52 Cuisines?

Thai Food- Thai Restaurant (Really! That is its English name)

As everyone should know by now, the best “effnik” places to go to are the ones that primarily cater to the people of that country. They have a dog in that particular race and want their fellow brothers and sisters from country X to have a bit of home in exile.

We have a lot of Thai workers in Taiwan, though generally they are male construction workers, rather than female maids who are usually Filipina or Indonesian. That being said, I have had several Thai students come through the ranks and have gone on to bigger and brighter things in the tourism industry.

I was astonished to learn from Crispy Pete (who of course, speaks Thai) that one of the best places to eat Thai food was round my old Manor, in Dapinglin. I had actually been there before with the missus, pre- child, and I liked it, though the missus didn’t. She admitted at the time that she preferred another place which was more suited to local tastes. A bit of a barrier for Western people/non-Chinese or Thai readers is a lack of an English menu which had stopped me coming back. You will be pleased to know that water is served in those not really metal but metal looking cups that are part of the Thai dining experience.

As I had some time today before my doctor’s visit last week, and I am ahead of schedule on a few things that I’m supposed to be getting on with, I decided I’d go back again. From the outside it is not particularly appealing; it has that old time mom and pop Taiwanese restaurant feel, old floors, pretty dark and not exactly inviting you to go in. This is in contrast to the Isaan food I had a few weeks back which was in a mall. I know I’m kind of doing Thai food twice, but Isaan is regional and different enough to follow my own rules. On entry I noticed straight away that the lunch menu is by no means as large as the evening one, I’d already got there, so made a mental note to do a follow up in the evening, sometime soon. I have a few more things to cover first though. My aim has always been to highlight what is around, so yes I HAVE eaten food made by Thai people in a Thai restaurant, but it wasn’t their full range, this was similar to what I experienced in the Belgian restaurant and also the Portuguese one, only this time it wasn’t lack of ingredient related.

So I ate something that looked like Chinese pork fried rice, but was different enough to talk about. The flavor was more fishy, it was cheap and I’d have it again for a quick lunch, but I really want to eat their shrimp crackers and the like again. Mostly because I do remember they tasted a bit different to the usual Thai places that are dotted about. I also had Thai milk tea- also good, but yeah, you know the drill.

Menu: As you can see it is cheap, but you’ll need to read either Chinese or Thai

Address: No. 184, Section 3, Zhongxing Road, Xindian District, New Taipei City, 231

Argentinian Food- Gauchos

I apologize for only adding this now, it has been a busy few weeks

Having your birthday very close to Christmas, in a word, sucks. I’ll be honest.

As a kid, you often get one gift spread between the two events (my parents bless ‘em did their best to give two). As an adult, nobody has any money to go out, because they’ve either run out after having an expensive month already, or my birthday falls on the day they go out for the office party (as it would be in the motherland), or they are bracing themselves for Christmas/New year celebrations and they can’t have another party. Boo-hoo, I will now cry in the corner.

Anyway, in Taiwan every year, not just the year when Azathoth took over, Christmas is a non-event. Restaurants and bars will have events for expats to go to remember stuff as it was in our previous countries, but for most local people it is a gift exchange, or if you teach kids a chance to dress up and sing songs. Not counting the Christians of course, who observe it as you would expect. It being their big day and everything. It is, in general, a work day. I figured for my birthday/Christmas this year I’d go out for steak in an Argentinian restaurant, because I can and why not? It has been an ambition of mine to eat steak from South America, it is a bit expensive so what better a time than me birfdee?

I brought along the missus, as she was paying, and she is my wife, as well as Preschooler, who had agreed to come out a few months ago after we had done a major deal on the sofa. We shook on the fact that her giving me some of her chocolate bread would guarantee entry to my birthday party. All parties were satisfied with the deal.

Gauchos is part of the Maji Square food area near to Yuanshan MRT, in the same place as the “famous” Taiwan Flora Expo from a few years ago which was big news at the time, but I didn’t go because I hate crowds. First impressions of the place were great; you could see they knew what they were doing. Money was sort of no object, as it was birthday related, but we didn’t go nuts (it would have been very easy to). First up were chicken empanadas, we ordered a set of four but you could have six. Fantastic, a bit spicy and also came in three other flavors. We ordered the Spanish omelet so we could make sure that the young ‘un would be eating something other than fries (it took some coaxing), we probably enjoyed it more than she did.

