mei eats

Songs Fit for a Foodie

Posted in Breakfast, Chinese, Foodie Fun on August 20th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

Love is like soy milk and oil sticks? How cute.

Currently listening to:
è±†æ¼¿æ²¹æ¢ by æž—ä¿Šå‚‘.
(Lyrics and translation from Ting Dong)

å–ç´”ç™½çš„è±†æ¼¿ æ˜¯ç´”ç™½çš„æµªæ¼«
æœ›è‘—ä½ å¯æ„›è‡‰é¾ å’Œä½ ç´”çœŸçš„æ¨¡æ¨£

æˆ‘å‚»å‚»å°ä½ ç¬‘ æ˜¯ä½ æ†‚æ„è§£è—¥
ä½ èªªæˆ‘å°±åƒæ²¹æ¢ å¾ˆç°¡å–®å»å¾ˆç¾Žå¥½

æˆ‘çŸ¥é“ ä½ å’Œæˆ‘ å°±åƒæ˜¯è±†æ¼¿æ²¹æ¢
è¦ä¸€èµ· åƒä¸‹åŽ» å‘³é“æ‰æœƒæ˜¯æœ€å¥½
ä½ éœ€è¦æˆ‘çš„å‚»ç¬‘ æˆ‘éœ€è¦ä½ çš„æ“æŠ±
æ„›æƒ…å°±æ˜¯è¦é€™æ¨£ å®ƒæ‰ä¸æœƒæ·¡æŽ‰

æˆ‘çŸ¥é“ æœ‰æ™‚å€™ ä¹Ÿéœ€è¦åµåµé¬§é¬§
ä½†å§‹çµ‚ ä¹ŸçŸ¥é“ åªæœ‰ä½ å°æˆ‘æœ€å¥½
è±†æ¼¿é›¢ä¸é–‹æ²¹æ¢ è®“æˆ‘æ„›ä½ æ„›åˆ°è€
æ„›æƒ…å°±æ˜¯è¦é€™æ¨£ å®ƒæ‰å¹¸ç¦ç¾Žå¥½

æˆ‘çŸ¥é“ éƒ½çŸ¥é“ ä½ çŸ¥é“ ä½ éƒ½çŸ¥é“
å¥½ä¸å¥½ åˆ¥å·ç¬‘ ç¬‘ è®“æˆ‘çŸ¥é“ (å°±å¥½)

æˆ‘å–å®Œç†±è±†æ¼¿ å»å¿µè‘—é‚„æƒ³è¦
ä½ åƒå®Œé‡‘é»ƒæ²¹æ¢ æ„›æƒ…åˆè¦å†ç™¼é…µ

A Perfect Match by JJ Lin

Drinking pure white soy milk, it’s pure white romance
Looking at your cute face, and your innocent appearance

My laughing foolishly at you is the antidote to your troubles
You say I’m just like dough sticks, very simple but very nice

I know you and I are just like soy milk and dough sticks
You need to eat them together for the flavor to be best
You need my foolish laughter, I need your embrace
Love needs to be like this, to not lose its flavor

I know it sometimes needs to be clamorous*
But all along, I’ve known you’re one who’ll treat me best
Soy milk can’t leave dough sticks, let me love you until we’re old
Love needs to be like this, to be happy and good

I know, know it all, you know, you know it all
Is it good? Don’t secretly laugh, let(ting) me know (is good)

I’ve finished drinking hot soy milk, but I still long for more
You’ve finished eating golden dough sticks, love will ferment again

Another good one is å®®ä¿é›žä¸ by é™¶å‰å‰ (Kung Pao Chicken by David Tao).
Too tired to post lyrics up now but you can find them here.

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.

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)
æ°¸å’Œè±†æ¼¿å¤§çŽ‹ (å¤§å®‰)
No. 102, Fushing South Road, Section 2
02 2703 5051
å¾©èˆˆå—è·¯äºŒæ®µ102è™Ÿ

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

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 æº«å¾·å¾·å¼çƒ˜ç„™é¤é¤¨
No. 5, Deh Shing West Road, Tienmu (by Zhishan MRT)
Deli: 02 2831 4592
Bistro: 02 2831 4415
å¤©æ¯å¾·è¡Œè¥¿è·¯5è™Ÿ (èŠå±±æ·é‹ç«™æ—ï¼‰
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.

