吃飯了嗎？

新東南海鮮餐廳

Wife's uncles may not read the hipster foodie blogs, but they're out and about quite a bit and they know what's up. So when one of them invites everyone for a big family meal you know it'll be good. Located in an older part of town and not particular convenient by MRT, the parking was a pain but there's valet service available. The room was jam-packed, mostly with big, round family-style tables, every one filled with extended families. The noises were off the charts, ranging from crying babies to boisterous toasts to just loud conversation. Definitely not a place for an intimate meal, but would make for a great scene to help define the term "熱鬧".

First came the sashimi, thick slabs of raw fish sliced without mercy. The busy sushi station more resembled a field-surgery station hacking away. You won't find this amount of fresh fish flesh on the plate for love or money in Japan, though.

But the sashimi was just the appetizer. The centerpiece is the pomfret rice noodle soup 鯧魚米粉湯. The flat, rectangular white fish used to be a home-cooking staple, but it's become increasingly rare and pricey over the years. The fish is cut into pieces and deep fried before being cooked with stock and lots of trimmings like scallions and shitake mushrooms, which infuses the absorbent noodles with lots of flavor. The fish is in the soup bones and all, so one does have to be careful during slurping to avoid the finer spines that lurk within.

We already had way too much food and the pot-ful of good stuff in the 佛跳牆 was just way over the top. Ended up taking most of that home with us, as we concentrated our efforts on the seafood dishes that wouldn't keep, like the Sichuan-style chili-fish-head, the collagenous flesh moderating the spiciness of the chopped peppers. The fine-dining pricing combined with night-market atmosphere might be disorienting for foreigners. But fresh seafood in great portions served up fast and hot, without hipster pretentions. Exactly the way the Taiwanese like it. No wonder it's so popular with the local crowd.

新東南海鮮餐廳
台北市中正區汀洲路一段105號
02-23014239

小楊生煎

Both English and Chinese foodie sites seem to acknowledge Yang's Fried Dumpling as one of the best purveyors of the classic Shanghai pan-fried dumplings, which is quite a rare agreement. The location near People's Park is the most convenient, and we decided to stop by for breakfast, before meeting up with wife's dad. We were there early so there wasn't any lines and we even got ourselves a table. The chain is big enough to have cleaned themselves up a bit compared to the typical hole-in-the-wall place. Hair-capped workers behind glass diligently stuffed and folded the dumplings with the pork filling. The flat grill is right up front visible to passers-by, convenient to scoop into a box for take-out, or into a bowl for eating in.

Considering the explosive rise in Shanghai's cost-of-living, four-yuan for four dumplings is a real gourmet bargain. I was expecting the dumplings to be bite-sized like xiaolongbao, but they turned out to be a good bit larger and more filling than they look. The hot-off-the-pan fried dumplings has a crispy crust, a chewy skin, and filled with meat juices inside. So it takes some skill (that I lacked) to bite into the bun, sip out the juices, all without it all bursting out or burning my tongue process.

The dumplings are good as a hearty breakfast, a quick lunch, or a late-night snack. It's no wonder they have good business all times of the day.

小杨生煎 (黄河路店)
上海市黄浦区黄河路97号
021-53751793

新興活海鮮

Brought the baby with us down south to Pingtung County to see some relatives. Of course they took us out for a big dinner before we head back on the HSR. The road near the harbor was lined with one seafood restaurant after another, and we stopped at this one amongst the many. Figured the local relatives know what's up, and the food certainly didn't give any reason for me to quibble with their choice. The fresh seafood is presented up front for the patrons to examine, many still swimming or crawling in their tanks. The chosen specimens are simply prepared, usually a hot wok stir-fry or deep-fried, in a good quantity. The seafood soup & rice was full of good stuff and the kid loved it, too.

新興活海鮮
屏東縣林邊鄉中山路334號
08-8756033

海風餐廳

Took the baby out to Danshui to take in the riverside scene and enjoy the sunset. Once the sun fell below the horizon, it was time to search out dinner. We had a big group plus the baby, which made the usual street-eats vendors impractical. Wife's uncle knew exactly where to go, though, and we followed him down the street to this restaurant. Trays of seafood sit on ice in front of the restaurant for the customer to order even before they sit down at a table. The placards suggest a preparation but you can have them cook it anyway you like. We went upstairs to grab a table and get the baby settled into a high chair, while uncle ordered food at the door. Nothing fancy but large plates of fresh seafood cooked hot and piled high, which is enough to make the restaurant a Danshui institution. Turns out that the restaurant has been in Danshui for ages, and wife's uncles used to take her grandparents here for family dinners, way back before the MRT line made Danshui much more easily accessible. Nowadays, with the massive weekend crowds from the city the restaurant is doing better than ever.

The table was slightly slick, built up from the layers of grease that never quite got fully wiped clean. Any squeamish thoughts disappeared when they brought out the huge plate of the stir-fried onion crab, each chunk sweet and meaty and infused with ginger-onion flavor. No wonder almost every table had it. The roasted mini-conchs were tender in their hard shells, to be plucked out with a sharp toothpick. Chili-basil clams is a homey staple, but the seafood specialist offers meatier morsels than what we can buy from the local market. Fresh-fried shrimp-cakes and squid-balls are a notch up from the usual heavily-flavored street-eats versions. All the leftover seafood trimmings went into the soup stock to make a super-rich miso soup. Finally there's a big plate of chow-mein to fill up whatever space is left in the stomach. Too bad we were driving home otherwise the food would be perfect for knocking back a few beers with the uncles.

海風餐廳
台北縣淡水鎮中正路17號
02 2621 2365

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

竹東魷魚羹

Both my and my wife's mothers' families are of Hakka descent in the Hsinchu area. Although most have moved to Taipei, wife's family still returns to their old homestead on a regular basis, and we don't mind bringing the baby along to get him out of the lousy Taipei air once in a while. So it's no surprise that they know where all the best local 小吃 food stands are, and we stopped in at their favorite squid soup place on our way back to Taipei.

The spot is in an anonymous street near the Zhudong train station extended out into the street from the building behind it, built by corrugated siding. It is about as non-descript a hole-in-the-wall as you can get. A big pot of meatball soup is kept warm on a portable station powered by big gas canisters. Upon ordering, the lady running the place quickly scooped up bowls of the thickened soup, then throw in a few pieces of tender cuttlefish, and sprinkle a handful fish-fry chips on top for crunch. A lot of white pepper to add some spice to the rich, hearty soup.

肉圓 pork dumplings is another classic Hakka staple. The thick and chewy skin is translucent, made with yam flour, stuffed with small chunks of tough pork leg meat. The dumplings are par-cooked by steaming and if we get them to-go we'd finish steaming them at home. But out in restaurants they're finished with an oil-bath instead. Then they're smothered with a slightly sweet, nuclear-red sauce, with a sprig of cilantro on top for color. The oil-braising leaves the rice-flour skin softer and chewier compared to steaming, and most of the oil runs off the smooth skin anyway.

Boy that sure did hit the spot. Family and friends often bring us foods from Hsinchu when they visit, but it's still nothing like fresh-made at the source. Made sure to take a few more orders away with us back to Taipei for wife's grandpa and uncles.

切魷魚, 魷魚羹, 肉丸
竹東鎮長春路一段
(渣打銀行對面)

瑠玖心料理

Baby's getting big enough to sit in a high chair by himself now. But let's not test that at a fancy restaurant yet. Auntie recommended this unassuming little family restaurant in Xindian. Packed with local families, they efficiently served up a tasty selection of homey dishes.

A big hot-pot is always a good way to feed a table-ful of people on a winter day. They lightly fry the fish head before putting it into the hot-pot to remove the fishy smell. Love the spicy-garlic eggplant 魚香茄子. The photo shows exactly how you're suppose to do it, with a *lot* of oil to infuse the flavors from the garlic and green onions, then cook down the eggplants to a silky softness while maintaining the purple color in the skin. It all goes great with a big bowl of white rice. Even the pork liver, with a tender texture and no funk.

