Dorky Cooking

Best Xiao Long Bao 小籠包 around Yongkang St., Taipei other than Ding Tai Fung.

2015-08-11T08:49:00.002-07:00

I really don't get it. I really don't! I don't get why so many people line up to eat at Ding Tai Fung 鼎泰豐. I guess it is good when you try soup dumplings for the first time, but it comes at a price. At 20NT ($0.66 USD) a piece, you can be trying other places around their flagship branch at Yongkang St. My friends, and I went to five different soup dumpling shops and ranked them based on overall taste.

TL;DR

1st Place

盛園絲瓜小籠湯包 Sheng Yuan Si Gua XLB
Address: 106台北市大安區杭州南路二段25巷1號1樓

2nd / 3rd Place
好公道金雞園 Hao Gong Dao Dian
Address: 106台北市大安區永康街28-1號

鼎泰豐 Ding Tai Fung
(Google Fu skills, you can find one near you)

4th Place
高記 Kao Chi
(Google Fu skills, you can find one near you)

5th Place
杭州小籠湯包 Hangzhou Xiaolong Tang Bao
Address: Are you sure you want to go here?

Last place: 杭州小籠湯包 Hangzhou Xiaolong Tang Bao

When we got to this place, there was a serious crowd (see the picture below). TripAdvisor says that this restaurant is #30 out of all the restaurants listed in Taipei.

So... let's do some Taiwanese food math

line + great internet rating of 4.5 = THIS MUST BE THE BEST THING EVER!

OHHHH A LINE!!!

Unfortunately, the xlb here fall short of spectacular. Actually, it was probably one of the worst xlb I have ever tasted. It was just so full of green onion and ginger flavor that it overwhelmed the soup and meat taste. In addition, they were smaller than the other places we tried. This is the second time that I have been here, and I thought the first time was a fluke. With this being the second time, it was definitely not a fluke. Hangzhou XLB, you disappoint me. I really don't get why you have such a high rating. Maybe people mistake it for the number one spot on our list, which is just next door and hidden.

4th Place: 高記 Kao Chi

Cool takeout bag

There was an awkward two stuck together

Kao Chi has been competing with its neighbor Ding Tai Fung for quite awhile. With them being next to each other, it is hard for Kao Chi to not have any business because they just take the overflow from Ding Tai Fung. Compared to the other places we tried, these were quite greasy, like a mouthful of oil (too much), and the meat texture was like mush (ew...). Aside from that, it still tasted fine for a xlb. The wrapper was very thin and well made. In comparison to other places, this is only 4th place. I would say go to try it if you don't feel like walking more than 100 meters from the MRT station.

2nd/3rd Place: 好公道金雞園 Hao Gong Dao Dian

I would never have known this place existed as a full service restaurant. The first floor looks like a take out dumpling shop. Little did I know that there was an upstairs that had many tables in traditional Taiwanese fashion (comes with yelling aunties that only speak Taiwanese and Mandarin).

These xlb perhaps have the best value for their taste out of all these restaurants. Each xlb only cost 11.25 NT, which is almost half the price of Ding Tai Fung. If you are craving xlb and just want them en mass, come here. The xlb wrappers were slightly thick, but the filling and soup had just the right proportion and flavor.

2nd/3rd Place: 鼎泰豐 Ding Tai Fung

The famous xlb place that all tourists must go to is only 2nd/3rd place. What a surprise! Not really ... I remember Ding Tai Fung used to be good before they started expanding to many regions of the world. This time around, the soup dumplings lacked flavor even though everything else was spot on with the meat texture, soup, and wrapper. This is also the most expensive out of all these soup dumplings. I would only recommend this place if you were to take a high maintenance person who wants the service with a side of food.

1st Place: 盛園絲瓜小籠湯包 Sheng Yuan Si Gua XLB

This place's xlb is perhaps the best that I have ever had. The wrapper was pretty thin, the soup to meat ratio was just right, and the flavor made a memorable impact. There was a nice balance to this soup dumpling that left me with a great feeling that I would definitely keep coming back to this place. Ignore the reviews on Google. There are many bad reviews, which leaves it at a 3.6 out of 5 on Google. I assure you that you will have a pleasant experience there if you go during peak hours. (The one time I went when they were about to close, and the dumplings seemed like they wrapped up the scrap). From the other, many times that I have gone, the soup dumplings were excellent.T

So, when you decide to get soup dumplings near Yongkang St. Remember, you have other choices aside from Ding Tai Fung.

Here's a breakdown of the score sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MAvRuJyP8vG_Z_trRJblxfZGbIF-yHtBcD-h5E_mQlM/edit?usp=sharing

CaliBurger Taipei Taiwan - Review

2015-04-24T10:14:00.002-07:00

OH YAY! Another burger place has arrived in Taipei (As if there aren't enough burger places in Taiwan). Most of them are horrible! But ... there is hope. I think, or so I thought.

An In n Out Chinese knock off has invaded Taiwan called CaliBurger. Here's their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/caliburgertaiwan?fref=ts. From their menu, it looks like they have the same items as the popular chain, In n Out. If CaliBurger has the same concept as In n Out, they SHOULD taste just as good, right?

CaliBurger's ridiculous prices. 225 NT (7 USD) for a double patty.
(Sorry this place is not worth my DSLR)

Wrong! It is perhaps one of the worst burger that I've had in Taiwan and that is telling you something. I am not being bias because they tried to copy In n Out (I gave a fair review to Juanita Burrito and Taco, which is a rip off of Chipotle).

About the service speed:

It's supposed to be a fast casual restaurant, but they need to work on their coordination and teamwork. I saw one, just one hostess taking names down and showing people to their seats. That is fine, but she was also wiping down the tables and putting away trays that people didn't put away themselves (for people paying such a price for a burger, I bet Taiwanese people expect the restaurant to clean up and not bus trays to throw away like McDonalds or MOS). There were other staff members standing around the floor, but they were just standing there, while there were empty seats and a backed up line of people waiting to get seated. You guys could at least help that poor hostess wipe down tables, while she showed people to their tables.

About the kitchen:

I witnessed a kitchen nightmare. There were enough people back there to operate a fine dining restaurant. There is one rule in the kitchen, and that is if you are standing around, you clean or make yourself useful. I had the urge to jump in the back and ask them WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING? The efficiency was just not there yet. As you see below, the guy in the black was trying to shoulder the load of cooking all the burger patties. He was also speaking to everyone in English. Why English? You are in Taiwan! Speak Chinese or Taiwanese or else you will not communicate well with the team! I saw that some of the workers were puzzled with what he wants because he was talking to them in English. Another thing that I noticed was the inefficiency of assembling a burger. They had one person attempted to fold the shape to hold a burger, then pick up the burger that was assembled on a bare countertop and be finicky with their hands trying to mold the paper around the burger. There are a lot faster ways to wrap a burger! Also, their prep station looked like a mess. I saw one of the staff members wipe the burger assembly counter with a cloth and shake it over the trashcan, fold it, and throw it on to another countertop. I do not want to know where that towel has been and hopefully it was quickly washed or sanitized later.

It's probably because I have worked in a kitchen to notice all these small details, but come on... sanitation, efficiency are key to a successful kitchen operation. I hope they can improve upon this aspect.

There's SIX people in the open kitchen, while more are in the back.
The guys to the right were seen as not doing anything.
The guy in the black is their lead cook, by all means not close to chef level.

Now on to the important part ... the food.