Chinese Breakfast Redux

Posted in Breakfast, Chinese on March 20th, 2007 by mei| | 1 Comments.

“The World’s Soy Milk King” (ä¸–ç•Œè±†æ¼¿å¤§çŽ‹ï¼‰ in Yonghe, Taipei County was where it all started. Despite warnings from my neighbor at the time that the foremost institution of traditional Chinese breakfast has been reduced to only a name, I decided to schelp over to the other side of the river to try it out.

I concur. I found even my most beloved rice balls underwhelming. The patrons at the Yonghe Soy Milk establishment seemed to be a mishmash of people living in the neighborhood, a handful of foreign toursits and curious Taipei-ren such as yours truly. Even for people watching purposes, the crowd is rather unspectacular.

Where to go for proper Chinese b-fast fare in Taipei then? Most neighborhood Yonghe Soy Milk lookalikes would do (don’t forget to bring your own pork floss!) but when I get foreign friends visiting I would take them to this one breakfast place on Fushing South Raod around the intersection of Ruian Street. I don’t believe there’s a name for the place but you can’t miss it. It’s the first store along the strip of Chinese breakfast (make that brunch and midnight snack) places and it’s the only one that sits pretty even in a dilapidated tenement with no a/c. I can’t even recall how many nights I’ve ended having breakfast there. Ah. Good times.

The breakfast place (along with the others on the strip æ¸…ç²¥è¡—ï¼‰are opened 24 hours 365 days a year. Supposedly. I’ve seen some places closed at times but this notwithstanding it makes for a great place to go for a chowfest anytime of the day and the downtown location makes it the place to check out the after hours crowds when Denny’s are far and few in between.

No-Name Chinese Breakfast Joint (not to be confused with another eatery in the vicinity actually called “No Name” but that’s another topic for another post)
Intersection of Fushing South Section 2
and Ruian Street
å¾©èˆˆå—è·¯äºŒæ®µè·Ÿç‘žå®‰è¡—

The Original World’s Soy Milk King
No. 284, Yonghe Road Section 2
Yonghe, Taipei County
02 89262233
ä¸–ç•Œè±†å°‡å¤§çŽ‹
å°åŒ—ç¸£æ°¸å’Œå¸‚æ°¸å’Œè·¯äºŒæ®µ284è™Ÿ

Chinese Breakfast

Posted in Breakfast, Chinese on March 20th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

I love love love traditional Chinese breastfast. In fact, few things in life can make me smile at 7am like having my favorite rice ball (oblong is a better description) delivered to my doorstep.

Rice oblongs aside, I do also really like the chinese flatbread stuffed with a half oil stick (ç‡’é¤…æ²¹æ¢åŠå¥—ï¼‰. Why half an oilstick? Easier to eat that’s why. I really don’t think anybody with the right mind – and mouth – could comfortably stuff a shaobing beignet combo down one’s gullet. Unless you’re Garfield. The real reason, however, is that I like to bring my b-fast home and add shredded pork floss ï¼ˆè‚‰é¬†/è‚‰é…¥) to the sandwich.

Yes, that’s right. I adore pork floss. The sweet yet savory fluffy brown mass that the locals love to top their equally fluffy white breads with. It’s the bane of any Jew trying to keep kosher in Taipei since pork floss has not a smidgen of resemblance to pork. The quality of pork floss, however, is going down. It used to be de rigueur for traditioal chinese breakfast places to serve fantuan ï¼ˆé£¯ç³°ï¼‰rice balls stuffed with premium grade pork floss but now most places don’t even carry the stuff. Sacrilege! So I have to buy my own. My favorite brand is Weichuan’s å‘³å°å¯¶ç´”è‚‰é…¥. It’s supposedly a hundred percent unadulterated porkfloss. As if I’d accept anything less.

When it comes to soy milk, I’m less picky. The thing is the locals do know how to make good soy milk. Even bad fresh soy milk is better than most stuff out of the tetra paks that I had to make do with in college. The only place that makes fresh soy milk that I despise is the é’å³¶è±†æ¼¿ in my neighborhood of Tunghua night market. I feel like the soy milk there has a “burnt” taste to it. Avoid at all costs! But they do make a nice egg pancake…

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