瑠玖心料理
台北縣新店市中央路85號
(小碧潭站.新店高中旁)
02-22192566

Hong Kong Miscellany

泰昌蛋塔

We were wandering around Central when wife mentioned that there's a famous egg-tart shop nearby. Checked the guide-book and found that it's a quick detour up the Mid-Level Elevator, which I wanted to ride for fun anyway. The interior is nothing special, but the big traditional-style sign outside and the steady stream of customers demonstrated its history and popularity. We got a few egg tarts and a couple of chicken pies to go. Should've got a sugar donut, too, since that's their other signature item. Oh well next time.

TaiCheong's egg tart is classic HK style. The egg custard is smooth, with a crumbly pie-like short crust. The custard filling is a beautiful yellow that comes from lots of real egg yolks and butter. It's different from the Portuguese egg tarts in Macau which have dark patches of caramelized custard tops and a flaky choux crust. Either way is good with me! We had reservations for lunch at a Michelin three-star restaurant in 30 minutes, but who can resist a fresh, warm egg tart staring at you in the face? So we had to have one right then and there. Yum. Haute-cuisine restaurants aren't exactly known for their generous portion sizes anyway, so a pre-meal snack won't hurt anything. The only regret was that we couldn't find a nearby milk-tea stand to go with the egg tart.

池記雲吞麵家

Made our way around Hong Kong all day before taking the ferry across the harbor then back to Causeway Bay to drop off the day's shopping in our hotel room. Wasn't too hungry, but didn't want to totally skip dinner, either. So a hot bowl of won-ton noodles seemed like just the thing. This shop near Time Square Plaza seemed nicely decorated, with a good crowd, and featured press clippings from the Michelin Guide. Which to be honest is not really a plus since the Frenchie judges don't know jack about HK street-food culture, at least according to the local critics. On the other hand, one can be assured of some basic level of quality and service by the recommendation, even if one might have to pay a bit extra for the privilege. At nicer HK establishments I do best by speaking English instead of Mandarin, but what about a small place like this? Turned out most of the waitresses spoke fine Mandarin, most likely imported labor from mainland China.

In the Chiuchow style, the wontons are made with pure whole-shrimp filling, and the shells go into the broth. The broth tasted strongly of the shellfish, without obviously tasting of MSG (they say they don't use any but I'm always a bit skeptical). I found the noodle had a bit of a basic (as in lye) taste that seemed harsh residue on the tongue. Not to mention the portion is tiny. But that was enough for us, plus it comes with dessert or veggies for HK$50, not that either was particularly memorable.

翠苑甜品

Kept saying that we didn't want a big dinner, but a small bowl of noodles isn't exactly satisfying, and there's always room for dessert. Wife's mom said good things about this place when she was in HK last, staying near Times Square. So when we passed by and found a free table in the tiny store-front we decided to give it a shot. The shop was run by a bunch of Little Old Ladies, selling traditional Cantonese 糖水 desserts. Wife chose the soft-tofu sweet soup with lotus-seed. While I had milk pudding with sesame paste. Warm on a cool evening, and not too sweet, per Chinese tastes. They stuck the wife with an unwanted hard-boiled egg in her soup and charged us an extra HK$2 for it. Wasn't worth the trouble arguing about it but it was kind of a bummer. Still, even with the surcharge it was less than HK$20, so it's not wonder why the mother in law liked it so much, and the experience was a slice of old-Hong-Kong in the midst of the fashionable district.

正斗IFC

The wife was flying back to Taiwan in the afternoon while I head into Shenzhen to our factory. So we spent our morning in the IFC mall, right above the Airport Express train station. She could take her time in Zara in the morning without having to fight off the hordes of tourists later in the day. But it didn't leave us much time for lunch. Didn't want to go too far since she had a train to catch soon, so we looked around inside the mall for options. But the options seemed either uninspired or expensive. This Hong Kong style restaurant seemed like the best mid-range option, and we were there early enough to get a table quickly before the main lunchtime rush. Lots of fancy kitsch-Asian decorations, designed to appeal to the tourists that pass through. Kitchen is open and clean, although the window was heavily fogged by all the steamers and woks going inside. Picked some dim-sum favorites, as well as a bowl of frog-chicken congee, if only to make sure we didn't miss out on these Hong Kong staples during our trip. Liked their version of shrimp wonton noodles better than Chi Kee last night, too. The congee rice gruel was slow cooked until the rice grains have almost totally melted into the stock. Very tasty. The dim-sum items were freshly made and simply a step up from anything you can find in Taiwan. Not cheap, but we didn't have time to go out into Central, and for the IFC it's fair enough. A representative, albeit touristy, final meal in Hong Kong.

泰昌餅家 Tai Cheong Bakery
中環擺花街35號地下
+852 2544 3475

池記 Chee Kee
銅鑼灣波斯富街84號地下
+852 2890 8616

翠苑甜品專家 Tsui Yuen Dessert
北角北角道13號地下

正斗粥麵專家 Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop
中環港景街1號國際金融中心商場一期3樓3016-3018號舖
+852 2295 0101

Bo Innovation

Decided to spend a weekend in Hong Kong with the wife before I head to our Shenzhen factory for a week. The tourist hotel plus air ticket package ends up being cheaper than buying the biz travel ticket by itself. The schedule wasn't the best, with a later arrival on Friday evening. That doesn't leave much time to do much else besides a nice dinner. Wanted to try some cuisines that's not available in Taiwan, and Chinese-fusion molecular gastronomy would certainly fit that bill. Standing out amidst the dull hotel-restaurants that make up the bulk of the Michelin Hong Kong Guide was Bo Innovation, promising leading-edge Western techniques with Chinese ingredients. So once we got to our hotel in Causeway Bay, we set down our luggage and rushed to Wanchai by taxi for our reservation. Located in a renovated building amidst undistinguished restaurants, we sat out on the balcony with only a view of a tightly packed apartment block across the street, but that's Hong Kong for ya. Having gone through all the traveling and already being relatively late, we didn't want to drag out dinner for too long with the full multi-course chef's menu, so we both had the tasting menu, with a array of their signature appetizers in common and choices for the main plat.

We slurped down the first appetizer of Australian raw oyster with scallion-lime sauce and ginger snow before taking a picture of it. Oops. So the image above was liberally borrowed from Luxeat. At home we might do oysters with scallions and ginger as a hot stir-fry. Having it as a chilly appetizer was certainly a refreshing change.

Squid ink Chiuchow noodles dressed with XO sauce. Topped with fresh uni. The strongly flavored XO sauce distracted a bit from the fresh seafood taste of the urchin roe.

Scallop carpaccio in rich 高湯 broth. Puffed rice and snow peas. The most classically Cantonese preparation, but delicately arranged as Western-style single-servings.

The Molecular XLB is the creation that put BI on the map, integrating Chinese flavors with molecular gastronomy. A typical 小籠包 xiaolongbao's meat stuffing is cooked to extract the meat juices. The outer surface is gelatinized to form the "skin" while retaining the hot, juicy center. Overlaid with a piece of dehydrated vinegar-pickled ginger to complete the one-bite experience. Not sure the flavor really outdoes Din Tai Fung, but the presentation was very cool nonetheless.

Finally, ocean-trout fillet marinated with fermented black bean and honey-miso. Sprinkled with freeze-dried fermented black-bean 豆豉 powder. Pickled bok choy and ginger gelee cubes accompanying. Another array of traditional flavors presented with innovative flair. I can think of a lot of uses for that fermented black-bean powder, if I had a freeze-drier of my own.

Her entree was a smoked pomfret fish, foie gras, topped with apple foam. The smokiness helps the fish to stand up to the generous portion of rich foie. The fruity foam is also designed to accompany the foie in flavor profile while maintaining a light touch unlike the typical sticky, jammy sauces.