Our "lovely" order, 2 CALIDOUBLES,
1 CALIBURGER, special fries

THE BURGER

The meat was absolutely dry as the bread and unevenly seasoned. http://city543.com/taipei/2015/04/20/7-reasons-why-caliburger-is-way-better-than-mcdonalds/. I'm calling city543 out on this because it tastes like a McDonald's burger, but McDonald's burgers have an even distribution of seasoning and sauce AND only costs 90 NT. How does one wring out MOST of the moisture out of a burger patty? Any guesses? Here's a few things that cause a burger patty to be dry.

1. Overworking the meat. From their Facebook posts, it looks like they take pre-ground (correct me if I'm wrong) beef from the suppliers, then roll it into a ball and then compress it some more. The meat, from what I see from their Facebook post, does not look like it has been well ground. This may have been a result of grinding the meat when the grinder blades are too warm, which reduces the meat into mush.

2. Overcooking. This is probably the culprit. For such a thin patty to get a nice sear, the grill temperature needs to be super hot. It did look like it was taking awhile for the patty to get a nice sear. Sorry to the cook in the back, but you might need to work a bit more on your technique.

3. Not enough fat content. They probably (just assuming) got the generic ground beef from a Taiwanese beef distributer of Australian beef. There is no way of telling what they grind, and it does not seem like the burgers have enough fat content as In n Out's burgers.

The burger did not have a good ratio of vegetables, meat, and bread. The bread was very stale tasting. This is probably caused by Taiwan's environment, leaving burger buns on the griddle too long (drying out), and not enough burger grease on the buns (come on! grease = flavor, but that was lacking in these burgers). There was also way too much vegetables in the burger that it overpowered the sauce.

THE FRIES

Meh... nuff said. They were a soggy mess. Flavor was sort of there though.

I appreciate how CaliBurger is trying to be local and sustainable, but come on ... you can only be that once you figure out how to properly use these products and know how your beef is processed.

From someone who has eaten at various burger establishments in California, sorry, but CaliBurger does not make the cut as a good tasting burger. Stop branding yourselves as a Californian burger because there are various types of burgers in California. My friends, who also dined with me, also agree that this is nowhere close to In n Out. "I left feeling hungry because the burger was so (*does flippy hand motions) small" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - Iris.

What does that even mean? "Californians invented the concept of lifestyle".
Umm... not true. I would think that various cultures have their own concept of lifestyle.

RAW - Chef Andre Chiang's new restaurant

2014-12-14T19:16:00.002-08:00

Address
No.301, Le Qun 3rd Road, Taipei City, Taiwan
Phone
+886-2-8501-5800
www.raw.com.tw

On Saturday, I was lucky to snag a reservation for Andre Chiang's new restaurant RAW in Taipei. In order to get a reservation, you need to reserve 2 weeks in advance online at www.raw.com.tw. Using some computer magic, I got a reservation for Saturday's.

Service and Ambiance: 8.0/10 - very good, but some things can be worked on

Going into the restaurant, I had very high expectations, and I was not disappointed. The restaurant had a nice atmosphere that felt homey and cozy. The wooden tables, open kitchen, and the lack of white linen and set tableware made the place a no fuss restaurant. In Taiwan, I really don't like the overly polite service and bowing, and RAW had none of that.

One of the greatest things about Chef Andre is he greets all the guests and personally explains some of the dishes. It's like having friends cook and serve food from their home.

The only thing I had problems with is the service is that the waiters and waitresses served food too fast. I would still be working on a dish, then another dish would appear in front of me. I felt a bit rushed in the beginning because dishes kept coming one after another without a gap in between.

Food: 8.2/10

Menu: 1850 NT

Bread. 9.0/10

Bread made from buckwheat - 150 NT

Buckwheat butter

When the waitress come by and explained the menu, she asked us if we wanted to add bread to our meal. I would definitely recommend getting the bread.

The bread has a nice crust, aroma, and soft fluffy interior, though I do prefer my bread to be higher hydration, but that's just my personal preference. The butter is whipped French butter with toasted buckwheat and cocoa on top. The nice crunch from the buckwheat definitely made the bread memorable.

Asparagus, Broccoli, and Burnt Miso - 9.0/10 Brings back childhood memories. Yum

This was a great way to start the meal. This was a cold dish that was served immediately just a few minutes after we sat down. The flavors were quite refreshing. It kind of tasted like broccoli casserole that I'd get at those holiday parties back in America, which brought back a few memories of going to so and so's xmas party, and there would always be a casserole dish with breadcrumbs.

The proportion of broccoli, asparagus, and miso was quite perfect as there was a perfect amount with each bite. The asparagus was perfectly cooked, fresh, and did not have that bad asparagus aftertaste that I would usually get from eating it. There are very few restaurants that I've been to in Taiwan that can make asparagus feel like it was alive.

Carbonated Grapes with Mint 8.0/10 Fizzy poppy goodness! Too much mint :(.

Chef Andre came around our table at this point and explained that the grapes were like the marble soda that you would get at the convenient stores or night market in Taiwan. It was quite delicious and refreshing, but I wish they had served us four grapes instead of three that way my girlfriend and I would both get two grapes. I did have a problem with there being too many springs of mint since I don't like excess garnish on the plate.

Cobia, Citrus, Daikon - 8.0/10 Pretty good and refreshing

Another refreshing dish to start the meal. This fish is definitely Taiwanese, as 80% of marine cages in the country are dedicated to raising Cobia. The citrus and individual fruit pulp blended nicely with the fish, though I thought there could be more citrus flavor. There was also a nice texture from the daikon and sago (西米露), which is mainly used for dessert in Taiwan. Using sago added another enjoyable and interesting dimension to this dish.

Ajo Blanco, Cauliflower, Squid - 6.5 Above average but a bit meh.

For this dish, it was a nice play on Ajo Blanco. They had liquid nitrogen milk and thinly sliced cauliflower with squid. There was also almond milk and coconut flakes. It was a nice hot and cold balance and acted as a transition point from the cold to the hot dishes. Even though the squid was perfectly cooked, it did not go well with the other components. I could either taste squid or almond, but never both together. The squid seemed to overpower the almond flavor and because the squid was hot and almond was cold, the squid would have a stronger flavor.

Paella, Prawns, Piquillos - 6.0 Almost average, some things did not belong

At first, this dish looks pretty with a nice contrast of colors, but the flavors were not there. I understand that the paella is from the crispy rice on the shrimp's head, and there's a light spice from the sauce underneath the shrimp, but the dish lacked balance and depth. The shrimp lacked sweetness and saffron sauce was overpowered by the spiciness from the sauce underneath the shrimp. There was also black olive powder, which did I could not taste and felt that it did not contribute to the dish. Also, some of the vegetable components were all over the place.

Mushroom, Mushroom, Mushroom 8.5/10 Noms, very mushroomy, full umami!

There are so many mushroom flavors in this dish. Along with the flavorful mushroom broth, there's a low temperature poached egg hidden underneath the watercress and mushrooms. It has been awhile since I have had good mushroom soup. There was a right amount of saltiness to bring out the earthiness of the mushrooms. I just think the egg could be a little bit more runny. The texture of the egg yolk left a weird feeling on my mouth and teeth. Other than that, the dish was quite delicious.

Short Rib, XO, Baguette - 10/10 - Perfect (A rare rating I give out)

This is one of those dishes that is stuck in my memory. I rarely give 10/10 on reviews, and I can't find anything wrong with this dish. The beef was cooked perfectly (also my favorite cut of meat done sous vide). It had a nice crust from the sear. The sauce was unique and had a slight miso, umami component to it. There's also a parsley puree that played nicely with the baguette puree and was a nice play on garlic bread. The slight acidity from the pickled onion (or some vegetable from the allum family?). The proportion of beef to sauce to leek was perfect. I could finish everything without any excess puree, sauce, or side component left over. I could eat this over and over again without getting tired of it.

