mei eats

Gone Very Wrong

Posted in Breakfast on April 30th, 2007 by mei| | 2 Comments.

This is an episode of Betty Crocker Gone Wild. Yours truly made ricotta buttermilk pancakes topped with fresh pamplemousse for brunch this past Saturday. Little did she know that Betty has aged quite considerably and was well past her prime (aka use-by date). Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and Betty decided to lash her spinsterhood anger out on the poor, sensitive Mei.

Mei ended up nursing rashes and hives all Saturday.

Moral of the story: Always, always, always check the expiration date.
And never make any woman mad.

Taiwanese Spuds

Posted in Baked Goods, Chinese on April 30th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

I crave sweet potatoes or 地瓜 especially in the winter when they come out of the huge ceramic wells, where they are usually roasted, piping hot. You can get sweet potatoes with either yellow, red or purple flesh - my personal favorite being the former. I find that the yellow ones are sweeter and more fragrant than the other two. As much as I’ve often been told that eating food with robust and varied colors are good for you I just don’t normally fancy root veggies that look like they’ve been dyed in Kool-Aid. Anyhow, the yellow ones are chock-full of wholesome goodness and they make for wonderful mini-meals on the go. They keep really well in the fridge - just pop them in a pre-heated oven to re-heat… Just thinking about the sugars carmelizing under these paper thin sweet potato skin gets me all…hot.

Whole baked sweet potatoes are the way to go in my opinion but they are also quite nice in rice congee (you can usually find them at the 24 hour congee/breakfast places on Fushing South) or as Taiwanese style thick french fries. You can get the latter at any night market “fried chicken nugget” (鹹酥雞） stall.

I get my baked sweet potatoes from this old man in the Tunghua fresh market but try out this specialty store by Jinshan and Hoping:

Big Baked Sweet Potato 大蕃薯炭烤地瓜
No. 190, Jinshan South Road, Section 2
02 2341 2389
金山南路2段190號

Where’s the Beef?

Posted in Food News on April 25th, 2007 by mei| | 6 Comments.

Double Taipei Foodie News Flash! Yours truly has just heard through the grape vine that a new eatery is opening up in town. California Grill will be having it’s grand opening this coming Saturday, April 28, and their regular burger or teriyaki chicken burger with either fries or salad will be on a promotional price of 100nt (originally 185nt). Go between 11am and 10pm.

No, I am not getting paid to write about them.

California Grill seems to be offering a nice menu for all, even a tofu burger for vegetarians. I’m eyeing the salmon fillet sandwich with pesto sauce. And for those who give a damn about the provenance of your meat, the eatery advertises using “USDA approved beef.”

Thus far, yours truly have been going to The Diner on Ruian Street for her burger fixes. There’s also Mary’s Hamburger in Tienmu. But that’s in Tienmu.

I love love love The Diner. Not only were the hamburgers great but their brunch selection is AWESOME. Did I mention that they make Philly cheese steak? My only pet peeve about the place is that it’s always crowded and during the weekends the wait is quite insane (most, patrons are college kids who go to school in the vicinity) although still worth it.

I don’t remember Mary’s Hamburger very well. It has been quite some time since I went there. It is quite an old establishment and it is a piece of Americana in Tienmu. I just recall that the burgers were on the small side.

Seriously, where was the beef?

California Grill 加州燒烤堡
No. 53-1, Yong Kang Street 　
永康街５３之１號

The Diner 樂子
No.145, Rui-an Street
(Near Hoping East Road and Ruian Street)
02 2700 1680
台北市瑞安街145號
(近和平東路與瑞安街口)
www.thediner.com.tw

Mary’s Hamburger 茉莉漢堡
No. 752 Chungshan North Road, Section 6
中山北路6段752號
02 2871 4997
Open: 8am to 10pm.

Burger photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Taipei International Vegetarian & Organic Festival 2007

Posted in Food News on April 25th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

Taipei Foodie News Flash! The Taipei International Vegetarian & Organic Festival of 2007 (台北國際素食暨有機產品博覽會2007) will be held at the Taipei Show Hall 2 (Originally the WTC Hall 2) [台北展演二館(原台北世貿二館)] from 5/10 to 5/13.

Taipei Show Hall 2 (Originally the WTC Hall 2)
台北展演二館(原台北世貿二館)
No.3, Song-Lian Road
T 02 2920 9771; 02 2722 8618
F 02 2720 0311 　
松廉路三號(原世貿二館)
www.taipeishow.com.tw
(Website in Chinese only)

Yonghe Soy Milk King

Posted in Breakfast, Chinese on April 25th, 2007 by mei| | 4 Comments.

Some posts ago I mentioned that my favorite Chinese breakfast place had no name and that it was on the intersection of Fushing South and Ruian. Well, I lied… and lied. I ended up there this past weekend when a friend gave me a foody call for brunch. The name is Yonghe Soy Milk (Daan Branch). Whether it has any affiliation with the original in Yonghe that I personally found subpar I can’t be sure since most Chinese bfast places rip off the name anyways. And it’s not at the intersection of Ruian but a block south.