Next up were the mains, the missus went for pork, a massive piece for such a wee lass, but she polished it off without too much trouble. I had a bit and we both had nothing but praise for that. As it is a steak house, I had to go for and went for the middle ground, but was pretty hefty. It had the proper scorch marks, could tell the meat had been wood fired and yep, it was a proper “bye bye belt!” moment. Really really good. As we let slip it was my birthday, I got a free cake, complete with happy birthday sung in Spanish, which on a normal day would have got to me because of my introverted nature, but I had no issues there. Damn good chocolate fondant thingy too.

Then we came to dessert. Now, Mrs. Bao has a weird hatred for crumble. I have no idea why, it can’t come from a traumatic childhood experience, because crumble just doesn’t exist here. Is it a texture thing? I really dunno. So in order to get brownie points, because she would inevitably have some of mine, we went for grilled apples with ice cream. Preschooler nicked all the ice cream so I can’t speak for that, but man- those grilled apples were amazing. I’d say my favourite dessert of the year, and I have a pretty sweet tooth. It doesn’t look like a great thing from the photo (the apple element) but, I’m salivating now.

apples with daughter questioning sugar work.

As a birthday kind of place, I’d say 100% recommended if you are a meat eater, there really wouldn’t be much point in coming if you were vegetarian, though they do have pasta on the menu and I can only imagine it is good. You definitely get what you pay for, and we didn’t feel hard done by. A great end to the most trying of years.

I have now officially eaten 52 different foods from around the world in Taipei, but I haven’t written them all up yet. Awesome, achievement unlocked!

Address: No. 1, Yumen Street, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, 10491

Best way to get there: Yuanshan MRT on the red line. Maybe about 10minute walk across the expo park.

Canadian Food- The Poutinerie& Snack Shack

Oh Canadians! We love you.

I rarely, as far as I know, make peoples’ day. I try to make people giggle, and I do things for people that will help them in the long term for their futures, but it is rare that I make someone’s day today as it were.

I made somebody’s day though quite recently in relation to Canadian food, homesickness and the general silliness that goes along with 2020.

Poutine. It is Canadian, though only recently in the last 10-15 years did it make its way west in Canada (probably on foot, because the place is so bloody big), and the world of course. A non-connoisseur would tell you it is just cheesy fries with gravy, but even the most polite of the Great White North would take umbrage at that. It is home, it is fattening and it is great, eh? And for my student/ dogs body Johnny, me knowing it exists is the end of a seven year fruitless search for poutine in Taiwan.

Johnny is Taiwanese, but spent his teenage years in Canada, and regularly speaks about how at odds he is with the Taiwanese education system. In the lift one night with another student, Ms. M, we were chatting about my blog and “how do you find this stuff?” When I remembered I hadn’t yet gone for poutine for this thing and Johnny may be interested.

“Did you know you can get poutine here?”

“Wait, really?

“Yes”

It looked like tears were forming in Johnny’s eyes.

“With like the cheese curds on top and everything?”

“Yep, with the cheese curds and everything.”

“Duuuude, you don’t know how long I’ve looked. Wait, is it made by Canadians, or Taiwanese who went there once?

“Real life, polite, bearded, sleeve length tattooed (probably), white boy Canadians who have been here years”

I could see that he had been burned before with the promise of authentic stuff from another place, and had wound up tolerating a second rate local version of it. This happens so often to my international brethren. But on hearing this, it was like he had had an epiphany.

“I’m going to have to go there. I can’t wait”

So, as I wanted to check it off my list, and Johnny needed his fix, I invited him along. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make it this time as the end of semester is looming and he has a part time job when they are open. Boo! But at least I made him smile.

Anyway, The Poutinerie& Snack Shack came out of the ashes of the earlier Whalens which used to be a Diner type place in the center of town. I’m not sure of the whys and whatnots, because I’m a family man out of the loop but they closed down and they opened this place a good few years ago now in Gongguan down by the river and the Museum of Drinking Water (Yep, once again Taiwan prevails with it’s amazing museums). The museum is a place I’d been saving for when I had run out of things to do, which happened two weeks ago, and we took the bairn for a walk in the hills behind it. Other than that, it is a popular spot for wedding photos because of the old time architecture.

It is only open on weekends in the evening and is an outdoor food truck type experience. I was there on Sunday afternoon, the weather was brighter than it has been recently and a good day for comfort food, but there were only two other couples eating at the shack itself. The area is popular for people riding bikes so it was busy behind us.

I looked at the menu and decided to just go for the classic poutine for 100NT and the meal deal with soft drink for an extra 40NT. It was one of the cheapest meals I’ve had doing this, and probably the most filling. Yep, it was as good as it was supposed to be, cheesy, too much gravy and the need to waddle home afterwards. I’d say it is perfect for the time of year and glad I waited til December to eat it.