Chocolate, Mochi, Burnt Butter - 8.5/10 Like a Snicker's Bar!

This is definitely a deconstructed Snicker's bar. There was a nuttiness from the brown butter, some toffee component, nogurt that was imitated by the mochi, and chocolate. If there had bad been more chocolate, I would have picked up the bowl and drank it. The only thing that I wish was done better was the mochi. The texture was slightly odd and left a weird grittiness in my mouth.

Coffee - 10/10 Aeropress 220NT

The coffee was brewed to my liking, but I don't drink much coffee so I can't really judge good coffee aside from this tasted very good.

Gingerbeer, Mint, Cucumber - 8.0/10 Refreshing and cool 320 NT

This was quite refreshing after such a nice meal. I was quite disappointed that there wasn't ginger beer in this, which was stated on the menu. Instead, it was ginger ale, which is why I give this a 8.0 instead of a 10/10.

Overall, I will be back here in February and maybe the holiday menu, which is 5200 NT. This is perhaps my favorite restaurant in Taiwan, and the best meal that I've ever had in Taiwan. I'm glad Chef Andre has come to Taiwan and set such a high standard and benchmark for good food. I hope to see many restaurants follow RAW's example in the future. A restaurant does not need foie gras, truffles, caviar, etc. to make great food. You just need technique, good ingredients, and innovation to make great food.

Le Mout, Taichung, Taiwan No.24 2014 Asia's Best Restaurant Part 1

2014-04-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

Seems like I haven't posted here in awhile because I have been busy cooking a professional kitchen now. I only post if I encounter something interesting. Today was that interesting encounter. I went to a restaurant that is featured on Asia's Best Restaurants (http://www.theworlds50best.com/asia/en/asias-50-best-restaurants/2130/le-mout-restaurant.html). From out of the thousands of restaurants (maybe millions), these are the top 50. I expect that No. 24 be top notch, no room for error, and the attention to detail flawless, but unfortunately Chef Chen hasn't reached that perfection.

I'll briefly talk about the service and environment because I mainly focus on the food. The service was just ok. Just ok ... the waiter staff that served us went on a 3 to 4 minute monologue about what is in each dish with some pauses and umms like he or she forgot what each dish had. In addition, everyone looked like zombies. There wasn't liveliness in their service.

As for the table setting, there was an expectation for flawless set linens, but there were a few wrinkles in our table. I found some calcium deposit on the wine glass, which means they didn't properly clean their wine glasses.

Service (5/10) Just average.

Now on to the food.
Rated 5.2/10 Just Average

There were two menus available during lunch. One was the Classic Menu (4500 NT), which consisted of French classical dishes (as so said by the waiter). The other is The Tasting of Le Mout (3500 NT), which uses local Taiwanese ingredients to define Le Mout's cuisine.

I'll start with the classic menu.

Both menus have this aperitif

The first is a mini pizza, which consists of a mini pita filled with some creamy cheese sauce. The other is a tomato water jelly sphere with overcooked crab meat. I quite enjoyed the mini pizza and would eat lots of those for a snack. 6/10 Slightly above average. Would be a 8/10 if the jelly sphere didn't have overcooked crab.

I found it weird that they served the bread while we were eating or amuse bouche. I usually have restaurants serve the bread after they collected the dishes for the amuse. Anyways, this was some pretty good sour dough bread and butter. 7/10 Above Average

This is the second amuse, which was an egg custard with marsala wine, dehydrated lemon and potato (they sandwiched two potatoes in between a lemon). The wine sauce was way too sweet for my taste, which overpowered the egg and dehydrated items. 3/10 Below Average

Oyster and Pearls. I can see that Chef Chen did parody to Thomas Keller's Oyster and Pearls. In Keller's version, he uses tapioca pearls and caviar with a buttery sabayon sauce. In Chen's version, she uses large boba tapioca pearls that's hidden beneath lemon butter sabayon. An interesting dish that was pretty well balanced and uses something Taiwanese (boba). 7/10 Pretty good. Side note ... there was a tiny drop of sauce on the side of the plate, someone hasn't been checking the plates for cleanliness before serving.

(sorry, I finished this dish without taking a picture of the consomme)

Slow Cooked Beef Tongue with corn consomme, almond tofu, and dehydrated beef tongue jerky.
I quite enjoyed this dish. It is perhaps the best thing at that I've eaten at this restaurant. The tongue was cooked sous vide for 12 hours, but I found the consomme to be lacking in depth. 8/10 Good.

Poularde Farcie with Black Truffle, Baby Cabbage "Au Vin Jaune".

Oh god, I don't know where to start on how many things are wrong with this dish. They basically messed up a sous vide chicken by rolling it into a roulade with both dark and white meat and then probably sous vide it for more than an hour and holding it at the pass. By sous viding different cuts of chicken at the same temperature for a long time will cause some of the white meat to turn mushy. Also just taking the chicken out of a sous vide bag and just serving it is not good because the chicken is cold once it gets served to the customer. The truffle sauce was way too overpowering that I could only eat one or two bites of the chicken before becoming tired of the dish. 3/10 Below Average.

One cool thing is the waitress let us choose knives to use with our next dish.

Angus Cap with Crispy Brisket, Carmaelized Milk Skin, Scallion Cream, and Jus Tranche with a side of foie gras.

My friend got this dish and just thought it was ok and the scallion cream's consistency was too much.

I got Pigeon in Oreintal Fragrance, Black Truffle Ragout and Mustard Green. This dish could have been great, but it was way tooo salty. I couldn't taste anything but salt. Also the foie gras was just foie gras with nothing special. 2.5/10 Below Average to almost not edible.

Eclair de Bleu d'Auvergne, Sweet Bordelaise Sauce and Hazzlenut Butter (yes they misspelled Hazelnut on their menu). I like this dish, but it was a balance between sweet, sour and salty. A bit too salty for me though. 6/10 slightly above average.

Riz au Lait, Citrus Orange Blossom Milk Foam.
This chocolate orange dish looks pretty, but it did not deliver because there were too many components that didn't flow together. Also, they did a bad job making the chocolate spheres. When I tried to crack the top to reveal the orange sherbet inside (I think but there were some tiny ice crystals inside the mixture, which probably shouldn't belong there), the sphere just sheared perfectly in half as if they didn't connect the hemispheres nicely. 5/10 Average

More about the other menu in my next post.

Rabbit Rabbit

2013-02-19T01:00:00.001-08:00

My girlfriend and I were wandering around Taipei looking for Sunday brunch. It so happens that we stumbled upon a nifty little shop called Rabbit Rabbit. What type of name is rabbit rabbit? I was expecting them to serve rabbit stuffed with rabbit... but since we were looking for brunch, this is the place to go.

From their website:
http://rabbitrabbit-burger.blogspot.tw/

【兔子兔子1】(台北東區商圈)
台北市敦化南路一段160巷32號
(02)8771-4073

【兔子兔子2】(台北東區商圈)
台北市大安路一段31巷31號
(02)2778-3445

Rabbit Rabbit
Rating: Will go again for brunch (means it's good and I only rate food)
Price: Look to bring 300NT to be safe.

We stopped by this place at around 10:50 (they open at 11 am). Soon, there was a line of around 15 people behind us. We figured that this place is pretty popular especially with the "young people".

Cute little logo they have.

