吃飯了嗎？

吃蛋吧

Coffee and toast at home is nice and all, but we've missed being able to go out for a relaxing weekend brunch, now that we've got a little ball-and-chain. Finally the baby is able to sit up on his own in the stroller, so brunch seemed like a good excuse to take him out on a little local excursion. Omelet To Go has good reviews amongst the local food-bloggers, and its location near the XinYi-Jilong intersection next to a park wasn't too far to walk with a stroller. And the wife likes omelets.

Got there early, before the sun got too high in the sky and became too hot for the baby. Good thing, too, as the place filled up quickly, many are also young families out for weekend breakfast. Wife even ran into an old classmate, there with his own little baby, who was already being sent to classes!? The space was clean and well-lit with picture windows in front and solid wood furniture inside, definitely a step up from the typical Taiwanese breakfast-shack. The straight-forward menu is scrawled on blackboards that lined the walls, featuring a wide variety of omelets and sides, plus some other light lunch far like pasta and wraps. With a name like Omelet To Go, though, we certainly weren't going to order anything but. Wife had the Denver Omelette with hash browns. I had the weekend special cheese omelet with smoked salmon cream sauce, eggplant parmesan on the side. The omelets were generously proportioned with lots of filling, definitely American-style rather than French. The exterior perhaps a bit more singed than proper, but the interior still soft and gooey with melted cheese. The hash browns were thin and crispy, definitely not the thick, mealy, mass-produced stuff. Endless coffee is nice and decently drinkable, although they only had creamer cups instead of real milk, which was a minus.

Once the baby started to squirm in the stroller, we had to take turns eating while the other held him in our laps, and when that wasn't enough take him out for a walk around the park. But he never made a big fuss or bothered the other diners, which was awesome. It was nice to be able to go out for a meal as a family unit, and Omelets makes for an excellent morning option. Unfortunately we won't be able to indulge too often, with that pesky work and all during the week.

吃蛋吧
Omelet To Go
台北市信義區光復南路473巷11弄40號 (中興公園旁)
02-2720-8782

半畝園

We wanted to get some dinner after wife's mom and sister took us and the baby out for an afternoon playing in the park. But with a tired baby we wanted something quick and not too formal. Mom-in-law has brought take-out from this restaurant many times, but this time we decided to eat-in. We got there in the middle of the dinner rush and had to wait. Thankfully we had plenty of manpower and toys to keep the baby amused in the meantime as the crowd cycled through and we got a table in due time.

The restaurant specialized in northern-Chinese style food, hearty noodles and dumplings with meaty fillings. Compared to the usual run-down hole-in-the-wall 小吃 places, the restaurant's decor is almost sumptuous, with real, solid furniture and indirect lighting. Priced slightly higher to compensate, but not outrageously so.

牛肉餡餅 pan-fried buns filled with juicy ground beef is a signature offering. That first bite is always risky as you have to be careful of hot squirting juices. Once the initial bite is taken quickly catch the leaking meat juices with a spoon since it would be a shame to let all that savory goodness go to waste. There's also a vegetarian 花素 version that's filled with chives, egg, and rice noodles instead. The wide array of side dishes are good, too, like the 干扁四季豆 string beans. They serve it cold as a side, but the beans are well-cooked and infused with flavor without being too oily.

The beef rolls featured thin slices of roast beef wrapped in a thick crepe-like 餅. A thick scallion stem is wrapped in the middle to add a fresh spiciness to the salty, savory mix leaving you wanting more. The 炸醬麵 fry-sauce noodles had the usual soy-brown sauce mixture but with a generous sprinkle of cucumber and bean sprouts to cut the heaviness of the sauce with fresh crunch. The sauce wasn't too salty and complimented the noodles well once you blended it together, although personally I wouldn't minded it a bit spicier.

The simple nature of the food makes it suitable for takeout, but the restaurant's also nice enough to sit-in, and it's all really good, which is quite a rare trifecta. The location is not terribly convenient for us to regularly visit, but if we can con someone into doing the driving for us it's not so far out of the way for a good 餡餅.

北平半畝園
台北市大安區東豐街33號
02-27005326