My plat was wild hunter-caught duck breast. cooked sous vide. Preserved kumquat, longan, and red rice on the side. The wild duck meat was darker than farm-raised birds, quite red due to the slow-cooking process. Unfortunately on the dimly lit patio it was impossible to get the picture to get the dark meat and dark wild rice to show up nicely, even with the f1.8 prime lens maxed out. Found the wild game meat flavorful, but a bit tougher than expected.

Just like an Asian banquet, they service a rice dish after the mains to make sure no guest leaves hungry. Bo's Fried Rice was a salmon fried rice with fish roe sprinkled in. The fried rice was cooked hard, almost al-dente, to clearly delineate the elements. Certainly, if there's anything they know how to do in HK, it's fried rice.

Dessert was caramelized banana poached in "shui jing fang" sweet chinese rice wine, accompanied by a classic dark-chocolate ganache, with a kiss of jasmine. It doesn't get more classic than banana-chocolate combination, but the luxurious coating of rice wine sauce and the floral accents made the rich dessert worth savoring slowly.

Petit fours came in a gorgeous little rattan basket. Inside were 山楂 mulberry-flavored marshmallow and gelees in the top basket. 山楂 macarons and chocolate-filled sesame-mochi balls in the bottom layer. The mulberry flavor is more subtle and well-integrated with the Western-style candies, unlike the harsh chemical-tasting 山楂餅 in the cheap candies of our youth. Accompanied by excellent tea.

Mr. Alvin, the founder and head chef, is quite the character, going from cooking neophyte to Michelin-star restaurateur in only a few years with his culinary creativity and outsized personality. With only one seating per evening the chef can take his time to come out and visit each table. I blabbered something about appreciating merging Eastern flavors and Western techniques, which he politely acknowledged before moving on to share a glass of wine and a puff of cigar with better-dressed and higher-paying patrons at other tables.

Okay, so maybe the dishes weren't quite as consistent and reliable, compared to other Michelin-starred restaurants. But one visits Bo Innovation for the innovation and they definitely delivered there, deconstructing familiar flavors in creative ways. We had plenty of well-executed food, but I still had to wonder what we missed out on when I saw the liquid nitrogen, CO2 cartridges, etc. featured for the degustation at other tables. Maybe next time when I need to impress on someone else's dime.

Bo Innovation
香港灣仔莊士敦道60號2樓13號舖
Shop 13, 2/F J Residence
60 Johnston Road
Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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

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.

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

潮品集

At five weeks it's time to show him the outside world a bit. A quick jaunt around the NTU campus in the late afternoon and then take the wife's mother and aunt out to dinner to thank them for helping with the wife and baby during the 月子 recuperation period. The baby's in his stroller, so we needed a roomy, clean restaurant. A hotel restaurant seemed like the best way go. San Want Hotel is on the way home, and we've been to its signature Cantonese restaurant a few times before with good experiences, a good safe choice.

The restaurant offers private banquet rooms to the side for large family gatherings, as well as a main room for smaller parties. The decor is nicely modern-Asian, in please dark reds and blacks, with halogen spots for bright lighting at the table without flooding the space with excess light. They offer a menu of full dishes, as well as a small but well-chosen set of dim-sum ordered a-la-carte. They were also offering a special lobster-prixe-fixe menu that night. For the four of us, two of the set meals supplemented by some classic dim-sum favorites was the perfect amount of food for a nice but casual dinner.

They were nice enough to let us use a spare banquet room for a quick pre-game diaper change for the kid. He fell asleep in the stroller once we set the bed flat and pulled the shade down, allowing us to have a peaceful meal without disrupting other people, a big relief.

The set-meal offered some non-conventional dishes like salad with Japanese sesame dressing and lamb chops. The lobster butter-sauce spaghetti is my go-to dish when I have to host overseas visitors at our China factory. But here wife and I took both shares since the obasans don't like the strong cream flavor.

The dim-sum items like 蘿蔔糕, 腸粉, and 蝦餃 could be found at any dim-sum place, but they do the basics as well as any place we've tried in Taiwan. Most importantly, the food was served quickly enough so we could finish our meal just as the baby woke up and started crying for mommy. It's good to know that it'll still be possible for us to have a nice meal out once in a while, even with newborn in tow.

潮品集
神旺大飯店
台北市忠孝東路四段172號
02-2772-2687

永康牛肉麵

The birth of the baby is definitely going to put a crimp on our eating-out habits. But the wife's post-partum maternity care center is right on 永康街, with its street-ful of restaurants. The wife "enjoys" the nourishing (but bland) food prepared by the care center according to traditional Chinese medicine and modern nutritional principles. Meanwhile I can get takeout from the many fine choices in the area when I visit after work. Right next door to the care center is the famous purveyor of beef-soup noodles, the perfect excuse for me to hit it early and often.

The shop itself was crowded with local diners and tourists toting guidebooks. Thankfully I was getting takeout but the turnover is fast so there's not too much waiting if I were looking for a table. It's all about the beef noodle soup but there are many possible combinations: big or small bowl; thin or thick noodles; meat, tendon, or half-and-half; spicy soy soup or clear beef broth. Not to mention the myriad of side dishes available. Also well known are the steamed 粉蒸排骨 short-ribs or tripe. An order would be perfect to share for a taste between two people or for one hungry person, in addition to the noodles.

Both the clear and soya soups are flavorful without being overly salty, with high-quality beef shank and tendon chunks. Wife found the spicy soup a bit too hot in her delicate state, but I thought it offered a perfect amount of heat to accompany the flavorful soup. Real Szechuan aficionados might even find it a bit tame.

It was good and convenient enough for me to visit multiple times over the course of a couple of weeks. When dad came to visit the baby I took him there, too, and he enjoyed the simple soup&noodles much more than the big banquets or fancy Japanese food.

Of course there are many other well-known beef-soup noodle places in Taipei and I haven't come close to trying them all yet. But it's always nice to have a dependable stand-by and this will do. After a spicy bowl of noodles, having Ice Monster down the block to relieve the heat is a nice bonus, too.

永康牛肉麵
台北市大安區金山南路二段31巷17號
02-2351-1051

聚園烤鴨

The mother-in-law was in the mood for Beijing duck and her co-worker recommended this family-style place tucked away in an alley behind the Sherwood Taipei. The duck must be reserved ahead of time, so advanced planning was required. Plus it's not as if you can eat a whole duck by yourself, so she made the reservation then recruited all the usual suspects, including us, to join in on the fun.

A ten-course meal, including one whole Beijing duck done two ways. The skin and meat rolled in crepe with spring onion, cucumber, and sweet sauce 甜麵醬. The remaining bones are taken away to make a tasty soup. Meanwhile, they dished up plenty of other northern-Chinese specialties like onion pancakes 蔥油餅 and steamed dumplings 蒸餃. Also offered more typical family-style dishes like fish in brown sauce and salt-crusted prawns, and there was even typically Taiwanese standards like three-cup chicken 三杯雞.

The duck's skin and meat were robust and thick-cut, unlike the more delicate skin-and-fat carving I had in Beijing, so the resulting wrap turned out more like a burrito than a crepe. The skin was crispy and tasty but a bit overwhelmed by the hearty meat and garnishings. The other dishes are the kind of food we'd like to have but no longer have the time nor inclination to make at home. The ten of us had a full meal for about NT3000, and there was still plenty of leftovers to take home for grandpa. Solid, unassuming food at a good value, no wonder it's popular with the obasan-set.

北平聚園餐廳
台北市松山區民生東路三段113巷25弄39號
02-27185477

松江自助火鍋

Wife's been having cravings for hot pot in the latter stages of the pregnancy. Makes sense since hot pot cooks up plenty of hot, nutritious food without being overwhelmingly rich. Perfect for helping the baby to grow. Her sister and cousins are more than willing to accommodate, so they chose this hot-pot place which they visited all the time when they were little. It's the perfect option for a drizzly wintry evening.