Their menu has a variety of several types of poached eggs + (something you will typically find at brunch with poached egg) + English muffin. Of course, brunch has to have some egg related products such as, omelettes and scrambled mash up of whatever fattiness you can add to an egg (bacon, cheese, bacon fat). With all these breakfast items, you can choose to have white or wheat toast, sausage, ham, or bacon, crisscross fries or potato wedges, fresh fruit (they mean a banana with chocolate syrup on it), and fresh juice (lemon limeade?).

Brunch = Breakfast + Lunch. For their lunch portion, they offer burgers, which looks pretty good, and I will have to try it next time. With every burger, one can choose onion rings or fries. I forgot what else they have, but I will go back to get their burgers next time for a quest to find the best burger in Taipei.

Black Coffee

Time to actually talk about how the food tastes ...
The first items to come out was their coffee. I have to say that their coffee is just alright. I mean for a brunch place, the coffee was pretty good. It was definitely way better than coffee you find at Denny's or Ihop.

Mashed Potato Omelette

She ordered a mashed potato, cheese omelette, which was a pretty good combination. Everything was pretty well balanced and a typical brunch meal. The egg was fluffy and they did not make mashed goo for the mashed potatoes. I gotta say ... well done! I was a bit disappointed to find that fresh fruit meant bananas with chocolate syrup. When I think of fresh fruit for brunch, I think of grapes, honeydew, cantaloupes, watermelon, apples , etc... Come on we are in Taiwan! There must be better fruit than just a banana for brunch!

Scrambled Bacon and Cheese

Meanwhile ... after a bit ... I got my bacon, cheese, egg scramble. Now in Taiwan, you can never expect too much for bacon. This word can also refer to ham or Canadian bacon. They actually had bacon!! The only problem I had with it was that it was not crisp.

Another thing, I was not expecting the sausage to actually be a chicken breakfast sausage. Props to them for making an actual breakfast sausage instead of some weird Asian rip off. Overall, the meal was well-balanced. They even had Tabasco sauce, which is good with everything. Lastly, the toast was well... typical Taiwanese toast, which is always absolutely delicious. You don't even need to put butter on it!

I think I will come back here again for brunch in a month or so after I finish devouring the whole area of brunch places.

Lemongrass carbonera with radish, carrots, and pea leaves

2012-05-06T14:40:00.004-07:00

Ah school is almost over!!! Meanwhile, the food and science class at UCLA has given a lot of inspiration and wayyyy expanded my cooking creations. I have been going to the farmer's market more often :). Good thing LA has so many farmer's markets.

Here's something I came up with after going to the farmer's market in Santa Monica.

Lemongrass carbonera with radish, carrots, and pea leaves

Ingredients
A batch of spaghetti (1 inch diameter)
1 cup Heavy cream
1 stalk Lemongrass
1 tsp Soy sauce
2 egg yolks
3 cloves Garlic
2 Carrots
1 Radish
1 Green onion
1 small bunch of Pea leaves with flowers
1 cm Butter
1 tbs Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Prep lemongrass cream (can be done a day beforehand)

1. Peel outer layer of lemon grass
2. Cut lemon grass into little pieces
3. Heat up heavy cream until simmering.
4.Add lemongrass and let it simmer for 10 minutes and stir constantly not to let the cream burn.
5. Add soy sauce and stir.
6. Let it cool and let the lemongrass sit to infuse more flavor (I let it sit in the fridge for a day).

Prep work for main
1. Get water boiling.
2. Cut carrots into as seen in picture.
3. Slice the radish into paper thin.
4. Slice the green onion.
5. Mince the garlic.
6. Trim the pea leaves to get rid of the thicker stalks.
7. When cream is cooled, add egg yolk and stir with the cream.
8. Blanch pea leaves in the boiling water or until the stalk is soft.
9. Leave pea leaves to dry

Instructions for cooking
1. Boil water
2. Add pasta
3. In a pan, add half butter and set for medium heat.
4. Throw in carrots and cook until semi soft.
5. Add radishes and cook until it still has a little crunch in it.
6. Add in blanched pea leaves and the rest of the butter.
7. Set aside in a warm place.
8. Remove pasta from water.
9. Add olive oil to a pan on medium heat.
10. Add pasta and garlic and stir until aroma of garlic comes out.
11. Turn off the heat and add cream and egg mixture.
12. Stir around so that the egg does not cook.
13. Add salt and pepper.
14. Plate as above and add cheese to the noodles.

Spaghetti with Miso Cream Sauce

2012-03-11T23:27:00.004-07:00

Time for a post before finals begin...
About a week ago, I have been thinking about different ways to combine western and eastern cuisines together. I have always wondered how I can incorporate miso into Italian style cuisine. Heck, I'll make some Japanese-Italian pasta dish.

Spaghetti with Miso Cream Sauce (Chicken optional)

Ingredients
Spaghetti for two servings
1 Chicken breast
2 tbs Red miso
1 half inch slice Ginger
3 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Sake
3/4 cup Heavy cream
1/2 cup Chicken stock (better if it is fresh and no salt)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup Basil
Salt and pepper

Prep
1. Boil water.
2. Mince ginger and garlic.
3. In a cup or bowl, mix cream, stock, and cheese.
4. Salt the cup (I give my Trader Joes salt mill 8-9 turns)
5. Slice basil into strips.
6. Slice chicken into stripes or bite size pieces.
7. Throw spaghetti in.

Time to COOK!
1. Heat up oil in a pan and saute the chicken until almost done.
2. Remove chicken and hold in a bowl.
3. Add ginger and garlic to the juices and oil.
4. Start browning those ingredients.
5. Add sake and cook off alcohol.
6. Add miso and cup mixture.
7. Stir fast so that the cheese gets incorporated instead of melting into a mess.
8. At this point your spaghetti should be almost at al-dente (test by eating a piece)
9. Transfer noodles and chicken into the frying pan.
10. Add basil and toss the spaghetti until each piece of spaghetti is evenly coated with sauce.
11. Transfer to a plate and enjoy
Note: You never ever dump sauce onto pasta and call that done. The noodles are supposed to absorb the sauce or else you'll just be eating a soupy mess. When you finish eating the noodles, there should be no sauce leftover.

Enjoy your meal! Now onto cramming for finals ><.

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T02:23:00.000-08:00

I was doing a bit of daydreaming in class today, while my professor talked about Hamilton's principle and yada yada yada....

What would you plan for your significant other for v-day?

Here's what I would do...
An Italian dinner
Antipasti
Bruschetta
Insalata
Spinach, strawberry, vinaigrette
Primi
tagliatelle salsiccia
- sausage, red wine cream sauce
Secondi
Costolette d'agnello alle sette erbe
-herbed lamb chops
Dolci
Anice stellato panna cotta
- Panna cotta flavored with star anise with orange sauce

Shades of Pink

2012-02-07T23:44:00.001-08:00

Hello readers! (the few)
I will post up more recipes when I'm done with midterms :(.

Meanwhile ...
I've entered a mixology contest. Please vote for me!!! It would mean a lot to me if I could go to Uncork'd at Vegas.

Here's the link and recipe!
http://mionettomixology.com/amateur/shades-of-pink/

Thanks!

Ricotta Cheesecake

2012-01-29T17:46:00.000-08:00

I had some leftover ricotta cheese, and I did not know what to do with it. I always wanted to try to make ricotta cheesecake. With some experimentation, I think I got a set recipe down.

