Food Intelligence

One of the specialty dishes along the Danshui boardwalk is Age, pronounced Ah-gay (not eye-gay, they may look at you funny, …or not!). Some signs will say Arcade. Because it is like an arcade in your mouth when you eat it. We stopped by this stall for lunch, and had to come back here for dinner because the kids and parents both loved it.

Let’s see, how to describe it. It’s a fried tofu with the insides taken out and substituted with vermicelli noodles and topped with a ground meat/poultry topping. It’s amazing. And cheap. Only thing is, if you get there right when a batch is ready, you’re lucky–especially if there are any left for you. Most likely you’ll need to wait, and it takes about 10-15 minutes for these to cook all the way through. But it’s well worth the wait. Plus you can walk around and order some of the other stuff around, like stinky tofu. Which I think is just a couple stalls down.

Right after you eat Age and before you go eat it again, you can stop by for some candy coated strawberries-and-tomato (Bev says the tomato is gross…not sure why there’s a tomato at the end). And the black dou-hua is nearby as well. Again, limitless possibilities, and if the second floor is open, sit up there because the view is beautiful. Just remember to bring bug spray or you’ll get bit on the face like poor Careese.

Sorry the posts are getting more and more brief. I KNOW if I don’t get through this Taiwan set of pictures that you may not see me post again until next year! Plus, I’m sure I’ll be frequenting these places again this year, so as I refresh myself with the food details, I will add more details to the posts!

Meet Fresh, or Xian Yu Xian, is a dessert chain in Taiwan that I think has cropped up only in the past few years, or maybe it just finally made it up to Taipei lately. Their specialties are taro balls, grass jelly, and dou-hua (bean flower). Teas are also their specialty but I don’t drink so I can’t speak on those. Everything else there is amazing, though. I have tried different combinations, with beans, with yam balls, with tapioca, with a couple scoops of ice cream, with ice, with condensed milk, with various jellies. ALL GOOD.

When you see the menu, there are endless possibilities. Dizzifying. I should have tried a more systematic approach to tackling the entire menu, because I’ve ordered some repeats, but they were good repeats nonetheless. It does, however, set me back on conquering their menu. They have seasonal specials as well. There’s one just across the Westin Taipei, so it’s convenient!

Their site here.

While conversing with my mother, reminiscing over all the wonderful food we’ve had over the years in Taiwan (and what we can’t eat too much of now…yet still do), she mentioned that the infamous Ice Monster at Yong Kang Street in Taipei had closed. I couldn’t believe it. I had just set this picture aside to write all about how awesome Ice Monster is–really. The store owner saw my pregnant wife and pregnant cousin-in-law (not pregnant by me, by my cousin, sheesh!  Who, I might add, has a beautiful little boy similar age to Ellee here) getting into the long long line, and quickly flagged them to a table, cleared out whoever was waiting there, sat us all down and took our order before everyone else. So that’s a lesson learned for next time you go. Bring someone pregnant. Anyway. Yes. Closed. Because the owners had a divorce, now, Mr. Lo, left to run the store AND pay alimony to his ex-wife, had no other choice but to close shop because he couldn’t do both. He would have had to pay half the store’s revenues to his ex-wife. Ouch.

This was just in the last couple weeks too. Right before Chinese New Year. I’m sure there will be many a disappointed tourists. The owner is thinking of relocating to another place within a few months. Hopefully it will be reopen by summer when I go again! But get this — according to a recent press release (yes, this is big news in Taiwan; Ice Monster is “iconic”), “Realtors have speculated the failure to reopen the Yong Kang location will have a huge impact on local real estate, likely sending property values on YongKang into a downward spiral.” (Emphasis added) Really? One ice shop affecting the whole area? My mother did say that businesses around the area are already suffering due to the Ice Monster closure though. Makes sense. People get to Ice Monster, realize they need to eat something first, so they find a noodle shop around the area, which Yong Kang Street is famous for, or Din Tai Fung (overpriced but the Japanese love it!). I loved the area because it’s right outside the Taipei LDS Temple. Ice Monster was a tangible blessing for temple attendance.

Full English article here.  Chinese press release here.

I knew I should’ve bought an overpriced T-shirt.  But for that price you could’ve bought 3-4 of those desserts up there.  So I did that instead.

Let’s hope the one in Singapore is still open.  Not the same, but come on, there ain’t much left!  We’ll find out next week.

My good friend Brian and I used to joke about eating the Choco Taco all the time back in the high school days. Not sure if we ever ended up actually trying it, but every time we see an advertisement for it we’d share a few laughs. Imagine Beavis and Butthead (yes, grew up with it, and proud), but on a nerdy an intellectual level.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when more than 10 years later, a post on how to make your own Choco Taco surfaces in my news reader. The recipe looks rather simple, and it seems as long as you choose the right book to mold your taco shell, you should be good to go.