The modern shabu-shabu resturants offer individual-sized pots of broth bubbling away on sleek inductive hot plates, with the food coming as all-you-can-eat or as set-meals. However 松江 has remained old-school family-style, with a big heavy communal pot full of hot broth sitting in the middle shared by the whole table. Anyone can walk over to the fridges to grab plates of meats, veggies, or sides and dump them into the pot. In the end, the experienced waiters count up the plates and multiply out the final check in their head. So you don't have to stuff yourself trying make all-you-can-eat worthwhile, and you get exactly what you want unlike a set meal.

The restaurant itself has seen better days, but it's still clean and there's still enough turnover to keep the food moving along freshly. One can imagine not so long ago when it would've been packed with multi-generational families, groups of classmates, etc. That would've been about the time when we moved to the US, so it's nice to have an echo of that experience in the present-day. Unfortunately the location is not convenient for us, so it'll most likely remain a nostalgia trip.

松江自助火鍋城
台北市中山區松江路315號1樓
02-25012064

鍋飽飽

The mother-in-law's place in Sindian is very much typical Taipei suburbia, full of high-rise apartment complexes filled with young families. With all the working couples, casual inexpensive family restaurants spring up like weeds to accommodate their dining needs. And what they need is more cowbell more shabu-shabu, as there are about 38,701,081 hot-pot places within walking distance. This one happens to be right downstairs, which is convenient for the wife in her very pregnant condition, and hot pot seemed liked a good choice on a cold night.

This particular location had recently shed its affiliation with the 白甘蔗刷刷鍋 chain to go its own way, and they were offering special discounts to build up a new clientele. Along the way it changed from the typical all-you-can-eat to a combo meal approach where you order the meat you want and it comes with a bowl of veggies and all-you-can-eat sides. For us it's not a big difference since it's more than enough food for us either way, even with the wife eating for two. She had the lighter kanbu broth while I was brave and went with the ma-la hot broth. The ma-la was certainly hot enough to kept me chugging away at the soda, but it's lacking the spicy complexity of a real ma-la hot pot broth, so I ended up doing a lot of shabu-ing in the wife's pot instead. It's not really unsanitary since the broths are kept in a boil the whole time, at least that was my justification. If you're still hungry, there's plenty of free noodles to cook in the flavorful broth to top off the meal. The generic ice cream was icy and artificial-tasting, unlike the classier places which offer Häagen Dazs or Mövenpick. But the veggies were fresh enough and the meats were a bit thicker-cut than the typical paper-thin slices at the all-you-can-eat places. Considering the cut-rate price, I was willing to accept some cut corners in the peripherals so long as they maintain the quality of their core competencies.

鍋飽飽
台北縣新店市民權路5-1號
02-29108851

山東餃子館

The unassuming, generically named restaurant is tucked away within an Sindian alleyway. But the place is always packed with patrons here for the big platefuls of dumplings and steaming cauldrons of sour cabbage pork hot-pot, both northern China specialties brought to Taiwan by KMT's veterans. The 獅子頭 lion's head meatballs is the wife's favorite. Big pork meatballs the size of a fist slow-roasted in a clay pot with broth to infuse flavors and tenderize with napa cabbage. The hot-pot is stuffed with plenty of the sour cabbage and fatty pork to build the soup base, then filled to the brim with meatballs, etc. The prawns and clams also add flavor to the soup, but the strong flavor of the soup base and the long boiling time aren't suited to seafood, I think. It would've been nice if they offered more meats which we could cook in the hot-pot shabu-shabu-style. They were generous with the pork, but with my cholesterol count I really shouldn't be eating so much pork fat. Perfect for a wintry evening, though.

山東餃子館
台北縣新店市中央路133巷19號
(Near MRT Xiaobitan Station)
02-22193541

度小月擔擔麵

擔擔麵 is one of those classic Taiwanese 小吃 dishes that we've never gotten around to eating in our time together. We'd wandered over to Yongkang St. for dinner after pushing our way through the stupid-crowded Millet art exhibition. We weren't all that hungry, and I was more interested in hitting Ice Monster anyway. 度小月 happened to be right there, a nicer place than the street vendor stalls and famous for their noodles, so I figured we'd give it a try.

Originally from Tainan, the Taipei location was set up more to appeal to the tourists spillover from Din Tai Fung around the corner. The space was decorated with a pseudo-historical way, with fancy multi-language menus with color pictures showing off the fare. The noodle station is open and set up right up front, visible from the street through the picture window.

Meanwhile, the food is simple, as you'd expect. A bowl of noodles in a simple meat broth with some 肉燥 soy-roasted fatty pork bits on top for flavor, with vinegar and cilantro added to taste. There is something to be said for offering famous local street foods, done consistently in a nice setting, but I'm sure most folks already know a nearby street vendor who do noodles and vegetables better for less. At least DTF's xiaolongbao requires some skill to master the dumpling filling process. Didn't order anything beyond the noodles and a plate of greens because I couldn't make myself pay the menu prices for such simple food. Nevertheless we were grateful for a nice air-conditioned place to sit and rest our feet for a while. But next time we'll have to go to Tainan and find the best darn hole-in-the-wall dan-dan-noodle place for ourselves.

度小月(永康店)
台北市大安區永康街9號之1
02-33931325

義順牛奶公司

The old-time shop is famous for desserts and drinks made with milk from their own farm. Located right alongside the main historical square of Largo do Senado in Macau, it was perfect for a sightseeing pit-stop away from the stifling heat.

The interior was no different than your typical Hong Kong/Macau street-side restaurant with cheap chairs and cheap tables. Except the place was packed with tourists both coming and going, hustled along by the loud boss guarding the door. Not exactly Michelin-star service, here. The SO was desperate for an icy drink and the 西米霧 would do. Love the big icy mug engraved with their big cow logo. However the mini-tapioca was a bit too stiff and the ice-milk ratio was tilted the wrong way.

雙皮燉奶 is really their signature dessert, though, and that did not disappoint. A delicately congealed pudding made by slowly cooking milk, egg white, and sugar until it solidifies. An intense but pure milk taste with every spoonful. May be even better warm, but I was too hot and stuck to the cold version. Either way, definitely not for the lactose intolerant.

Yeah, I'm sure there is some cheaper and maybe even better hole-in-the-wall place in the back alleys somewhere. But it is famous for a reason, and it offers a fun taste of Macau without forcing you to go out of your way.

義順牛奶公司
Leitaria I Son
中區議事亭前地7號
7 Largo do Sehado
2857-3638

吉品魚翅海鮮餐廳

The uncles wanted to take grandma some place nice for the Mother's Day meal, and this high-end seafood restaurant certainly qualifies. The restaurant was fully booked for Mother's Day, but uncle had enough pull to get us into the even fancier private lounge upstairs. Of course, with it comes the expectation that we'd order well enough to justify the expensive space.

Getting over the minimum order hurdle wasn't a problem once you throw in the standard Chinese banquet fare like the shark fins, abalone, etc., etc. Normally I could take or leave shark fin, especially considering its environmentally unfriendly origins, although I don't quite have the chutzpah to be militantly outspoken against it. However, the signature soup here is a thick, whole fin lusciously poached in a thick, complex broth soaking into each cartilaginous strand. I just kinda had to bury my conscience and enjoy the dish.

Frankly the shark-fin soup was enough for a meal in itself both food-wise and $-wise, but there were plenty more to come. Although after the signature soup even the fresh abalone seemed a bit pedestrian in comparison. The fetishistically phallic sea-cucumber would scare off just about all the non-Asians, that's for sure. Actually, he roasted duck feet roasted with the abalone and sea cucumber were just as tasty, in its own way, in spite of being humbler stuff than the fancy seafood.

