mei eats

(Taiwanese -) American Pie

Posted in Baked Goods on May 29th, 2007 by mei| | 2 Comments.

Also known to the initiated as “pies sold from the back of a truck.”

Finding yummy pies (as with flans, carrot cakes, ad infinitum) is quite a bit of a challenge in Taipei but I managed to find a source. Try Mom’s.

Depending on the day of the week, vendors for Mom’s American Style Homemade Pies （艾媽咪美式鄉村派) can be found at various locations through out Taipei. Today, Tuesdays, there is a vendor at the 7-11 by Daan MRT station after 4pm. On Wednesdays the pie truck is by the NTU （台大）gate at Xinhai & Fushing from around noon. On Thursdays, Mom’s Pies are sold at two locations: after 4pm at the intersection of Heping and Wenzhou and also at the Lutheran Church by Heping and Fushing South.

Flavors? For the Standard Pies, Mom’s offers Red Bean (yeah, I know), Taro (yesh, I know as well), Purple Yam (uh-huh), Oatmeal, Pumpkin, Pecan, Dutch Apple and Peach. For Cheese Pies there are Cream Cheese, Blueberry, Green Tea, Cocoa, Pineapple Coconut, Cherry, Coffee, Green Bean and Raspberry.

I’ve had the Coffee, Pecan (both pictured in the above from left to right), Pumpkin and the Dutch Apple and I’d recommend all of them.

So now, what would you like in your pie? Hole.

*Snigger*

You may call and order your pies for pick up. It’s 45nt a slice and 360nt for a box of 8 slices. You may mix and match flavors.

Mom’s American Style Homemade Pies 艾媽咪美式鄉村派
Various Locations
Phone numbers of the different vendors:
Wu 09 2209 1113
Huang 09 3131 1215
Hsieh 09 2232 4060
Hsu 09 3550 4554

Flan for a Friend

Posted in Baked Goods on May 8th, 2007 by mei| | 1 Comments.

Like most women, I tend to have a sweet tooth… and when it comes to sweets, I do have a penchant for the classic desserts.

Flan, custard, creme caramel, pudding, 布丁. Yum. I’ll never the first time my Texan college roomie took me out for a proper Mexican flan when we were done with exams during senior year. It was rich, robust and totally memorable. I’ve long since forgotten about the appetizer, main course and the flatmate - almost - but I still have reveries about that flan.

I feel like I am in dire straits when I go on a mission to find good flans in Taipei. It doesn’t exist. Super-rich dairy is hard to find here in Taipei ergo the presence of weak puddings. Swear to [insert religious or political figure of choice] if I get served that 10nt yellow nonesense in plastic cups from 7-11s, I will get MAD. My Spanish friend introduced me to the ones at Tamago-ya （蛋蛋屋） here in Taipei which were quite nice and rich but at 60nt a pop I shake my head.

The only way to salvation: Make your own.

I decided to make a get-well flan for a friend who is recovering from… erm, the idiocy of being too nice. Anyway, the point is he appreciates a fine flan. So there.
I used the William and Sonoma recipe but I generally scale it down and make random changes. It’s a flan, not rocket science. That’s why it distrubs me that the Taiwanese get the latter but not the former.

Tamago-ya 蛋蛋屋
Various Locations (check the website for a complete list)
www.zoe-grp.com/tamagoya

Ximen Branch
No. 5, Chendu Road
西門店
成都路15號
02 2371 3837

Zhongxiao Branch
No. 35-3
The East End Underground Mall
(around the Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT area)
忠孝店
東區地下街35-3號
02 2711 7460

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

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

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.

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