Light Ricotta Cheesecake

Ingredients
Crust:
1 Package of graham crackers
2 tbs Brown sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
3 tbs Melted butter

Filling:
16 oz Ricotta cheese (Drained of most liquid)
16 oz Cream cheese (I think its 16 oz. Basically a block)
2/3 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Cake flour
2 Egg whites
2 Eggs
1 tsp Orange blossom
Zest of one orange and one lemon
1/4 Lemon juice

Directions for the crust
1. Melt butter
2. In food processor combine crackers, cinnamon, and sugar
3. Pulse everything until well blended
4. Slowly drizzle butter in
5. Line baking material bottom with crust

Directions for the filling (Preheat oven to 350)
1. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. (set aside in a bowl)
2. With a paddle mixer, beat the cream cheese and ricotta cheese together.
3. Put in the two eggs. (one at a time at low speed)
4. Add in sifted sugar and cake flour.
5. Mix very slowly or else everything will fly out.
6. Add in lemon juice, orange blossom, and zests.
7. Mix until well incorporated.
8. Fold egg whites into the batter
9. Prepare a water bath
10. Put batter in cake pan
11. Put cake into the oven for 45-60 minutes.
12. Let it cool and serve

[$20/week] Week 1 Recap

2012-01-15T00:09:00.000-08:00

As a resolution, I decided to do something crazy... $20/week. I usually spend $40 or even $50 per week on food and groceries. Here's a recap of what I made, and what I ate.

Breakfast:
$1.99 Chocolate Chip Waffles
$2.55 Blueberry Muffins

Lunch:
$0.28 7 Carrots
$1.34 Ham Fried Rice

Dinner:
$11.62 Turkey Lasagna

Beverages:
$1.40 1/2 gallon Milk
Free Water

Total: $19.18 <- Within budget. Woot...
Note: Sometimes I eat the blueberry muffins for lunch.
Ham fried rice lasted me two lunches.
Lasagna surprisingly lasted me the whole week.

[$20/week] Blueberry Muffins (week 1)

2012-01-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

Right in the middle of the night, I get the munchies... I quickly scavenged for ingredients and made something simple, yet healthy. Here's a recipe for about 12 muffins. These things saved me for the rest of the week for snacking or breakfast.

Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour ($.015)
2 teaspoons Baking Powder ($0.0382)
1/2 cup Sugar ($0.48)
1/3 cup Oil ($0.18)
1 Egg ($0.149)
1/2 cup Dried Blueberries ($1.50)
2/3 cup Milk ($0.15)
Total: $2.55

Directions (Preheat oven 375F)
1. Run all the dry ingredients together through a sifter.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients.
3. In a separate container, mix all the wet ingredients.
4. Combine dry and wet ingredients.
5. Line muffin tins.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until done.

[$20/week] Ham Fried Rice (week 1)

2012-01-13T01:22:00.000-08:00

I brought back some goodies from home. What could it be?? Something from Virgina that is good??? So... I brought back my mom's famous Virginia Ham. Yes, ham in Virginia is quite famous and delicious.

At this time of the week (Tuesday, I think), I was getting quite sick of lasagna everyday. I decided to dig through my fridge and see what I could find.

Carrots ... check, onion ... check, ham ... check, garlic ... check. I think we got ourselves some fried rice ingredients.

Ham Fried Rice (serves 2)

Ingredients
Leftover Rice [1 cup] ($0.05)
1/4 Onion ($0.03)
Garlic ($0.045)
Egg ($0.149)
3 thick slices of Ham (~$1.00)
1 tbs Soy sauce (~$0.10)
Canola Oil (~$0.10)
Total : ~$1.50

Directions
1. Cut up all the ingredients like so below:

2. In a wok, toss in some oil and wait for it to heat up.
3. Sweat onions.
4. Add carrots and cook until the onions are slightly brown and carrots are almost soft.
5. Add ham and cook until the ham is heated up.
6. Turn down heat and make a well for the egg.
7. Scramble the egg in the wok.
8. Add rice and cook.
9. Add soy sauce and stir around until rice turns brownish.
10. Taste to see if flavorful enough. Add salt if not or oyster sauce.

[$20/week] Whole Wheat Turkey Lasagna (week 1)

2012-01-13T00:57:00.000-08:00

It is a new year! Time to actually get some blogging done. I haven't touch this blog since summer : (. Graduate school has been quite tough, and I have been getting accustomed to it.

Being a redditor, I decided to take on the $20 a week food challenge on r/budget. As a student living in LA, my peers have told me about how difficult it will be to survive on just $20 a week for food and be decently healthy.

Shizzam! I spent $19.49 this week!
My strategy was to make lasagna, fried rice, eat waffles.

I shall begin my perilous journey of almost starvation:

Whole Wheat Turkey Lasagna (Serves 6)

Cheap ingredients!
Fresh Pasta
5 Eggs ($0.745)
2 lbs Tomatoes ($2.05)
1 Zucchini ($0.37)
Whole Wheat flour ($0.15)
1 lb Ground turkey ($3.79)
3/4 Onion ($.09, yea Smart n Final deals)
1/2 Garlic head ($.09, Smart n Final is the best!)
1/2 package of Mozzarella cheese ($1.745)
16 oz Ricotta cheese ($2.495)
Olive Oil (~$0.10)
Herbs, Seasoning (~$0.15)
Total cost: $11.874

1. Follow instructions to make fresh Pasta

Make the Turkey pasta sauce
1. Finely chop garlic and onion.
2. De-seed the tomatoes.
3. Heat up pan with olive oil.
4. Sweat onions and garlic.
5. Add tomatoes and cook until the peel starts to fall, and liquid starts leaking (~10 minutes).
6. Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend well.
7. In a pan, cook the turkey until it is well done.
8. Add blended sauce.
9. Add seasoning (salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, marjoram)
10. Taste to see if it tastes good!

Ricotta cheese portion
1. Take ricotta and mix with one egg.
2. Add salt and pepper.
3. Taste to see if well seasoned.

Assembling the lasagna in a 12" x 12" lasagna pan (Preheat oven to 375F)
1. Add sauce layer.
2. Add pasta.
3. Add ricotta cheese layer.
4. Repeat until you get to the top.
5. Top with mozzarella cheese and sliced zucchinis.
6. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for 25 minutes.
7. Unwrap and cook for 15 minutes or until cheese on top is golden brown.

Flan

2011-09-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

While I was in Taiwan, they have this thing called "pudding". The thing with pudding is that pudding in Taiwan is not like American goopy mess. Instead it is more like flan. Actually it is flan. When you shake it at a certain lateral forces, it regains it's shape like jello like viscoelastic materials.

Anyways, the closest thing to "pudding" is flan. I prefer my flans to be creamy and not so much like jello.

Flan (makes 6 three inch ramekins)

Ingredients for flan
3 whole large eggs
2 Egg yolks
220 g Whole milk (1 cup)
290 g Heavy cream (1.5 to 1.75 cups)
75 g Sugar
1 Vanilla bean, split lengthwise (2 tsp Vanilla extract)
2 tsp Dark rum

Caramel
5:3 ratio of sugar to water by weight

Directions for flan!
1. Heat milk, cream, vanilla bean until 150F or well you see steam.
2. Separate egg yolks and egg whites (save egg whites for macarons or similar) while you wait for milk and cream mix to heat.
3. Dissolve sugar into dairy mixture by stirring continuously.
4. Add in rum and heat until 160F or until it starts to steam quite a bit (do not boil!!!)
5. In a mixing bowl, mix the egg yolks and whole eggs on low speed.
6. Slowly drizzle in dairy mixture while the egg yolks are mixing (do not make bubbles in the mixing process!)
7. Put mixer on stir.
8. Preheat oven to 300F
9. Boil water to prepare the water bath

Making caramel!
1. Dissolve sugar in the water on medium-high heat.
2.When dissolved, don't stir the caramel.
3. Turn off the heat when the caramel reaches a dark-golden color (darker than the picture's caramel)
4. Pour caramel into the ramekins, until the bottoms are slightly filled. (Note: the caramel will harden, don't worry about that because the oven will redistribute the caramel for the flan)
5. Turn off the mixer and put flan mix in caramel

Oven baking (reminder 300F)
1. Place ramekins in deep pan.
2. Place deep pan in the oven.
3. Pour boiling water into the deep pan until water reaches a little below the edge of ramekins.
4. Bake for 45-60 minutes, depending on your oven.
5. When 45 minutes is up, test to see if the flan jiggles a lot. If not, you are done!