Thankfully the later dishes are a bit lighter in nature than the heavy-hitters. Steamed fish, and the like. A beef course to keep the cousin happy but that's not really what they do. The kitchen is surprisingly versatile, though, as they also offer Shanghai-style 小籠包 and 蔥油餅 and Hong Kong dim-sum items, in case you're still hungry. The Cantonese 臘腸飯 is fantastic except you're always too full to eat when they serve it at the end of the meal.

It was all awfully good, but I'm glad that I'm not the one footing the bill for the meal.

吉品魚翅海鮮餐廳(敦南店)
台北市松山區敦化南路1段25號2樓
02-27527788

避風塘

Wanted to get something to eat after watching the U2-3D concert film at the Living Mall's movie theater. We were tired of the usual mall food so we went to the upstairs restaurant row instead of the basement food court. Been a while since we've had dim-sum, and the small dishes seemed like a good way to avoid a big stuffy meal, so we decided on the Hong Kong-style restaurant.

The dim-sum are ordered off-the-menu instead of choosing off of push-carts, which helps to make sure the dishes are freshly prepared instead of sitting in a steam-cart forever. We ordered a few basic things for the two of us. Lots of meat in the beef chow-fun, which is always nice. The dim-sum standards are nicely done, maybe a tiny bit greasy but that's the way they're supposed to be. A bit pricey for the simple dishes, but the quality does beat the hell out of the 24-hour dim-sum places around town. SanWant Hotel's Cantonese restaurant has nice quality and service but not as big a selection of dim-sum items. That makes 避風塘 definitely the #1 dim-sum I've had in Taipei so far.

避風塘
台北市松山區八德路4段138號10樓
(京華城10樓)
02-37621188

知味鄉玉米

Spent our day on Yangmingshan then drove down the back side of the mountain toward 金山. Stopped alongside the road for the popular purveyor of fresh-grilled corn on the highway between 金山 and 基隆.

Long line of cars were parked along the road and the lines of people were equally long waiting for the pricey (70NTD an ear!) but tasty corn-on-the-cob. The place's not much more than a roadside shack selling snacks to the passing tourists. But it's grown large enough that they have stands on both sides of the road to capture the two-way traffic.

Obasans stood in front of the hot grills briskly turning and basting the corn with a tasty BBQ sauce, while the youngsters handled the order-taking and crowd control. In the back room, the guys shucked the corn and par-cooked the cobs by burying them under hot steamy rocks.

知味鄉玉米
台北縣萬里鄉萬里頂社76號
(02)2498-0345

冠宸食館

Wife's family prefers this one out of the many eateries on Yangmingshan serving down-home food featuring locally-grown vegetables. The restaurant courtyard is dressed up with a pond and some farm fowl to entertain the kids, but the makeshift tables and stools hark back to more humble origins.

A couple of plates of stir-fried vegetables like cabbage and kong-xin-cai are crispy and sweet thanks to the mountain-grown environment and fast, hot stir-fry of the restaurant woks. Shiitake mushrooms are lightly floured and fried along with basil leaves. A free-range chicken boiled then cleaved into chunks for dipping in the chili soy sauce.

The entire mountain was packed for the calla-lily season, and flower fields neighbor the restaurant. Behind us were a tableful of cyclists, quite admirable if they pedaled all the way, more for dodging the traffic than for the climb itself.

冠宸食館
台北市北投區竹子湖67號
02-28626408

六胡村飲食館

Thanks to a conveniently located freeway interchange 關西 has made itself into quite a weekend destination for Taipei residents as the gateway to the Hsinchu Hakka region. A long row of family-style Hakka restaurants line the main street coming off the freeway, and this one is SO's family favorite. It's not as prominent as the other restaurants since it's located at the end of the main drag, but the unassuming storefront still does great business, a testament to its reputation.

We make the same wide noodles at home with more stuff, but the simplicity of the noodle in broth with scallion and bean sprouts on top shows perfectly that less-is-more. They can make a big pot of slow-cooked broth that we just can't get the same depth of flavor at home. Either that or they throw in a boatload of MSG which is also entirely possible. Also ordered a plate of pork cheek and stir-fried garlic vegetables as complementary sides.

It's all as rustic as can be, of course, a converted storefront space filled with a motley assortment of tables and cheap chairs. But it's clean enough for working purposes and not too expensive. Familiar home-style for us, maybe an exotic local experience for others.

六胡村飲食館
新竹縣關西鎮正義路250號
03-587-1864

大山無價

林'R was nice enough to take us away from the fetid Taipei basin out into the hills above Xindian and stopped in at this restaurant for lunch. They'd been here before as a date, but it's also well-suited for a group gathering. Nicely spaced tables with see-thru bamboo curtains to offer privacy while maintaining an expansive sense of space in the dining room. The tatami-padded benches offered a Japanese-like seating feel without being so hard on the knees with all the squatting.

The multi-course set meal offered a wide variety of tastes and textures in a Sino-Japanese vein. Considering the nice environment and the variety of food it's an excellent value. The relaxed setting allowed plenty of time and space for picture-taking, so I got a complete record of our multi-course set meal. So I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

大山無價飲食空間
台北縣新店市北宜路3段62號
02-22178891

騷豆花

It's a little shack serving up new twists on the classic Chinese silken tofu 豆花 desserts. The spot is right near the CTV television studios, so various stars and celebrities have stopped by and left their signatures on the back wall, and there's a patio overlooking a little park for outdoor seating as well.

Between the four of us we were able to try pretty much their entire offering. The SIL's classic style 豆花 in syrup seemed okay but I didn't really get much of a taste. SO's silken tofu in sesame sauce is a real treat that you'd usually only find in much fancier places. The thick black sesame soup was warm and hearty without being overly sweet and cloying, perfect for the chilly evening. The silken tofu in sweet azuki bean soup has a similar effect, but the sweet red-bean soup is a common offering, and the sweetness covered up the tofu flavor a bit. I took one for the team and got the signature strawberry-ice 豆花 with a scoop of shaved ice, tapioca, fresh strawberries, and cream stacked on top of the tofu. It was a bit overwhelming but very good, in its teeth-chattering way. Would be absolutely amazing in the summer heat, when they also offer a mango version which we'll have to try then. So couldn't really determine the quality of the tofu itself, but it seemed competent enough and the variety is cool, and it's close to home so it'll make for a nice take-out or after-dinner dessert option.

騷豆花
台北市大安區延吉街131巷26號
(華視後面)
02-87718901

無名清粥

One of many congee shops along 復興南路 near the DaAn MRT station. Each table gets a big pot of all-you-can-eat yam-and-rice gruel. You can then go up to the counter to choose from a huge variety of dishes ranging from tasty little pickles to more substantial fare. Not the fanciest dishes in the world, and some looks to have been sitting out for a while, but all very 下飯 designed to go with the congee. Nice for a light dinner and perfect for the late-night 宵夜. The dad-in-law managed to tie his personal record with six bowls of congee, understandable after a long day of bike-riding around Taipei.

無名子清粥小菜
台北市復興南路二段 130 號
02-2784 - 6735

新幹線列車站

The sis-in-law's new boyfriend was smart enough to try to earn points with the family by taking us out on a weekend outing to Taichung. SO's cousin also had a hand in suggesting the itinerary and they both recommended this place as a nice spot in 后里 for lunch.

It is a combination of B&B and restaurant with a railroad theme. A railroad car is parked outside to draw the attention of the visitors and there's a train-shaped wooden pavilion in the central courtyard garden. The hotel rooms and the restaurant itself are all converted TRA railroad cars. The food is served in a multi-layer steel bento box, and the food itself is basically an upgraded version of typical eki-ben fare. Ideal for a casual lunch with a cool vibe.