Have I tried making it? No. I don’t think I’ve even tried the original. Ha!

Here.  You can try.  Tell me how it goes.  Or tell me how the original was.

I need to share with you some of my staple foods that I absolutely must get every time I go to Taiwan. My mom grew up in Shihlin, so after she moved to the states and had us there, every time we went back to Taipei, there were a few certain places we would always frequent in the area.

Ah-liang’s noodles has the best “o-ah mee-sua” around. Don’t listen to what everyone else says – they’ll tell you to go to Ximending to try a famous place there. But this place here is a classic. Easy to find. You find the temple within the Shihlin Night Market, it’s set up right in front. You tell them what you want, which, really you just say large or small, drop the money on the counter, grab your own change if necessary, and the food comes out to you. Cheap. Delicious. Sign says they’ve been around for 35 years. I guess I’ve been alive for 30 of it. Plus, if it’s not good, I think you’re only out about $1.50 or so. This is the magic of night markets. If by chance you find something that tastes bad, you can go try something else the next stall over, and you’re not out a whole lotta money. Unlike if you walk into a bad restaurant, there goes your night and your karaoke money.

Pao Pao Bing. This is somewhere in between gelato and shaved ice. It mixes shaved ice with thick stuff like peanut butter or…can’t think of any others because that’s what I get all the time. Peanut butter with red beans. Again. Amazing. The old location was actually further outside the “main” night market, but within the last decade, they made a huge food pavilion to house a lot of the food stalls, so this is one store that opened there. It’s convenient since it’s just outside the Jiantan MRT station. The original store is probably still there, just haven’t gone in a while.

The Pao Pao Bing place is also right next to the fried chicken place. How convenient. This place is amazing. The lines get long, so don’t be surprised if you need to wait 15, 20, maybe even 30 minutes. Go with a friend and have him/her grab other food from other stalls while you’re waiting in line. There is so much to try. This fried chicken is the size of a 8.5″ x 11″ paper – folded in half (yeah, sorry to lead you on!). It’s huge. That’s all these guys sell. You can get it with or without chili pepper powder. That’s the only option. Go there early while the oil is “fresh”.

And don’t tell Mr. Huang I sent you. Or that I visited that place.

Another Chinese specialty (I can’t really say it’s just Taiwan here, because Hong Kong and Singapore do just as good of a job in this department) is dessert. Some of you may be thinking, tofu and beans for dessert? Yes. When you know how to prepare tofu, it can be amazing.  Bean flower is the literal translation for this dessert (dou-hua/dao-hui).  I think I was introduced to this by Bev.  Her dad makes a mean dou-hua.  It’s just fresh tofu in a sweet syrup with some ginger, nothing else.  But it is heaven.  Previous to this experience, I think I only heard about dao-hui when we were on a family trip in Alishan and there was a guy on his loudspeaker touting his “heh-jia dao-hui”, or great tasting bean flower.  Never tried it then.  Now I crave it. 

This dessert dish on the right, you get to choose what to put in there.  I think I just asked for “ba-bao”, or eight treasures, a mix of peanuts, grass jelly, various other jellies and tapiocas, beans, etc.  You can put these treasures on top of ice too, which is what I traditionally do.  But I was indoors, at the Taipei Main Station, so I was cool enough.  I’ll have to look up the name of this place, although I think there’s only one place that sells this stuff AND has a large crowd.  There’s another place that’s better than this up in Dan-shui (Tamshui) – they have black tofu – sounds cool, but it’s black (brown) sugar tofu.  Not really black tofu.  I know, I was kinda bummed too when I found that out.

Forgot to mention, one downside to the Taipei Main Station’s food court – it closes “early” – 10pm.  Back in my college days, we didn’t go out to play until well after midnight, when the sun was down and it was relatively cooler, bowling was half price and karaoke was heavily discounted as well.  So we were eating at 1am, 3am, 5am, etc.  And there were many popular places that stayed open that late as well.  Which meant they didn’t open until like 5pm the next day!  So beware you night owls.

Update – so the food court is called Breeze and the place is called Xiao Nan Men or Little South Gate.  Found the info here.  I frequent this blog when I run out of places to go–she seems to have a good pulse on the types of food I like, and doesn’t even know me!

Update 2 – here’s another shot at some of their dessert selections. I took Bev there as well, stopped by there before hopping on/off the THSR. Pulled it off the DSLR. Other was from the iPhone.