Enjoy this creamy delicious treat! If you want, you can use 550g of whole milk and no cream at all or replace the heavy cream with half and half to get a less creamier texture.

Roast Garlic Lemon Chicken with Trumpet Mushrooms

2011-08-29T03:11:00.001-07:00

Woosh woosh woosh... typhoon is incoming Taiwan. I doubt it'll hit Taipei, but one of my flatmates said the typhoon is going to be ultra strong like hitting a HADOUKEN on Taiwan. The winds are quite strong, and I heard the South is pretty bad. Hopefully, the winds don't cause buildings to vibrate at its resonance frequency!

I hope everyone is safe! Also on the other side of the world, hopefully things are alright with Irene!

Anyways, what did I make on this ultra not so windy day?
With myself limited to salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic, chicken, and mushrooms (bought at Carrefour for 150 NT = around 5 USD that can last me three meals).

Well, you'll find out below...

Roast Garlic Lemon Chicken with Trumpet Mushrooms

Ingredients of woosh woosh.
1 whole Bulb of Garlic
2 Chicken breasts
10 Trumpet mushrooms (you can replace with whatever mushrooms you like)
2 tbs Lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Prep work of lightning fast wind
1. Slice mushrooms in however you like fashion.

Roasting Garlic (Preheat oven 175 C or 350 F)
1. Take apart garlic and leave the skin of garlic on.
2. Chop tips of garlic off
3. Put garlic in aluminum foil.
4. Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper over garlic
5. Wrap the garlic into a ball with the aluminum foil
6. Place in oven (middle rack) for 20-25 minutes. (Note: Your smoke alarm might go off)

Cooking and putting everything in place on this windy day. (Do this while the garlic has 5-10 minutes left in the oven)
1. Heat pan in oil.
2. Sear chicken breasts on both sides (nice and golden on each side about 30-45 seconds each side).
3. Season with salt and pepper
4. Place chicken on parchment paper and in the middle rack with the garlic.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

While everything is cooking in the oven... and the garlic is done.
1. Carefully (it's HOT) peel the garlic cloves and place garlic in a bowl
2.Use a spoon, fork, grinding tool, and mash the garlic into a paste.
3. Add the lemon juice, salt, pepper, and generous amount of olive oil.
4. Mix well until the ingredients are incorporated.

Cooking the Mushrooms.
1. Cook the mushrooms until nice and brown (be about 5 minutes)
2. O look your chicken is done just in time!

Putting it all together
1. Plate by placing mushrooms first and add some garlic paste.
2. Add chicken on top of the mushrooms.
3. Spread garlic paste on top of the chicken.

Well... time to enjoy most of my day indoors.

Parents Restauran Dim Sum (朝桂餐廳)

2011-08-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Dim sum in Taipei has to be good right? Taiwan is only a two hour flight away, so it has to be way better than the places in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Tell you the truth ...
I haven't had good dim sum that is reasonably priced ($15-20 per person that would be 450-600 NT).

O well... I would not recommend the place next to San Wan Hotel (It's a place to the right of the entrance). Their tea looked like nuclear waste, and that nuclear waste probably mutated their seafood and meats = not fresh at all.

Back to today's topic... I would recommend Parents Restaurant.

Parents Restaurant (朝桂餐廳)

200 Dunhua S. Rd., Sec. 1
(Exit 9 of East Metro Mall)
Go out and it should be to your left
(02) 2772-8888
Hours: 11:30am - 9:30pm

Since I posted a lovely picture of egg tarts ...
My god! The picture! It's a trap!

I shall tell you that the size of these aren't as big as they seem on picture. About the size of a nanochip (a couple nanometers), just kidding. They aren't the usual sized egg tarts that you would find in Hong Kong or bakeries. These are about the size of mini oreos.

But in terms of taste, size doesn't matter. Each layer of the tart was flaky and the egg portion had a nice density that melted in my mouth.

Since I'm already on desserts. I proceed to a mango panna cotta. WTF... Isn't that what you get at an Italian restaurant? Let me tell you, some dim sum restaurants have some of the best panna cotta I've ever eaten. Weird huh?

I guess I can do a nice transition from desserts to savory stuff by talking about buns or bao zhi.

What is in this bao???
Guess ... keep guessing ... Well. I'll just have you hanging because I didn't take pictures of the inside.

I'll tell you what's inside because I'll save you the trouble of ordering this.
The insides of this protective shell is supposed to be egg custard filling that supposed to drip all over like the baos at NBC Seafood Restaurant back in LA. I was disappointed to find a thick and dense filling like red bean paste.

Onto the next item.

One of my favorite types of baos (char siu bao). I would only have to give this an average rating. They put an interesting twist to it by adding star anise to the char siu, but I don't think that worked well. In addition, there was not enough balance with the sauce and the meat (too much sauce, little meat).

Well... that's enough criticism of their baos. I guess they aren't too good at making bao zhi.
Now onto more delicious items that I could probably and you probably are afraid to eat.
What might you be afraid to eat?? I dunno... chicken feet? beef tripe?
In the food world, you must try everything! DO NOT say NO just cause it sounds disgusting. Close your eyes and just eat it because it is ABSOLUTELY delicious.

Here's some chicken feet with some delicious spicy-ish sauce. These are a pain to eat, but the pain is worth the taste.

Beef tripe above. This is also delicious. Nice and chewy and full I mean FULL of flavor!

The next items are food that I always order at dim sum.

This is siu mai, something you would usually find at every dim sum restaurant. The sui mai was unique and just average. Why just average? There was too much meatiness and not well balanced with the skin. I expect siu mai to be juicy and not be eating a meatball wrapped in skin.

The next item is something I enjoyed.

This is shrimp long noodles (chang fun)
My god the shrimp was SUPER fresh! Of course, Taiwan is an island and has plenty of live shrimp unlike America. Usually when I eat this, there is usually a strong bad fishy taste and smell associated with it. This time, I didn't have that experience. The chang fun was perfectly cooked and was not soggy. I would definitely recommend this dish/

So my verdict on dim sum restaurants in Taipei still stays the same, but if your craving dim sum, I would go to parents Restaurant.

Somebody Cafe

2011-08-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

When I'm in Ximen, all I can think of is street performers, high school kids gossiping it up, and shopping for clothes (mostly girl clothes). The problem I have with Ximen is that almost every place you find is a chain restaurant or just mediocre food.

I seriously think the chances of finding good food can't be as slim as landing people on Mars. Once again, I proceeded to navigate around the little alleys and through some really really weird stores. In between all these weird stores, there was a place that stood out called: Sombody Cafe. I knew it was beckoning me to go inside as if it was saying "Sombody come to my cafe!".

Somebody Cafe

Address: 2F., No. 131, Xining S. Road, Wanhua District, Taipei City 108
http://blog.yam.com/creative26 (check out their blog for events or mini concerts)

As you see above, there's quite an interesting entrance. There's lots of funky designs all over the place, and apparently, there's a gallery on the second floor and dining area on the third. I found it is a great place to relax and think about things while enjoying a cup of tea and cake. To my discovery, there were a lot of manga artists and writers in the cafe that were brainstorming their ideas.