新幹線列車站
台中縣后里鄉安眉路37之21號
04-25587588

水龜伯古早味

Made our way from Tianmu over to Shipai to check out this place. Taking up a number of storefronts along an alleyway, the shop sells retro desserts like tapiocas, rice-flour dumplings, and shaved ices, all in a retro look reminiscent of post-war Taiwan.

The plain mochi coated with the peanut-soybean-sugar powder is a classic Hakka dessert, and it was good enough for the SO to order take-out to bring home for mom&grandpa. The shop also offer some "interesting" flavors like macha-flavored silken tofu with barley bits for that modern touch. Personally, I had the classic warm 豆花 in the brown-sugar-and-ginger syrup and I liked it that way. Not sure if it was the best-ever versions of those particular desserts, but having it all in one place in a clean, atmospheric locale certainly made it a worthwhile visit.

水龜伯古早味
02-28274788
台北市北投區石牌路2段75巷8號

大董烤鴨

The restaurant is located alongside the 3rd Ring Road. Our Beijing manager promised us that this was the best duck in town, much better than the overhyped 全聚德. Got there at 5:30 and just managed to get a table without waiting. By the time we left there was a line out the door filled with locals and tourists alike.

Had some time to take in some cold appetizers while our duck was being roasted. There was a good green salad with soy vinaigrette, complete with frisée and everything. A vinegary plate of baby cucumbers pickled Sichuan style with dried peppers and Sichuan peppercorns. The real interesting stuff were the duck liver comparable to the finest French foie paté, and the deboned duck feet webs with the mustard dipping sauce. How they managed to take out the bones and still maintain the shape of the web is beyond me.

They wheeled our duck out on a cart and the chef got to work plating our roast duck at table-side. It's not a standard-issue crispy-skin duck that's passed off as Peking Duck elsewhere. The skin has a bit of a snap, but it's a softer texture, integrated with the layer of fat underneath such that it almost melts in your mouth, and you know all the juices and fats have soaked into the meat underneath. The slices of roast duck are to be wrapped in the flour crepes and one can add any number of condiments and garnishes. The sweet soy paste 甜麵醬 is obligatory, along with the thinly sliced scallion greens. But there were also cucumber and beet julienne for some more crunch, mashed garlic and white sugar for a wider range of flavors, and a couple of pickles for that special northern touch. Also ordered a poached Napa cabbage with chestnuts, and fish fillets in a spicy black-bean sauce. Washed it all down with some local 燕京 beer or chrysanthemum tea.

大董烤鴨
北京市朝阳区团结湖北口3号楼
010-65824003

那家小館

We were first-time visitors, so our Beijing manager was obligated to take us some place for dinner. But we didn't quite rate the super-luxe places that the boss likes. This restaurant is located behind the Twins Center (a.k.a. the LG towers) near the office, so we were able to walk over there early and get a table without too much waiting after work.

The restaurant is decorated like an 18th century Manchurian inn. They offer a big tome of a menu in three languages complete with colorful photos. But it's much more awesome to order old-school style from the tray of wooden slats, each inscribed with the name of the dish and its price.

Nominally Manchurian/north-China food. Good ingredients. Always thought salads in Chinese restaurants were abominations drenched in Thousand Island trying to please foreigners. Turns out that salad is actually a pretty typical cold-dish in Beijing, and there were some very nice greens dressed with a standard soy sauce vinaigrette. The meat-jello starter was good, too, but then I'm used to eating it at home. The third cold starter was sweet mashed potatoes with red-bean sauce. Apparently that's a Beijing thing, too.

The signature dish is the soup, with a rich stock made richer (and yellow) with egg yolks. Lots of abalone chunks and other seafood bits. Glazed prawns was oily and sticky but tasty, miles ahead of the icky stuff served up in American Chinese restaurants. Kung-pao chicken was amazing, with lots of dried peppers, Sichuan peppercorns for the extra kick, and flavorful walnuts instead of the more pedestrian peanuts. The fish was cooked (fried?) before the brown sauce drenching, keeps the sauce from overwhelming the seafood flavor.

那家小馆
东城区建国门外永安里新华保险大厦南侧(119中学西侧)
010-65673663

小南國

First time in Shanghai for a customer meeting, so our Shanghai manager took us out to a nice place to eat. This was relatively near our office, a massive place occupying three floors each with a big central space surrounded private rooms. Each floor featured high ceilings, too. Big tables for the extended family meals with kids and elders, and upholstered booths for the nouveau riche couples. Good spot to bring the foreign visitors, too.

Shanghai food places some emphasis on the cold appetizers. The peanuts with matching cubes of pork-belly soy-roasted with a tea infusion was wrapped in a banana leaf cone for presentation. Also got the cold-cut jellyfish head which had a crunchier, less slippery texture than the standard jellyfish dish. Thought it was weird to be ordering a mixed salad for a Chinese meal, but our guy said it was good, and I was pleasantly surprised for once. A good variety of mixed greens, no corn, and a really good Caesar-ish dressing which had good flavor (i.e. not sweet) without being goopy.

The main dishes started light with the delicately stir-fried mini-shrimp, a Shanghai specialty, and the standard garlic-sauteed pea-shoots. Then came the heavy hitters, like the long-roasted pork-shoulder with all the collagen and fat from the skin basting the meat making it fall-off-bone tender. Crab roe tofu, well, at least the tofu is good for you. The fried salt-and-pepper snake is a signature dish. It's been ages since I've had snake and first time fried. The meat is lean but a good fry job kept it moist. Pulling the strings of meat off all the bones made it almost fish-like. Would've been perfect with some beer but we stuck with juice after a travel day with work to do tomorrow. Of course there's the obligatory xiao long bao, just in case you're still hungry. The crab roe in the filling added some extra richness to the broth inside the dumpling, but I thought the DTF version is a bit more delicate and a bit better done.

小南國
Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo
上海市虹梅路3337號
(Multiple locations in Shanghai)
3208-9777

Pearl Liang 漂亮, Taipei Grand Hyatt

The help lady went home for Chinese New Year so the uncles pitched in to take everyone out to eat so mom wouldn't have to cook. The Hyatt is close to home so grandma wouldn't have to spend too long in a car. Just had our engagement banquet at the Hyatt earlier in the week, but that was catered by the other Shanghai-style restaurant. Unfortunately I was a bit busy at the time and forgot to retrieve the menu for the engagement banquet so no review of that I'm afraid.

The rooms are dramatically lit in the Western style (i.e. dim), with old B&W photos of the old China for decoration. The sliding door became an invisible feature once it slid closed, making the room into a decorated cocoon and confusing one of the cousins as he tried to find his way out to the bathroom.

First came a few plates of appetizers. Mostly standard fare that we've all had elesewhere, but in big platefuls and all superbly executed with good materials and wonderful flavor. Give me a bowl of white rice and I would've been happy to stuff myself on just these "starters."

• Oil-cooked bamboo shoots: Very homey with a richer flavor probably because restaurants can use oil while we've changed to using broth at home.
• Marinated cucumber: Crunchy and green, with some chili sprinkles for a kick
• Roasted bitter melon: Only became brave enough to eat these recently but I certainly didn't mind the small taste I had. The soy-roasting took away some of the bitter edge and provided enough additional flavors to let the bitterness complement rather than overwhelm.
• Stir-fried eggplant: Surface was fried/wok-fried until the interior side was charred but preserving the gorgeous purple color on the skin side. The standard flavoring done well, which was just fine with me on a personal fave dish.
• Roasted green hot peppers: Would've gone great with some congee in the morning. Green medium-hot peppers seeded and de-veined then fire-roasted until the skin is blistered.
• Rice flour skin-pasta in sesame sauce: Duck shreds on top for some meatiness. Good texture but I would've liked more seasme flavor, I think.
• Crunchy fishies: Fried then tossed with chilis and scallion bits. Another dish that would be a perfect complement a simple white-rice meal, or as a drinking snack.

Mains were mostly standard Cantonese-style banquet-fare.