Since it was a hot and humid day my friend and I opted to go for the cold soy milk which I rarely have (Chinese doc’s orders - no cold stuff!). Her dairy-loving manfriend opted out and went to 7-11 for a Supersupau instead. Weak. Between the three of us, we ordered (from top to bottom clockwise) a pork bun (hiding underneath a plastic bag in the pix), a beignet wrapped with egg pancake and an order of xiao long baos. I found most of the experience unreproachable - good standard Chinese bfast fare. The only issue I had was the service. For starters it is a self-serve place. The place got so busy that we didn’t hear our order being called thus our food was sitting on the counter for a while before we even noticed that we had to go pick it up. The next thing that irked me was that there was no julienned ginger strips! If I was in one of my hissy-fit moods I would have poo-pooh the order and storm out with smoke trailing behind. It was too early in the morning. The dumplings were great with just soy sauce and vinegar in any case. Juciy broth and tender ground pork encapuslated in thin chewy dumpling wrapping - mmm, mmh! (Ms. Rose, you reading this? The kosher Jew in you is missing out!)

Yonghe Soy Milk King (Daan Branch)
永和豆漿大王 (大安)
No. 102, Fushing South Road, Section 2
02 2703 5051
復興南路二段102號

Click on the tumbnail to view the trilingual menu! (And note their translations :>)

Muddling Measurements

Posted in Chinese on April 21st, 2007 by mei| | 2 Comments.

Grr. I hate having to do conversions. Yards. Meters. Miles. Fareiheit. Celcius. Milliliters. Ounces. Blah. The ISO should set up an ad hoc committee to standardize the measurements used in all published recipes.

Fat chance.

I’ve started getting the hang of converting US customary units to metric and back but now what? The Taiwanese system? I was out checking the prices of pinenuts this morning at a local sundry store and when Mr. Proprietor told me that they were x-nt dollars per jin (斤) I froze. I had no idea if they were cheaper than those at City Super. So off Mei went wikipedia-ing…

And this is what she found. One jin (斤) is equal to 600g. Moreover for the politically and/or mathematically sensitive, that’s the Taiwanese jin. In Mainland China 1 jin (斤) equals to 500g. Check out the wikis here and here. Now that’s trivia for you. I hope it’ll turn up on a Brass Monkey Quiz Game night one of these days.

So, let’s recap. Six hundred grams = 1 jin. Yes. Just don’t you dare ask me how much that is in ounces.

Baby’s got Bake

Posted in Baked Goods on April 19th, 2007 by mei| | 1 Comments.

I love love love love baking. There’s nothing quite like baking from scratch especially when the recipe calls for 20+ ingredients which I’ll procure from 10 different locations. There used to be this place called the Mami Store in the Shida area that consolidates all the baking goods you’ll ever need but they closed down. Sigh. Now I make do with City Super in the basement of the Far Eastern or Jason’s at Taipei 101. And for those who are looking for baking pans, the lifestyle section of City Super carries a selection as well as the Japanese Tokyu Hands Creative Life Store at the Breeze Center and Mitsukoshi A4.

Pantry Magic opened up in Taiwan recently but it’s in Neihu where most of us Taipei-rens would probably consider far. They have some nice stuff such as silicone baking trays that I haven’t seen eslewhere locally.

These are two cakes I baked recently: A Banana Coconut Cake (top left) and a Chocolate and Zucchini Cake (right). Not going to rehash the recipes but you can find them here and here, respectively.

I have stopped baking with white cane sugar. Now, I only use a mix of brown sugar ( “black sugar” 黑糖 in Chinese) and this light and very soft brown Muscovado sugar (available at City Super). Be sure to sift sift sift the former brown sugar as it’s very lumpy. No need for the latter. Muscovado sugar is quite expensive here (140nt for 500g - hey, it’s just sugar!) but it’s well worth it. Just cut half of the sugar amount with the cheaper local brown sugar. Trust you me, I can taste the difference when I stopped baking with refined white sugar. I almost held a grudge against a buddy of mine (Mr. Bobino, you reading this?) when he didn’t have any of the Chocolate Oatmeal cookies I baked for his dinner party (read: overly sweet white refined sugar) but all is forgiven now that he ate and complimented me on my previously mentioned Banana Coconut Cake.

He’s just not getting any chocolate oatmeal cookies I bake the next time I make them - with brown sugar.

Pantry Magic 魔法廚
No. 357, Cheng Gong Road, Section 1, Neihu
02 2796 0011
內湖成功路4段357號
www.pantry-magic.com/taiwan

A Dummies Guide to Dumplings

Posted in Chinese on April 19th, 2007 by mei| | 5 Comments.

Cooking them, that is.

