吃飯了嗎？

富順樓

Wife's uncle took us to the old-school Beijing-style restaurant near the dealership where he works. Nothing fancy in the decoration of the room, but everything was clean and well lit, the sort of mid-range restaurant perfect for a casual meal with the extended family without breaking the bank. Nowadays these family restaurants are being squeezed out by the M-shaped marketplace and extravagant Taipei rents, as only high-end pricing or low-end volume survive. But a glance around the room shows that it's full of loyal supporters who've most likely been coming for years, now with English-speaking ABC grandchildren in tow. You know it's an authentic place because it's filled with old folks with mainland-China accents. The veterans of Chiang Kai-Shek looking for the flavors of a long-lost place.

Nothing exotic here. We could order with barely a glance at the menu. The duck required pre-ordering at reservation time. Other things like 蔥油餅 onion pancakes, 京都排骨 fried spareribs, and 清炒蝦仁 prawns on greens are all de rigeur on Chinese menus around the world. The main thing wasn't in the exotic flavors, but doing the basics well. Unfortunately with so many people sharing there wasn't quite as enough duck skin to go around, but that's the just the quadratic vs. cubic scaling effect of the surface-to-volume ratio of the duck. And even the most creative chef can't fight the laws of physics. The bones made for a tasty soup, though, part of the duck-three-ways preparation.

富順樓
台北市松山區八德路三段139號
02-2577-4860

粽子

It's Summer Festival 端午節 time again. Which means it's time for the bamboo-leaf-wrapped rice dumplings 粽子. Just about every family with an obasan at home will be making them. Restaurants and hotels offer their own versions, ranging from just-like-grandma home-style to ultra-luxe franken-wraps filled with randomly expensive stuff like foie-gras, abalone, or shark-fin. Even 7-11 offers a wide variety sourced from famous makers for mail-order, including Starbucks mochi-style dessert ones.

We get them from all over, in exchange with family and friends, as gifts from customers and clients. But after trying them all, the ones mom and grandma make are still the best. Good thing, too, since we'll be eating them well into summer. Thankfully they freeze well.

游壽司

Wife's sister took us to this tiny sushi bar near Yongkang St. to celebrate her new job at IBM. With barely a dozen seats and good Internet word-of-mouth, reservations are critical. The entire store-front is barely wide enough for the sushi bar and facing stools, and not much longer, either. Service consisted of three sushi chefs and a hostess, which is quite an extravagant ratio, when you consider the size of the place.

The available sushi options are scribbled on a blackboard, based on what was fresh at the fish market that day. One can choose a-la-carte from the blackboard list, but all of us simply chose a set meal, each containing set number of pieces of sushi but the contents of which are at the chef's discretion. There was a good variety, demonstrating different techniques, flavors, and textures.

• The sashimi donburi is the centerpiece of their most popular set meal. Big chunks of tamago, salmon, tuna, and salmon roe covered the bowl of rice. Garnished with julienned shiso.
• The aji mackerel is pre-cut and marinated with sesame seeds and shiso, ready to be piled onto the gunkan-maki roll.
  
• The sushi chef created surface texture with some delicate knife work, which broke up the stranded meat of the squid to make it easier to chew. Flanked by pickled daikon and ginger.
  
• Some say too large a piece of fish can overwhelm the balance with the sushi rice. Screw them. When it comes to tuna, the more the better.
  
• Ordered the scallop a la carte, in addition to our sushi set meals. Well worth the extra few bucks for the big lump of fresh shellfish meat.
  
• The chef used the butane torch to good effect on a number of sushi pieces to sear the outside while maintaining the rawness of the fish filet. Plus it makes for an entertaining show for the diners.
  
• As the sushi pile up on the plate, gotta love how the fish pieces almost entirely obscures the rice underneath. Note the freshly grated wasabi root in the background.
  

The available seafood isn't as extravagantly high-end as Mitsui, but everything is is fresh and well-handled so no complaints there. It's nice to have some of that secretly-famous hole-in-the-wall Japan sushi bar vibe, but with the ability to converse with the chef, which is actually a big part of what makes those three-star sushi bars worthwhile. And the girls had a good time chatting with the young sushi chefs as they flashed their knives and torches. The cost is much more within our typical budget, too, without having to wait for the rich uncle's treat. Although both places do require advanced reservation, albeit for different reasons. Which explains why nobody ever goes there, because it's too crowded!

游壽司
台北市大安區麗水街18-2號
02-2322-5531

橘色涮涮屋

We wanted to take mom and dad out some place nice for dinner. With only the four of us a big Chinese-style banquet is impractical. Dad's not particularly keen on Japanese food, mom can't handle anything too spicy, and the wife wanted something warm and savory.

Well, how about some hot pot? The Sichuan-MaLa spicy places are out of the question, and we're not taking the folks to some random all-you-can-eat chain, but there are plenty of high-end shabu-shabu places on the east-side, including Orange Shabu. We'd wanted to try it before, but missed out on it last time, so this seemed a good opportunity to make up for it.

The webpage emphasized their fine decor, high-quality thick-cut meats, and organic vegetables. Located in a basement on DaAn Rd., the air-conditioning is set on deep-freeze to suck out all the vapors from the bubbling pots. The room is kept dim, with halogen spots putting emphasis on the hotpot. The main dining room is dominated by two long circular bars for couples and singles, surrounded by tables and booths for larger parties. But we were shuffled off to a secondary overflow dining room, which was okay with us since it was quieter and allowed me to take flash-lit pictures without distracting other diners.

Now, this ain't no NT299 all-you-can-eat, although some might find the latter to be a better value. Different meal options are available, from the typical meats like beef and pork, up to seafood combinations, topping out at special orders like Japanese snow crab or live lobster. Each comes with copious amoutns of vegetables and sides. We're not big eaters, so we ordered three meals for the four of us, which turned out to be plenty satisfying. All cooked inside a gleaming, hand-made, Japanese copper pot.

We had a simple lettuce salad with Japanese-dressing while the pot came to a boil. Theoretically they'll do all the cooking for you, if you so desire, and the service person did start the hot-pot for us by pushing the vegetables into the broth. But we preferred to do the meat-cooking ourselves, since that's most of the fun of the whole experience. Not that it was up to me, anyway, since mom got impatient and started handling most of the cooking herself, just like at home. They provided a pre-blended dipping soy-based dipping sauce, with a dash of yuzu vinegar to add a fruity zing. Red chilis and green scallions could be added to taste. There's also a thick sesame sauce for a change of pace, but I preferred the lighter soy dipping sauce which adds enough salt to the meat without overwhelming its original flavors. Which was good because the meat itself was quite high-quality. Generous thick slices that cook quickly but maintains its shape and texture, without curling up into an overcooked ball like the paper-thin cuts at cheaper places.

The tasty beef left me wanting more, but we were all quite full so one can hardly complain about the portions. Just in case, they'll take the flavorful pot of stock and make either congee or noodles with it. We got the noodles which were bathed in a tasty sesame sauce, but by then I was the only one who could take more than one bite.

There's always room for dessert, though. The almond tofu wasn't extraordinary, but it's a bit different from the usual restaurant desserts, and lighter, too. A good compliment to the fresh fruit plate. An intimate family meal is unfortunately rare for us these days, so it was important to have a good experience. Considerate decor, good food, and service that stayed out of the way is how you deliver.

Orange Shabu
橘色涮涮屋
台北市大安區大安路一段135號B1
02-2776-1658