Art gallery on the second floor.

Funky couch design.

So... lets begin talking about the food!

I was really hungry that day. I mean STARVING because some people wanted to go to McDonalds, so I wandered off to find this cafe.

Above, I ordered a set consisting of smoked chicken sandwich, strawberry mousse cake, and white peach oolong tea.

Here's a closer picture of the chicken sandwich. I don't know if I was just really hungry, but this was a pretty delicious sandwich. The chicken was juicy and moist and had an herby flavor. In addition, there was a slight tartness and sweetness to the sandwich that was well balanced.

Every time I have a sandwich, I need something refreshing to cleanse the savory flavor. I think I ordered the perfect drink that went with both the sandwich and my cake. As I stated above, I got a white peach oolong tea. Now, I was expecting some fake ass dried peach tea. Wait ... I'm in Taiwan, they hate using artificial fake ass stuff like they do in the states. There was actually REAL white peach in the tea! The oolong made the tea the right amount of sweetness and refreshment.

Now... the grand finale is always saved for last. The cake, and this cake is not a lie.

As one would think, this cake looks sweet. The top layer looks like cream and there's probably enough sugar in there to make a little kid hyper for a whole week.

One bite into this cake... the texture was amazing. Light, airy, fluffy, and not too sweet. The chocolate and strawberries balanced out with each other, unlike the time I went to Starbucks and asked them to put strawberry syrup in my mocha frap.

If you ever need a place to chill, de-stress, hang out, think about brilliant ideas...
Come to Somebody Cafe because everyone is somebody there with great ideas.

林東芳牛肉麵 (Lin Dong Fang Beef Noodle Soup)

2011-08-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

Everywhere in Taipei, and I mean EVERYWHERE in Taipei, there is a beef noodle shop around every corner. The hard part is to find a unique and tasty one.

Usually, foreigners see a ghetto shack, not near the MRT stations, has a couple flies, guy in a jersey mixing soup would be like:

Well. For me. Ghetto looking = authentic =

This place is exactly that. One of the best beef noodles I've ever had in Taipei.
林東芳牛肉麵 (Lin Dong Fang Beef Noodle Soup)

104 Taiwan Taipei City Jhongshan District Section 2,
BāDé Road 274號
+886 2 2752 2556 ‎
(Something like that just plug it into Google Maps)

Let me show you a picture of epic noodles first before I explain how delicious it is.

Ok... See those noodles? Those are fresh made noodles and not dry. They were really chewy and as the Taiwanese would say: "VERY Q"

The meat was soooo tender that it melted like butter in my mouth.
The most important thing is the soup.
Unlike other beef noodle shops, this shop had a distinct Chinese herb flavor that made the soup super incredible. I don't think I can reproduce such a good soup. It seems like the soup has been stewed for several days. The beef flavor really punched me in the face.

Another thing that made this place soooo good was this:

It's basically solidified hot chili oil that has been infused with some herbs and spices. This really packs a spicy kick to the soup and gives the soup a nice aroma.

I would definitely go back here for seconds, thirds, and heck a whole month!!

雙連圓仔湯 (Sweet rice ball shop) Taiwanese Dessert

2011-08-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

I loveeeeee Italian food. I really do. You can see all the blog posts I make about Italian food.

Why am I talking about Italian food and there is "sweet rice ball shop" in the title?
BTW, that is not the translation of the shop's name.

Anyways, I've been eating Italian food almost every day in Taipei from people wanting to go out with us or just roaming around.

Things I've learned:
1. Their cream sauce is weird. (probably due to lack of dairy in Taiwan)
2. Get their tomato sauce based pasta.
3. They put seafood in EVERYTHING!
4. I really should start talking about sweet rice balls.

雙連圓仔湯 (Sweet rice ball shop) , not the literal translation [English Friendly]

Open since 1951.
www.sweeetriceball.tw
Locations

Once again, I decided to take a different back alley home and I saw some man making deep fried rice balls. My god I've been eating Italian food! I should have some Taiwanese dessert!

Dude making the rice balls.

For 100 NT, you can get super delicious, not too sweet rice balls and some form of soup (I'll explain later).

What are rice balls?
Here is one:

They are these chewy dough-like ball made out of rice flour. What you see on top is peanut powder with sugar and sesame seeds. Somehow I can not describe how good this Taiwanese dessert is. I can definitely not find anything like it in America.

How do you eat it?
You take your chopstick and cut it into tiny bite size pieces and then rub the peanuts all over the pieces.

Throw it in your mouth and you'll see how good it is.

Now onto the soup.
Typically a when someone thinks of soup, they think of french onion soup, clam chowder, vegetable soup etc.

Here's a Taiwanese soup:

WTF is that? Peanuts in the soup, beans, more rice balls?

In Taiwan, you also have sweet dessert soups like red bean soup, green bean soup, peanut soup. Beans may sound nasty, but in Asia, they know how to make beans right. These soups extract the sweetness from these beans and is probably one of the best desserts in the world. You can have it hot or cold.

They also sell noodles and other stuff, but I would recommend getting rice balls.

Chicken and Assorted Mushroom Alfredo

2011-08-08T03:25:00.000-07:00

You know those days that you just don't want to eat out and just eat your own food.

Well ... Sunday was just one of those days.

I decided to try to cook in Taipei.

You guys must think I'm crazy. There is like a million great places to eat in Taipei, and I decided to cook in my ghetto, bug infested apartment.

Yes, I was crazy to cook, but I think it was worth the experience.

I decided to venture and mingle with the locals at the market near my apartment.

Here is what I bought:

Chicken breast - freshest chicken ever! (literally, they killed it in the morning)

Shiitake mushrooms

King trumpet mushrooms

Garlic

The rest of the ingredients that I bought at Carrefour:

Parmesan cheese (MY GOD IT IS EXPENSIVE!)

Heavy cream ( MY GOD THIS IS EXPENSIVE TOO)

Spaghetti noodles (cheap)

Chicken and Assorted Mushroom Alfredo (4 servings)

Ingredients
2 Large chicken breasts
3 Large Shiitake Mushrooms
3 Large King Trumpet Mushrooms
125 g Spaghetti
10 Garlic Cloves
2 cup Heavy Cream
125 grams Parmesan Cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Diced up parsley to garnish

Prep Work in super clean Taiwanese kitchen (not really ...)
I had to prep in the dining room cause the kitchen was dirty.
1. Heat up water for boil
2. Slice shittake mushrooms into strips
3. Slice the king mushrooms lengthwise
4. Finely dice garlic
5. Grate the cheese into a bowl
6. Dry chicken with paper towel or cloth
7. Salt and pepper chicken
Note: (Stir milk occasionally so it does not burn).
8. Heat up milk until it is simmering (once it starts simmering turn the heat to the lowest setting )
9. Cook pasta while doing other cooking (take pasta out and pour a little oil and mix and set aside)

Cooking the Chicken
Preheat oven to 350 F or around 175 C (They use celcius in taiwan)
1. Heat up pan
2. Heat up the oil
3. Toss chicken in and sear for about 45 seconds or until one side gets tan crispy like.
4. Flip the chicken and do the same as step 3.
5. Toss chicken in the middle rack of the oven for 17-20 minutes.
6. Let chicken rest on a plate

Making the Alfredo Sauce
1. Under no heat or super reduced heat, quickly stir in the cheese a little bit at a time until the sauce gets thick like alfredo sauce.
2. Taste the sauce if it is good enough.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add in parsley
5. Let the sauce sit there.