I’m currently obsessed with these vegetarian dumplings that my friend Rose introduced to me. These cresent-like-ravioli-like delights are normally meat or shrimp filled and most places that do offer vegetarian options aren’t the most creative, normally stuffing them with a standard cabbage/chive/vermicelli/egg/tofu filling. These lovely ladies at the “Heavenly Fragrance Vegetarian” (天香素）　stall in the Shida fresh market offers yummy selections such as green squash （胡瓜）, country vegetables （香樁）, collard greens （雪裡紅/油菜*）and Rose’s favorite pumpkin （南瓜）. Not only are the stuffings delectable but the dumpling skins are sooooo soft. One bite and I’m almost willing to give unrequited love another chance. Almost.
You can buy them frozen in bulk or fresh like we do. A box of twenty costs 70nt or
three boxes for 200nt.

Cooking dumplings should be as easy as making instant coffee. If you know how to boil water, you should know how to make it. But, alas, life is never that simple. There’s always a pretty penny (or nt dollars) to pay for perfection. I’ve always been deeply perturbed at how many times I have had dumplings with holes in the doughy skin and have the insides all filled with boiled water. Either that or undercooked dumplings. So here goes…

Fresh Unfrozen Dumplings

Congratulations. You made the best first step in choosing freshly made dumplings. These should be cooked and eaten the day you bought them or else promptly FREEZE them. Don’t refrigerate them. Freeze them. If you put them in the fridge, condensation will occur and cause the dumplings (and the flour covering them) to get damp and as a result your precious dumpling skins will most likely tear. So becareful and treat them like you would your woman - gently.
Now bring your water to a roiling boil at high heat in a large pot (make sure that there’s enough water for the number of dumplings you are making to swim freely but also make sure that there’s enough room in the pot to add several cups of water without overflow). Add several glugs of oil into the water and delicately dump the dumplings into the boiling water. Immediately turn down the fire to medium heat. If you continue to let the dumplings boil at high heat they will tear. Let me repeat that. They will tear.
Oh yes, don’t forget to give your dumplings a good stir around to make sure that they are not sticking to the bottom of the pot. When the water comes to a rolling boil after you turned down the heat the dumplings should be near ready. Vegetarian dumpling stuffings are usually already cooked so you can fish them out with a slotted spoon asap but if you are cooking the carnivore varieties, give them a few minutes. You usually can tell when they are ready when you see the skin turn translucent (not the seams but the stuffing part). I also like to add an extra dumpling for a taste test to see if the dumplings are cooked through.

Frozen Dumplings

Same process really. The only diffrence is to turn down the heat to low-medium heat (if you are using frozen fresh dumplings with soft skin) or medium heat if you lazy bones got your dumplings from the frozen goods section of Matsusei. Once the water comes to a rolling boil add another half a cup or water and wait for the water to boil again. Repeat proces several times until the skin starts to look translucent. Just remember that it’s better to use a lower fire and boil the water through more times than to just leave it at a rolling boil. The latter is just dumpling disaster. Taste test one dumpling and then fish them out with a large slotted spoon or drain through colander. There. Perfect dumplings with no sticking and no holes.

The Sauce

I like mine relatively simple. Soy sauce. Minced fresh garlic - chunky. A little garlicy chili paste or chili oil. And maybe a drop or two of sesame oil if it’s around.

Heavenly Fragrance Vegetarian 天香素
Tuesdays at Shida Fresh Market (by the Welcome near Taipower MRT); Saturday and Sunday either at Shida or Guting Fresh Market. Call first.
週二 - 師大市場; 週六、日 - 師大市場或古亭市場　先打去問
02 2926 5968 09 2732 8252 09 1532 8252

*My own translations. If you could come up with better/more accurate descriptions message me!

Bread or Bunk?

Posted in Baked Goods, Breakfast on April 17th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

I like my bread like how I like my man: tough.

None of the frou frou fluffy nonsense that grace most bakery countertops here. Mei was actually raised on white soft wonderbread but sometime ago in a little town in PA she discovered dense crusty bread. And you know what they say, once you go hard you never turn around. Or something like that.

I quite fancy the selection at Wendel’s in Tienmu, my favorites being the sourdough and the seven grain bread. I’ve taken a stoic German engineer there once and he almost waxed lachrymal in joy. Besides bread there are cakes and other pastries to indulge in as well. He said the apricot berliner is done “just the way it’s supposed to.” I say the Viennese apple cake is to die for. Check out the selection of their goodies here.

Left: Mei’s grilled pepper and homemade pesto sandwich on Wendel’s sourdough bread.
Center: Wendel’s Viennese Apple Cake
Right: Tomato confit open-faced sandwich on Wendel’s sprout bread - another Mei creation, of course.

*The sprout bread in on the soft side - I suppose to cater more to the local palette. Enh.

Wendel’s German Bakery & Bistro 溫德德式烘焙餐館
No. 5, Deh Shing West Road, Tienmu (by Zhishan MRT)
Deli: 02 2831 4592
Bistro: 02 2831 4415
天母德行西路5號 (芝山捷運站旁）
www.wendels-bakery.com

Patisserie Boite de Bijou and Maison Kayser are two other noteworthy bakeries to get western-style bread (although French in style and not German) but until my next posts I bid my readers Gute Nacht.

The Lord is Cheap

Posted in Foodie Fun on April 12th, 2007 by mei| | 2 Comments.

Only 10nt at Wellcome supermarket.

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