The only other thing to report really other than the service being nice was a fellow customer asking me

“Hey dude, are you Canadian?”

“No, why what’s up?”

“Oh, right on”.

Canadian, to the very end.

To be any more Canadian, that 30 minutes at the snack shack it would have needed to be playing The Tragically Hip which is undoubtedly on their playlist.

Go there if you are about on the weekend, it is cheap, good atmosphere, and yeah… 47 done 🙂

Menu:

Address: Siyuan St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100

Best way to get there: Gongguan MRT, and then past the Museum of Drinking Water down by the river.

Australian Food- Aussie Café

It has been a few weeks since I got out to do one of these, general rainy weather and end of the year stuff has made it a bit hectic so not had chance.

So to Australia now. Australia has a strange place in my psyche, brother Bao lives there and I have never visited for one thing. I find that more and more these days as we are spread around the world that is a familiar regret that us ex-pat types have: there are family members we don’t know very well because of distance. I’m no different, and feel I wish I knew my nephews a bit better. I’m a honorary uncle to many of my friends’ kids here, and being called “uncle” (su-su) in Chinese is often not about family but as a term of endearment/ friendship. In fact, the day that I got upgraded from waiguoren (foreigner) to su-su by the kids who ride in the elevator, I knew I had been accepted into the fold. A red letter day to be sure. Maybe I’m getting a bit sniffy and nostalgic because of the time of year, or maybe it is common among us people living overseas I dunno.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes Australia. In the late 80’s and early 90’s the TV landscape of the UK was very different. The kids TV schedule on the BBC after 5pm would run as follows:

Newsround 5-5:10 every day, then typically:

Blue Peter (Monday and Thursday) 5:10-5:35

Grange Hill (Tuesday and Friday) 5:10-5:35

And then the same slot on Wednesday was usually a godforsaken drama that was supposed to be serious like Moondial.

5:35-6:00 just before the news was Neighbours. As a young person going into high school around that time, we believed Neighbours to be one of Australia’s premiere exports, and thought it was watched by every household in Australia. I dunno how aware we were of how crap it was, but it had a massive impact on us. I remember one particular episode that showed Jim Robinson and Doug Willis stranded in “the Bush” and after eating mushrooms they were both tripping balls. Hilarious.

ITV was weird because during the 5:10-5:35 slot in some regions Home and Away was shown. In others you had to wait until 6pm. You were unlucky if you lived in a Home and Away at 6pm region, because that means you would miss The Fresh Prince of Bel Air which was shown on BBC2 on Mondays at that time. A simpler time indeed.

Now somewhere in there came a piece of Australian cake making that I’d never eaten until yesterday. I remember that “lamingtons” were often on the menu in Australian soap operas and everybody in the UK was baffled about what they were. The bloke that played Harold Bishop (who was evil in Prisoner Cell Block H) even fielded a question about them when he was a guest on some chat show, that I witnessed. They were a true mystery. So after a 30 year gap, I finally found them in real life.

There are a few Australian places in Taipei, I was going to go to Woolloomooloo but they hadn’t updated their website in a while and it was a bit expensive, plus there was nothing there that actually inspired me. Then I found out about Aussie Café and gave it a shot.

Me and Prof. C who was dining with me, both agreed it was a lovely place. It is themed around Aussie backpacking holidays, which is a bit weird, but kind of made sense. So we got there and realized that unfortunately there was nothing on the menu that the Prof could eat as she has dairy and gluten allergy issue thingies. Real ones too, not the attention seeking kind. That was all OK, as they were able to make a salad that was not on the menu and she had oat milk coffee. All very nice, service excellent and so on.

I had a flat white coffee, I drink a lot of coffee these days and it was good. I had a tuna and mayonnaise pancake, not particularly eventful or Aussie probably, but I was more focused on the main event. Lamingtons.

I have to say, it is nobody’s fault that they weren’t as great as I’d hyped them up to be in my own mind. It was nearly at the same level as when a mate of my brother’s named Bammy had sold the end of the terrible 1985 action film Remo Unarmed and Dangerous (also known as Remo: The Adventure Begins) as cinematic genius. The end came and Remo could walk, unconvincingly, on water. The lamingtons came and they were sponge, with coconut outside. They were nice, but not worth a 30 year wait. The Prof was living vicariously through my eating of chocolate sponge as now she cannot indulge but also commented “Oh, my mum makes those, they’re common in <her non-Australian country’s name here>” .

Bugger.