Putting everything together
1. Heat oil in a pan.
2. Throw in garlic and cook until aroma comes out.
3. Toss mushrooms in and cook until soft.
4. Throw noodles and sauce in the pan.
5. Coat the noodles with the sauce and toss around.
6. Plate and enjoy.

I got to say. Italian food costs a lot to cook in Taipei, but it was well worth it. The ingredients were soooo fresh. I almost wanted to make fresh pasta that day, but I think that would have took way longer to manually roll out the dough and cut noodles with a knife xD.

Dazzling Cafe (Honey Toast Edition)

2011-07-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

New definition of epic food:
Something that looks mediocre ... suddenly ... turns into an explosion of flavor in the mouth.

Dazzling Cafe (Honey Toast Edition)

You know how I mentioned how epic Chin Chin Cafe's honey toast was? It was so hugely epic that I even decided to walk 3 miles back to my apartment feeling all happy and stuff...

I have to redefine epic as stated above after eating toast from Dazzling Cafe.
On that Sunday afternoon, my friend and I got lucky that there was not a huge line as everyone claims at Dazzling Cafe. We were lucky enough to be one of the first people in the cafe without having to make reservations.

Time to start off reviewing the honey toast of new epicness.

At first, I saw that the toast was smaller than the one at Chin Chin Cafe and thought I was being ripped off for the price to amount of food I get. I guess size does not matter in terms of food. Taste is significantly greater than quantity.

Now, I heard mixed reviews about Dazzling Cafe, and how the toast is too sweet etc. Well... guess who has a sweet tooth ?? MEEE! like honey senpai from Ouran High School Host club.
For me, I have a specific and precise sweetness tolerance range like the precision of changing trajectory using an ion or hall thurster (that's a type of rocket propulsion system) for a satellite. I think Dazzling Cafe hit it spot on.

In addition to the toast, I got hot fruit tea. For those who do not know what fruit tea is, it is basically different tropical fruits (all from Taiwan), such as fresh passion fruit, mangos, apples, peaches (fyi it's peach season here), and kiwis, brewed with tea. There is no sugar added in the tea. It uses the natural sugars from the fruits to sweeten the tea and give it a sweet and citrus-y taste.

I don't think there was anything to complain about this toast.
In addition, the service was great! The waitress cleanly cut the toast and prepared it for us by taking a piece of inside toast, spreading cream on it, put ice cream and fruit on top. At Chin Chin cafe, the waitress just slices the toast and leaves it there for you to still question how to eat it without making a mess.

FYI ... I got the Party in Your Mouth Toast. It literally was a party in my mouth.

DON (rice bowls)

2011-07-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

DON (rice bowls)

DON (Japanese Style Rice Bowls)
[Image]
(English Friendly waiter)
台北市市民大道四段28號
02-8773-8580

After getting lost in the Fuxing, Dunhua, Sanmin Da Dao area. I accumulated a LOT of restaurant business cards from tiny hole in the wall places just because the menu that they post outside look delicious. Who needs a GPS. I think some mad scientist programmed a food GPS into my head, or I have some food magnetic field around me that will magically guide me to a good place to eat.

One of those tiny shops that I stumbled upon was DON. A group of friends and I decided to venture into this tiny restaurant. At first, it looked like it could only seat 5 people with bar seating. To our surprise, there was a basement level that could sit at most 20 people.

Why is it called Don?
In Japanese Don literally means "bowl", and guess what?? Don serves rice in bowls (no duh)

I ordered dark chicken meat with their teriyaki suace. My god! Usually when I get a teriyaki bowl. It is pretty salty. This one was pretty well balanced like yin and yang, salty and sweetness, creating zero forces and moment in my mouth etc. With it having well balanced forces in my mouth. I did not need to have turbulent flow of water to wash my mouth after my meal.

This place has one or two vegetarian dishes that my friends ordered. They also look delicious.

Vegetable and egg on top of rice.

Hot stone, curry udon soup.

Also ...
Why did I mention English friendly?
Long story short.
The waiter kept speaking to us in English. I guess he just wanted to practice his English with us. ^_^. Props to him! Though I was trying to learn the dishes in Chinese xD.

Chin Chin Cafe (part 2) Honey Toast Edition

2011-07-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever heard of the dessert stomach?
Well ... the algorithm of fullness and digesting food can go like this.
While Dessert stomach != full
If stomach = full then
Stomach = Desert Stomach
Eat tons of sweets
Food Coma
Else
Eat more of everything else
Digest
End If
End While

Chin Chin Cafe (part 2) Honey Toast Edition

Despite stuffing my friends and I stuffing ourselves with food, we still decided to get dessert at Chin Chin Cafe. I decided to go to Chin Chin Cafe again with a few friends.

This time to share a GIGANTIC honey toast. I mean this thing is so big that I think you would need a couple W44x335 beams to hold it up along. Good thing the waitresses have superior asian kung fu strength techniques to serve us the honey toast despite how skinny they look.

The epic toast was beckoning us to eat it as we stared in awe. How the heck do we eat this thing?
Luckily the waitress had kung fu assassin skills and quickly cut up the sides of the toast, in which the insides were already sliced and baked in delicious honey.

(The insides)

With the addition of the quickly melting ice cream, cream, and fruit. We feasted until our dessert stomachs were full.

Despite how epic I may have made it sound ..
I had a problem with the crust being not that flavorful and a bit not so fresh baked bread taste like how my dad and aunt makes a big loaf of bread. I guess it is because we went at night and usually fresh bread just only has freshness for a few hours.

I also got fruit tea, which was pretty good. Nice and fruity!
Aside from that...
A great ending to the night as I walked 3 miles back home from Chin Chin Cafe ^_^

Chin Chin Cafe (part 1)

2011-07-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

What is there to do on a Sunday morning in Taipei?
a) Do tai chi in the park like a tai chi master.
b) Play tennis with the locals and swing the racquet like playing badminton.
c) Find food and get lost in Taipei.
d) Sleep in and dream about food.

I choose "c" because I just like finding places to eat in the gluttonous city (as Time magazine calls Taipei).

From my friend's (Judy) suggestion, I proceeded to find Chin Chin Cafe and got lost on the bus system. After walking around and asking around. I finally arrived at the glorious, bright, white, and shiny (it was really bright outside -_-) destination after 1 hour 37 minutes and 48 seconds of getting lost and getting business cards of various places that I might eat in the future.

Chin Chin Cafe (part 1)
106 Taiwan台北市大安區復興南路一段107巷5弄6號1樓
Tel: (02)8773-6601

The glorious entrance to deliciousness

What a nice interior. Really clean looking and simple.

You must be wondering about why it is part 1?

I went there believing that I would be eating giant toast.

So... if I didn't get toast....
What did I get???
Instead, I got a cheese tuna panini because the toast is also HUGE, and I would like to share the large, sweetness of awesome with people.

I guess this can be considered toast of some sorts.
By definition, the bread was crunchy like toast and has slight burn marks on it, but this was a panini.

It reminds me of the late nights studying and getting panini from Cafe 1919 at UCLA, but this panini was 10x better.
It had a nice honey mustard taste that went well with the caramelized onions, tuna, and strong cheese. Also, this portion can definitely be shared with two people. I think I paid 180 for it, and the panini was definitely worth it.

There was also a mini salad by it. I think they put a little too much dressing in it. I would ask for dressing on the side next time.

In addition, to the waitress' suggestion, I got their house special iced coffee. It was a bit too creamy for me, but nevertheless good enough that I have the aroma of coffee in my face.

Well, be ready for part 2 in the upcoming week. I'll be getting giant toast. What is giant toast? Well, you'll just have to wait and see.