February 20, 2010
Taichung Miscellany
居酒屋ととや
Cousin K set off to Taichung a day before us, and she enjoyed her meal at Izakaya Totoya so much that she reserved a place immediately for the next night when we arrived. The old-school style Japanese interior is comfortably worn by patrons and servers scurrying back and forth along the long, narrow restaurant. As befitting any good izakaya, they offered a wide variety of tasty morsels, grilled to perfection on smoldering charcoal. They must have some heavy-duty exhaust equipment to draw away all the smoke from the continuously busy grill. Especially liked the grilled fishies, in-season and full of roe in their swollen bellies. The girls wanted something a bit more substantial than glorified beer snacks (especially since they weren't drinking beer), so they ordered a kimchee-beef nabe. The Korean pickled cabbage added some serious zing, and there was also lots of beefy good stuff in the pot, too. The mixture of tender beef-shank slices, hearty chunks of stew beef, and collagenous beef tendons shows care and consideration in the preparation. Good thing we had reservations, since he line of waiting diners was still out the door and down the street even as we were leaving after our meal.
肉片土司
Our hotel room was very nice but it didn't include breakfast. But on a gorgeous sunny day we'd rather get out there as early as possible anyway. Still gotta have breakfast, though, and cousin K was well prepared in guiding us to this shop across the street from a park. We weren't the only ones looking to start our day with a good meal, as the line was already out the door by the time we arrived. Thankfully the line moved very quickly, as well it should, for the simple menu of modern Taiwanese breakfast basics done right.
The signature port cutlet sandwich is a marinated piece of meat pan-fried and slapped between a couple of slices of mayo-ed white toast with a fried egg. The meat is a slab of recognizable, compared to the mystery-meat that's in breakfast-cart sandwiches. The crepe wrap with egg and bacon is another solid favorite. Perfect with a cup of milk tea or soy milk. Not innovative or fancy, but good ingredients freshly prepared makes for a noticeable step up from the usual street-corner breakfast shops.
洪瑞珍
We fanned out near the train station to stand in line for the various famous local goods. The most curious being 洪瑞珍 which somehow became famous for generic white-bread ham&egg sandwiches. Masked ladies assembled sandwiches with mindless efficiency in order to satisfy the long line going out the door. Fresh baked de-crusted white toast is layered with a thin piece of ham then an even thinner layer of egg skin. The twist is in the spread, where they slather one of the layers with whipped cream instead of the usual mayo. The cream adds a richer mouth feel to sandwich, but some folks found the tinge of sweet milkiness objectionable. Good, more for me that way. It's not gourmet cuisine, but it brings back fond nostalgic memories of snack-time in elementary school.
ととや 和道屋
台中市北區健行路766巷2號
04-2206-8853
肉蛋吐司
台中市西區健行路1005號
04-2327-1066
洪瑞珍餅店
台中市西區自由路一段122號
04-2226-8787