It is a really nice place, and I would definitely go again. The people are lovely, service is great and worth it if you are in the area. Just don’t hype up cakes in your head for 30 years, it won’t end well.

Menu:

Address: No. 33, Lane 115, Section 2, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City 104

Best way to get there: It is between Minquan W. Raod and Zhongshan Elementary School MRT stations on the orange line. I went via the elementary school MRT and she went from Minquan- I feel mine was quicker.

Portuguese Food- Tuga

OK I don’t want to get bogged down with a history lesson here and I’m not a history scholar, but Taiwan has been visited/colonized by many people over the years. It has had a few names in its time, and one was Ihla Formosa which is Portuguese for “Beautiful Island”. The island was uncharted in the 1500’s and was given that name by Portuguese sailors. There goes the history lesson, and there are many people I can refer you to if you want to know more about that stuff.

A really crap segue, but it is grammatically correct when I tell you that what is interesting for me is that, in the north of the island at least, there is not much Portuguese stuff. From my research, (which hasn’t been that extensive I’ll be honest) there is virtually no Portuguese food here except for egg tarts that were a huge fad in 1998, and the restaurant I’m visiting today: Tuga. Before I start rabbiting on about Tuga, I’ll mention the egg tart fad in more detail.

As old news footage and old timers tell me, there was little exotic food here in the late 90’s, and it has been relayed to me that it really was a simpler time. Egg tarts from Macau (in reality a British/Portuguese fusion-thanks to Mr. Connors for digging that one out of the archives) were really exotic and proved to be a big hit all over Asia. As their popularity grew, people were waiting in line for two hours at a time for the tarts and then every man and his dog started selling them. Then suddenly…gone, the market basically consumed itself. They are still available in a few bakeries and in KFC but not at the levels of hysteria seen in 1998.

I was planning to go last week as a celebration of finishing that conference, but Balle Balle won out. I instead decided to celebrate the end of my class teaching English to the police in Banqiao.

I was a little bit disappointed that my ass didn’t find itself hauled in front of the chief for being “well outside your jurisdiction, Bao. My ASS is on the line, that hand cannon isn’t regulation” or other cop related procedures. I instead got a good report for being funny and unconventional from the boys in Forensics who incidentally told me they laugh out loud at the science around crime scenes displayed in movies.

“You don’t want to watch movie murder scene with us, It would be spoiled” apparently.

So on to the blue line I went.

It is definitely not my usual kind of jaunt, they asked me if I had a reservation (and at the end my company number) and felt like I was in what I thought restaurants would be like when I was a poor kid growing up. The first thing that hit me was the amount of wine available; there were walls and walls of the stuff. It is completely lost on me, but I can only guess it is good wine- if selection and volume are anything to go by. The cost was also outside my usual parameters, but I thought I’d go for completeness’ sake and to try bacalhau as it is one of Portugal’s most famous dishes. Turns out that it wasn’t available and hasn’t been for quite a while if reviews on Tripadvisor are to be believed. The waiter seemed a bit off about that, maybe because he’d had to tell people a lot. My best guess is that the curse of the virus strikes again, some ingredients simply can’t get in. So instead I went for one of the cheapest things on the menu which was pork in orange sauce (I didn’t get the name), and natural lemonade. I enjoyed it, but I’m thinking it wasn’t the best spotlight of what they can do. The portion was fine and taste good etc., maybe I’m just a bit jaded because what I wanted and specifically went for wasn’t available.

It came with bread and a kind of tuna spread as an appetizer thing too, as bread starters go it was as you’d expect. The lemonade was great, and had added mint leaves. A winner in the ethnic drinks parallel thing I have going on in my head.

So all in all, it is a nice fancy upscale place, good service and everything which I’m sure is even better when the entire menu is available. Not their fault of course, we are in the year that everyone wants to forget after all. When the money is flowing more freely and I know that I can get what I want, I will come back, reservation made, maybe with someone who can tell me if the wine is good.

Address: No. 12, Alley 11, Lane 216, Section 4, Zhongxiao East Road

Getting there: Probably Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT, walk five minutes towards Sun Yet San Memorial Hall and it is close to OnTap.

Somtum Der- Isan Food

A shout out once again to the people over at the TW Foodies Facebook page for once again highlighting something I wouldn’t have found otherwise, particularly Det. String, who has official bragging rights on finding something first.

