Mushroom Hotpot

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

Yong He Dou Jiang

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.

Omelet to Go

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.

Olala

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

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

Hong Kong

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

Flavor

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