• Clear shark-fin chicken soup: Not thickened like the usual shark-fin soups where they want richness. Here was just a clear chicken-broth with chunks of with a piece of meat and a slice of ham to remind you that even though the soup may appear to be clear and simple, a lot of good stuff still went into it. Sure tasted that way.
• Scallops and black abalone with asparagus: The seafood was high-quality and fresh-tasting, of course, but the sauteed asparagus was just as good as its pricier companions. Perfectly crunchy with that unique asparagus flavor.
• Lobster meat in uni-flavored eggwhite sauce: The sauce was totally goopy and didn't taste too much of the sea-urchin. The lobster meat itself was nicely done, though, if you didn't infect it with too much of the sauce, and the salt&pepper fried lobster shell chunks around the plate made for some flavorful but pointless gnawing.
• Soy-roasted mussels and sea cucumber: The sea cucumber is the smaller, more expensive kind, which is appreciated. The long, slow soy-roasting also infused it with a lot of flavor, which is hard to replicate at home. The mussels were totally destroyed by that cooking process, but then they're not the star of the dish.
• Fresh-steamed rock cod with squid 魷魚: Gotta have the whole fish for a Chinese New Year banquet, and the squid shreds on top added an interesting texture, not to mention an awful pun. But the steamed fish wasn't quite as perfectly done as the Cantonese masters in HK or even LA, with bits running to driness.
• Crab egg-foo-yong made with real crab meat and roe on sauteed large pea shoots: Everyone was way too full at this point to eat more than a bite or two. Would've been a great veggie course otherwise, if you discount the cholesterol-filled goodness of the crab roe.
• Home-style 湯圓 mini-dumplings: Totally tasted like home-made, with the broth strongly flavored with fried-onion-bits, but the restaurant broth tasted like it had more depth. The dumplings weren't as chewy and soft as we usually do at home, and everyone made sure to tell grandma that the way she cooks them is way better.

Desserts at Chinese restaurants usually don't rate more than a sentence's worth. However the foreigner-oriented service is actually a good thing for the Hyatt here as they brought out as rich a dessert selection as the appetizers and the mains, also served family-style which adds a nice Asian touch.

• Fresh fruits: A variety of fruits sliced and presented in the bowls. The fruits were all high-quality and sweet/flavorful enough to stand up to the full desserts.
• Lemon sorbet: One scoop of Haagen-Daaz per person. The icy acidity is refreshing after the rich meal, and not even Chinese desser-haters can complain that it tastes too sweet.
• Vanilla and chocolate cakes with fresh whipped-cream and poached pears in vanilla sauce: Found the cakes a bit dry. Felt a bit mailed-in to satisfy the Western palate.
• Black-sesame 奶烙 milk pudding: Sesame in dessert is definitely a very Asian thing. The finely ground black-sesame looked interesting and tasted good, but the slightly sandy texture took away from the smoothness of the pudding.
• Caramelized pineapple rings in vanilla sauce: The thick-cut pineapple ring was cooked (pan-fried/flambeed?) to darken the outside and bring out the sweetness but preserve the freshness of the fruit within. Pineapple is very sweet and flavorful but had enough zing to keep it from being cloying. Very tropical and very good.

Thankfully I didn't have to pay as I probably would've fainted in shock if I got even a whiff of the bill. But one fo the uncles had a membership card which got us a 25% discount, which I'm sure only took the cost from rip-off level expensive to rich-but-fair expensive. Anything to make sure mom and grandma have a relaxed and happy Chinese New Year Day, of course.

Pearl Liang Seafood Restaurant
Taipei Grand Hyatt
漂亮中式海鮮餐廳
台北君悅飯店
台北市信義區松壽路2號2樓
02-27201200

長白小館

Wanted to pick a place not too far from home to avoid fighting through the new-year celebration crowd converging on the 101. GF's cousin suggested this place, and I put in my vote for the sour cabbage hot-pot. as a change of pace from the usual Sichuan ma-la hot&spicy. The place wasn't as fancy as all the fancy new places in the area, but it was scrupulously clean and plenty packed with folks waiting by the door.

The basic hot-pot package came with plenty of trimmings but we ordered some more plates of hot-pot stuff and got to cooking. The fermented sour napa cabbage is a Bejing/northern style, but the sour flavor is very much similar to the Hakka which is fermented mustard greens. The familiar flavor made it more like homey comfort food. The soup base contained plenty of good stuff beside the namesake cabbage. Thinly sliced fatty pork belly added fattiness and richness to counterpoint the sour broth. A whole halved crab sure was impressive, and provided plenty of umami. The side dishes such as the chive pockets and scallion pancakes were crisply pan-fried and tasty, too.

The clear cooking broth meant that the dipping sauce played a bigger role. They provide a wide array of condiments for you to whip up your own mix, but also set out a recommended recipe which I happily ignored. The soy sauce makes up the base, of course. A generous sprinkle of scallions and a sprinkle of fresh sliced chilis for freshness. A dash of sesame oil and a small spoonful of sesame sauce for that distinct toasted flavor. Never seen the bright green mashed chive flowers before so throw in a small spoonful of that for the heck of it. A bit of mashed garlic because more garlic is always better Finally top it off with a splash of lemon juice for acidic brightness and more flavorful than the standard white vinegar.

The plates of meats, veggies, and other things (e.g. duck blood chunks) were expensive but generously portioned. Everything cooked quickly in the boiling broth and my dipping sauce combination was a real winner, IMHO. The clear broth allowed one to enjoy the flavors without the tongue-blistering heat of the ma-la hot-pot. Not to mention that by the end of the meal, all the stuff cooking in the pot made the broth pure goodness.

The most surprising thing, GF's cousin paid (everyone keels over in shock)! Not that I mind paying the tab, but having someone else pick up the tab once is nice on a symbolic level, at least. Maybe that was the real reason why the whole meal tasted better.

長白小館
台北市大安區光復南路240巷53號
(延吉街口)
02-27513525

聚火鍋

Person at work forwarded an electronic coupon to everyone, forwarded to the GF and she thought the place looked interesting. Met up at the ZhongShan MRT station and took a cab over to the Nanjing Rd. location. Don't get to this area very often because it's not on an MRT line, but it's actually a lively mix of offices buildings, apartments, and many restaurants catering to them.

This is another chain of popular-upscale places by the same conglomerate as 陶板屋. The schtick for this restaurant is the fancy Hokkaido kanbu they use for their hot pot soup base. 聚 has the orange-brown color scheme compared to the purple-jade at 陶板屋, but the black ceiling with halogen spot lighting both acted to create contrast and atmosphere. Bead curtains and fabric hangings split up the surprisingly large basement room into more intimate sections. Good thing the GF made the reservation ahead of time as the place filled up quickly with people coming off work and families out for a communal meal around the hotpot.

It's a set-meal system with an appetizer-meat-starch-dessert combo for each person, with choices for each. Got the half-and-half soup base with the hotpot partitioned like an ying-yang symbol with one side of the plain kanbu soup base and the other side with the spicy soup (i.e. plain soup with pepper oils and spices added). The waiter recommended a sip of the soup to taste the original flavor, and it was tasty enough. More importantly it seemed to be reasonably free of MSG. The induction cooktop heats up fast and keeps the table tidy and easy to clean. Had time to enjoy the appetizers while the soup came to a boil. It was a dish of three bite-sized items, a soft-boiled 滷蛋, tuna salad sitting on a crisp leaf of romaine core, and an ume-flavored cabbage wrap. We both agreed the egg was the best thing, since we're used to hard-boiled soya eggs with the dried up yolk, so it was interesting to dig into the still-runny yolk, and the soft-boil meant that it's not as salty as the typical 滷蛋. GF likes the 梅子 flavor, I don't particularly. Tuna salad was okay, more like a clever way for them to use up the romaine core after the big leaves are thrown into the hotpot.