When you start the day off at around 28-29 C, it can never be too early for a Slurpee. I got this at probably 9am or so on my way to a conference. Sarsaparilla flavored, start the morning with a sugar high! Well, there are other factors that come into play, though:

1. Yes, there are 7-11s all over Japan. Not one has a Slurpee machine. I’ve gone through all of them. Really. You’ll be sorely bummed to discover that after a long hot day of sightseeing in 30 C temperatures and 150% humidity.

2. In fact, it’s hard to find 7-11s with Slurpee machines all over Asia.

3. What happened? There is not a 7-11 in the states without a Slurpee machine. 7-11 would not be 7-11 without the Slurpee machine. That’s like McDonalds without the Big Mac. Or KFC without the Fried. What were the franchisees thinking when they decided to take 7-11 abroad?

4. Luckily, the Taiwan 7-11 subsidiaries got it right. Even better, actually, they have their own local flavors, such as sarsaparilla, guava, passion fruit, etc. What makes Taiwan 7-11s even cooler? The classic tea-leaf egg smell that overtakes you as soon as you walk in. Next to the cashier there’s always a pot of hard-boiled eggs stewing in tea-leaves–guaranteed. 在7-11真好.

5. Aaaaannnnd, there are 7-11s on literally every corner in Taiwan. You can walk from the corner of one block, down two minutes to the end of that same block, and find another 7-11! Disclaimer though, I can’t remember whether or not ALL the 7-11s have Slurpee machines. I’ll have to double check when I go back there again! Curse you old age!

I have to admit, it is extremely hard for me to pay for Cambodian food after being fed it for two years “for free” while serving as a missionary for the LDS Church. I remember the good old days where I could eat three bowls of kuyteav after filling up on little mini egg rolls, or half a dozen or more banh chiao, or samloh machu all night. Kind of surprised I didn’t come out looking 300 lbs., although if you see some of the pictures of me in the latter part of my mission, I am a little portly – Bev laughs every time she sees it. “If I find the picture,” I’ll post it. Anyway, enter Phnom Penh Noodle House. Typical looking restaurant in Seattle’s International District, but the food is amazing. The kuyteav here is great – bev loves the duck one. I enjoy anything on the menu, and the best part is dessert. I think I missed out on enjoying dessert on my mission–well, I take that back. I was too full by the time dessert rolled around that I wasn’t able to enjoy dessert. This place has an amazing multi-bean (three-bean?) dessert. Yes, beans for dessert may sound weird to y’all, but I grew up with red, green, and soy beans for dessert, so this was right up my alley. And now that I’m paying for food, I eat less more balanced, so I can actually taste dessert and not my esophagus.

Let me explain why I ate so much during my mission, just to clarify (like I need to justify, but this is my blog-space!). My mother taught me always to eat what was put in front of me regardless of whether or not I liked it — it shows respect to the host/hostess. If we grabbed more food, we needed to eat it, because that was the choice we made. With these Cambodian families that I served, many of them had very little. But whenever we went over to their houses for dinner, there would not be a square inch of space on the floor where there would NOT be food. From the time we walked in, took off our shoes, and sat on the floor, we would be eating non-stop until we were back out the door, and even then, they would be stuffing food in our backpacks to bring home. They had so little, yet offered so much, I felt it would be disrespectful NOT to eat. Plus I just loved food in general. These communities are small – I mentioned earlier – three bowls of kuyteav. I think I set the bar too high too early on my mission, because there was one day I wasn’t feeling too well, and only had maybe one and a half bowls, and the lady asked, “what, you don’t like my food?” Before I could say “no, it’s because I’m feeling a little sick today,” she continued to say “you ate three bowls the other day at the [other family's] house!” So I grinned, put my head down, and put in for another bowl or so. Ah, those were fun times. My stomach is expanding just reminiscing.

Anyway, Phnom Penh Noodle House is excellent! There’s a karaoke system set up there too, although I’ve never tried it, I’m sure it works, otherwise they wouldn’t be Cambodian!

Location: 660 S King Street, Seattle, WA 98104

This stuff is amazing.  We made this for the first time back in December 2007 and barely got a bite of it because it was such a hit at a get together.  We originally bought it because it was on sale for about $2, and it includes pretty much everything you need.  Didn’t know how it was going to turn out, and after the get together, we wish we had bought more.

So this time when I saw it on sale at the commissary, I bought two instantly.  I would have bought more, but didn’t want Bev to give me “the look”.  Funny, though, she went back a few days later and bought either four or five more packs!

We made a bundt cake shaped bread last night (read: Bev made it).  This was per Evan’s repeated requests for the pumpkin bread.  I guess he liked it!  I would recommend it with a light sugar glaze on top or chocolate chips inside, but Bev doesn’t recommend it for me, or rather, my body.