. Mocha cappuccino tastes exactly like regular cappuccino to me. In a blind taste test, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a chocolate cake and a vanilla one.

Well, at least there’s Chocoholic to the rescue for whenever you’re craving some chocolate-y goodness. My husband and I like to go here to read and indulge our sweet tooths (teeth?). There’s all kinds of hot chocolates, iced chocolates, chocolate cocktails, chocolate milkshakes, and the last time I was there, they had even added chocolate chicken to the menu. That fat kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – I forget his name; you know, he’s the greedy one who falls into the chocolate river and then gets stuck in a pipe because he’s so fat – he’d be in heaven here.

We went today and I had the Sicilian Iced Chocolate (NT 135). It was smooth, creamy, chocolate-y deliciousness. The only complaint I had about it was that I wish it were a little bit colder. If I lived in a chocolate factory and had a special room made out of candy with a chocolate river flowing through it, that river would be made out of this drink.

Right now my husband is in the middle of playing video games, so I am having a hard time getting him to tell me about his drink. So far in between grunts, I’ve heard the words “chocolate,” “ice” and “French crispies.” When I asked him what “French crispies” were, he said, “I don’t know, they’re crispies from France.” Well, here’s a picture at least:

Anyway, I definitely recommend Chocoholic for whenever you need a good shot of chocolate to your system.

Chocoholic
www.chocoholic.com.tw
Dunhua South Road, Section 1, Lane 187, No. 66
(02) 2711- 2600

Udon Noodles at 土三寒六

2007-07-14T23:10:00.000+08:00

I grew up on the East Coast, where it does get hot during the summer, but it’s still been quite a shock to my system to experience summers here in Taipei. Every time I go out here, I have to prepare as if I’m about to trek across the Sahara Desert. Water? Check. Umbrella? Check. Handkerchief to wipe off the buckets of sweat gushing out of my glands? Check. Then my husband and I will set out, huddled under our umbrella and walking along in silence because even talking makes me hot and sweaty and I need to conserve my energy just to be able make it to our destination without getting heatstroke.

So you’d think the last thing I’d want to eat during the summer here is a nice, hot, steamy bowl of udon noodles, but I like the udon at 土三寒六 (tu(3) san(1) han(2) liu(4)) so much that I’d risk heatstroke for it. It’s good, and it’s cheap (a medium size bowl can range from NT90 - NT200, depending on what you get). Plus, they also have cold udon noodles, which are actually quite wonderful on a hot day.

I usually get the udon noodles with the spicy broth. Again, I know, not the ideal thing to be consuming when it’s almost 100 degrees out, but still. The broth has just the right amount of kick to it, and it comes with pieces of seaweed and pork. The udon noodles are that perfect “QQ” texture. (For those of you that don’t speak Chinese, “QQ” is that sort of texture that Chinese people like. It’s hard to describe, but it’s firm, with a slight bite to it - but not as much bite as al dente.) The reason is that they're handmade, so you really notice the difference.

The last time we were there, they had added some new dishes to the menu, so my husband tried some cold udon noodles with roe. He said it was sort of like a carbonara – there was raw egg yolk mixed in with the roe to create a sauce for the noodles. He liked it, but I get sort of grossed out by raw egg and I just don’t like egg yolk in general, so I only tried a bite.

There’s also tempura available, but they set it out cafeteria style and who knows how long it's been out there, so it may not be all that fresh once you take it. The nice thing though, is that they’ll heat it up for you. It’s perfectly satisfactory, but not anything special.

土三寒六 is great for a cheap (we spent around NT500), tasty dinner. And sure, you might get a little sweaty eating it, but what’s a little more sweat when you’re already drenched anyway?

土三寒六
Fuxing North Road, Section 1, Lane 126, No. 6
(02) 2775-4611

Brunch at VVG Table

2007-07-12T12:46:00.000+08:00

One of the things I miss the most about the States is brunch. Sure, I really like do jiang (that sweet soy drink), sao bing you tao (that fried cruller…thing inside that bread…thing) and dim sum, but sometimes I just want some eggs and iced coffee. And I don’t want to have to wait outdoors for 45 minutes while feeling I’m about to spontaneously combust at The Diner.

So then what a treat it was to discover VVG Table. If you didn’t know, VVG stands for “very, very good,” and yes, it is indeed very very good. Located in a small alley off of Dunhua Road, it is a bit hard to find, but once you do, it’s well worth it. Walking down a quiet residential street, you’ll see a shady porch filled with all manner of comfortable and quirky looking sofas and tables. I imagine it would be quite nice to sit out there on a spring day sipping an iced coffee, but this was July in Taipei, and it was a frillion degrees out, so we opted to sit inside.

I love the ambiance at both the VVG restaurants (there’s a sister restaurant, VVG Bistro, just down the street) – both have such specific personalities to them. At VVG Table, I felt like I’d just stumbled into a French farmhouse. The interior is small and cozy, with some small tables clustered in the middle of the room flanked by long, antique looking wooden tables on both sides. There’re all these details I love – here the bright red candelabras on the long tables, there the vintage suitcases on top on some shelves. I even loved the little containers the sugars are in. Seriously, I wanted to swipe one when no one was looking.

For brunch, the only option is the set meal at NT540. The meal comes with several dishes, but in teeny tiny portions. Being the fat and greedy Americans that we are, my husband and I were initially worried that it wouldn’t be enough food. But the portions ended up being perfect – the small sizes let you savor each bite, knowing that there isn’t that much of it. It also allowed you to sample a lot more without feeling too full. We were first served a tiny cup of passionfruit, pineapple and mint slush. Scooping the slush into our mouths, we were surprised to find that the pineapple, instead of being blended in along with the passionfruit and mint, were instead frozen into little cubes, adding an interesting texture. A refreshing treat on a hot day.

Our set brunch came with homemade raspberry lemonade (more like a slush, actually), scrambled eggs with caviar, a sausage, olive, chickpea and caper dish, squid salad, and a rice cake topped with roe. The eggs were light and fluffy, with the caviar adding just the right hint of saltiness. The sausage, olive, chickpea and caper dish was surprisingly spicy, but with the just right amount of kick to work with the sourness of the olives and capers. My husband liked the rice cake the best. It had some nuts mixed in, so there were lots of interesting textures going on, what with the slight bite of the rice, the crunchy nuts, the silky roe.

I forgot to mention that before our brunch came, we were treated to a plate of fresh bread accompanied by various jams, honey and nutella. The honey was especially good – it’s some kind of special German kind, and you can really tell the difference. It was especially tasty mixed with the nutella.

VVG Table might not be the sort of place you want to go every weekend – it is a bit pricier, but definitely worth it when you want something more than your usual sao bing you tao/do jiang breakfast. Heck, it’s better than your typical bacon and eggs breakfast. So check it out.

VVG Table
ZhongXiao East Road, Lane 40, Alley 181, No. 14
(02) 2775-5120

Welcome

2007-07-11T17:30:00.000+08:00

Hey there. Welcome to my blog. Here's where you'll find my reviews of restaurants in the Taipei area. Sometimes I cook, too, so you might stumble upon some recipes once in awhile. Enjoy!