I chose the Fish Head main, and couldn't get the music of the Dr. Demento classic out of my head the whole night. The fish head parts is thrown in the soup to cook through and in the meantime we could dig in with the Choice Beef. The beef were nicely marbled and thinly sliced, draped on top of some outer cabbage leaves to make the mound of meat look much taller than it actually was, but it was plenty of food as it was. The meat barely took a few seconds to cook in the bubbling broth which left it perfectly tender. It worked well either soaking up the spicy broth, or cooked in the plain broth and dipped in the supplied ponzu-soy sauce. The acidity of the ponzu provides a refreshing tang to all the rich food.

Left the fish cooking a bit too long so the meat was a bit dried out, but there were still plenty of cartilaginous fish-head goodness to suck down and chew on. Each main plate also came with a basket of different mushrooms and veggies and various side-bits like handmade wontons. In case that's not enough food they also provide a rice/noodle side-dish. GF went with the recommended hand-squeezed fish noodle, where they give you two tubes of ground up fish and binders which you can squeeze into the boiling broth to make noodle-like things. It wasn't as exciting or as tasty as it seemed on the menu. The plain udon combined with the cooking broth would've made a better choice, plus the GF likes udon anyway. The Golden Congee was a bit more interesting, as the server came by with some rice, poured some clear broth from our pot in, then set the burner on high to make the raw rice into congee in a few minutes while reciting some script about how it's a typical Hokkaido way to serve guests, etc. He finished off the congee with a dash of egg yolk to give it the golden color, and scattered some scallion and nori for crunch and color. Fun and good-looking, but we were both to full to really enjoy it at that point. Would've loved to have another bowl of the broth with all the meaty goodness cooked into it, but was too stuffed.

But there's always room for dessert. GF had the better choice with the red-bean ice, which came in a huge frozen pyramid, with a side of condensed milk for additional creaminess. The iciness was a refresher after the hotpot hotness, and not too sweet. I had the Macha Dessert combo which featured a taro mochi and a custard sweetened by molasses and a strange tasting soy-ish powder (kinako perhaps?), accompanied by a big steaming mug of strong neon-green macha. The bitter tea was a good way to finish off dinner, too.

Not the cheapest hotpot in Taipei, but one can concede the corp. their fair share of profit. After all atmosphere and service don't come for free. The good service was more due the corporate indoctrination of the minimum wage drones rather than any genuine customer care, but I'll take fake good service over genuine bad attitude any day.

聚北海道昆布鍋(台北南京店)
台北市中山區南京東路2段72號1樓
02-25716500

悅上海

Mother's Day is one of the busiest days for restaurants around here. This is one of the old stand-bys for us so I've been here a few times before but it's been long enough to not be stale. Got a tableful of relatives to toast grandma and mom. They restaurant was jam-packed so they put us into a private room but partitioned as small as possible. The walls are a little worn and the paint peeling a bit in the corners, but the lighting is good and everything else is clean and still barely nice enough to appear upscale.

The food is your typical banquet food done in Shanghai style. The cold-cut plate featured Drunken Chicken and a sliced pork terrine held together by the gelatin from the meat juices. The chicken was tender with just a bit of alcoholic bite. And how can you not love meat-jello? The salt-pepper stir-fried prawns were huge, but wasn't particularly special in the way of flavor or preparation. The stewed sea cucumber came whole, sitting in a rich brown sauce which was a bit sweet for my taste. One of those dishes guaranteed to scare off any non-Chinese person screaming into the night. Along those lines, the manager was nice enough to offer up a complimentary order of mapo-style stinky tofu for our eating pleasure. I don't get violently ill at the sight of it or anything like that, but stinky tofu is certainly not my favorite Taiwan specialty. Thankfully the cousins managed to make short work of the dish so it could be taken away quickly and not stink up the room when the more delicate dishes arrived.

The shark-fin soup was basically a nice chicken soup with some smaller pieces of fin, which was fine with me since I'm always down for a good chicken broth. Lack of finnage was alright since it's too much of a moral dilemma when I run into one of the super-fancy huge single-fins where one is suppose to impressed by its sheer extravagance, whether in terms of monetary value or in its uncaring cruelty.

It's a lot easier to appreciate the goodness of good old pork fat, and the star of the show was the thick slab of pork belly gently cooked to a rich mahogany sheen. A slice of meat-fat-skin between a flattened 饅頭 steamed-bun with some fresh scallions to cut the fattiness — perfection. Just in case you're not full yet, they wait until the end to bring out the classic Shanghai 小籠包 soup-dumplings. I wish they'd bring them out as appetizers so we can better appreciate the perfectly steamed little pockets of tight, almost al-dente skin and the burst of rich broth and meaty filling inside. Of course you eat one as it is, and one dipped in the ginger-vinegar for the additional zing. The good thing about sending them out late was that I managed to wait until the dumplings cooled a bit so I didn't scald my tongue on the steaming juices when I stuffed the whole dumpling into my mouth, which you really have to do because if you take a small bite the juices all leak out and what's the point of that?

All in all it was your well-done Chinese banquet, with the addition of a freakin' fantastic Bordeaux red courtesy of uncle's cellar. Portion was just enough to stuff one to the gills without bursting. Even had room for a peach-shaped bean-paste sweet bun in the end. And all for just a bit over NTD1K per person, so pretty good value, too.

悅上海<
台北市大安區敦化南路2段57號
02-27001949

小南門豆花店

Visited GF's grandfather at NTU Hospital after his angioplasty. The basement of the hospital was recently redecorated to have a nice food court and shopping area in the basement with an Eslite Bookstore among others. Apparently the family's been getting douhua at this shop almost every day. We headed down to the basement for more soy goodness after putting grandpa to bed. I'm a purist, a bowl of warm 豆花 with only ginger syrup for me. GF and others got the combo-bowl with extras like tapioca, red bean, and grass jelly on top. That's a bit too many different squishy textures for me.

The douhua itself was quite good. Scooped into thin sheets thick enough to keep it from falling apart but thin enough so that each spoonful is buffered by plenty of syrup. Even though it was getting late, the douhua still had the right silken texture, without getting tough and overcooked (i.e. turn into tofu). Had a clean soy flavor which was not overwhelmed by the brown-sugar syrup. Would've liked a bit more zing from the ginger, but the flavor was definitely present.

Turns out that they have a bunch of locations in the food courts of the big department stores along with the original store, such as Breeze Center, Eslite XinYi, Living Mall, etc. Next time we eat at the mall I'll be sure to leave some room for dessert.

小南門傳統豆花
Multiple Locations

台灣故事館

Got together with the GF after work but she didn't want to go too far out of the way, so we were looking for a place near the Taipei Train Station. Taiwan Storyland is in the basement of the KMall across the street from the train station. GF and her sister had wanted to check it out, and it wasn't as if we had any better ideas.

The place attempts to recreate the atmosphere of the Taiwan of the '50s. Recreated posters are plastered on the walls: wanted ads, advertising, and some good old propaganda. The storefronts had display cases filled with artifacts from the period mixed with recreations. There wasn't as many people there early on a weekday evening, which made the empty alleys a bit seem a bit creepy, but it picked up once the dinner crowd started to filter in. The movie theater was cool, showing old movies, albeit on a modern digital projector rather than the old-school film projector displayed in the lobby.

Of course, the right thing to do was to eat at the street-food place. Except here we had a gleaming stainless steel kitchen rather than a propane burner on a cart. They serve up specialties from various places, and they make sure to include Japanese on the menu for the tourists. A bit expensive for street-food, but the entry ticket cost can count toward the food so it ended up being okay. The fried tofu-skin meat roll was good, my soup noodles and GF's sticky rice cake were okay. The food's probably not worth a special trip for, but if you're there on a visit there's no need to run out for real food, either.

台灣故事館 (Taiwan Storyland)
台北忠孝西路一段50號B2 (K Mall地下)
02-2383-0368