If you have been reading this page you’ll have probably noticed I haven’t got round to having Thai food yet. Like Japanese food, Thai is just too easy to find so I have been saving it for later and instead first I bring you Isan food which IS Thai but is part of the no man’s land between Thailand and Laos. In the absence of a Laotian restaurant (I tried to find one, and if there is one please let me know) this fits my criteria because, it can and- my point has pretty much been made now.

nice place- pretty empty Monday lunchtime

I have never been to Thailand; I have no particular reason for going/not going it just hasn’t come up. I’ve always enjoyed the food, but as no expert I’ve only had the same dishes over and over. I also trained a bit in muay thai, which was never my thing it was far too brutal and seemed to attract the wrong kind of martial arts foreigners, i.e. those who are looking for a scrap. One class I attended was brimming with homophobia/Islamophobia and I actually took pleasure in kicking the arse of a French fascist there under the guise of “practice”. So I turned my back on it, going back to the classical martial arts which look cool, but are not necessarily useful in a real fight.

Going to Somtum Der yesterday was a bit of a first for this blog, even at this late stage of the game, in that the restaurant is part of a food court area, and this place is a chain of sorts as their website shows they have branches in different cities worldwide. I had always had the stereotype that food courts were either severely overpriced posh food or low effort tourist spots or have familiar brands everywhere. This was none of the above.

I got there for lunch, as always one of the first people there because of my un-schedule. The décor was pretty bright in the “hungover, need shades” style but fine by me. I’ve heard that the place is getting popular so I sat at the bar area in case it did indeed get swamped with groups. From what I could work out, the staff were Thai, or at least the waitress who helped me was, as it is 2020 and mask wearing is just the norm now, I couldn’t really tell until she said certain words- but very friendly, chatty.

I decided to go with something which is considered one of the Isan foods that you must try, larb pen (spicy duck salad, though larb is made with most meats), lemon grass juice and a side order of rice. I went for the duck, mostly because I don’t get to eat it that often. I’m not a spice man generally, as I may have mentioned before, I have been known to sweat eating butter chicken one of the most inoffensive of Indian (I’m sure made for British tastes) foods, so this burned. I enjoyed the flavor, red onions, peppers and something else I couldn’t work out but- wow that kick was insane. I was sweating in about 30 seconds. Good thing I had the drink which helped with the heat. I was having a bit of a dodgy belly about eight hours later, but that is me and my own spicy food issues rather than anything they did. I guess my body needed the shove.

I’d say the portion size was fine, though I am pretty tall by most standards I’m not a big eater which surprises people-but all in all I was satisfied and would eat it again.

So having finished earlier than expected, I had a bit of a mooch around the food court to see if there was anything sexy I have missed during my research of what is about but came up with nothing. What I will say though, this is finally a reason to go upstairs in the Taipei Main Station Breeze area- it is affordable and is just that little bit different.

Menu:

Larb pad 220NT

Iced lemongrass juice ?? (I forgot)

Rice ( I forgot)

But came in at under 420NT

Address: 100, Taipei City, Zhongzheng District, Beiping West Road,

Best way to get there: It is in the food court upstairs of the main area of Taipei Main station. Long time Taipei people will know that that the station is a rabbit warren with terrible signage, but basically, do what you can to get to street level and then go upstairs from the square where the workers hang out on Sundays.

North Indian Food- Balle Balle

I have been away from this blog for a few weeks because frankly, I’ve had too much on my plate as it were. The last two weeks have been hectic, with a big conference speech I was supposed have last week getting postponed because of a typhoon in The Philippines (it was online) to this week(Thursday). As I’m not afraid to admit my shortcomings with Old Man Anxiety, an extra week was torture, plus I had a massive interview for another thing on Wednesday, that had it worked out right I would have had two big things happening a week apart. As it was, I was wide eyed and ready to smash anything and everything by Thursday morning. Cue computer problems, not being able to hear questions and so on. When it was finally complete, after months of toing and froing, I logged off Zoom, the cloud lifted from my shoulders and I just fell asleep. So much for a big party afterwards. The interview for the other thing also went well.

So after getting up this morning, I decided I was going to treat myself to some North Indian food because I deserved it and it was still on my to do list.

Balle Balle has been on my radar for a while now and there have been many opportunities for me to go, but whatever reason they all fell through. It advertises itself as being Punjabi cuisine which is a regional food I had been familiar with back in Blighty. As a student in London, our curry house of choice across the street sold kashmiri amongst others, and I have fond memories of getting takeout from there at our hovel on Brixton Hill.

Now this is probably just me, but I have an unconscious association with Punjabi guys having Northern English accents, and so my accent switches back to the beautiful dulcet tones of South Manchester if I meet one. Such silliness happened today, as I spoke to owner. A very friendly guy, by the way, and his positivity about his food was infectious. In fact, if he could bottle it, he could have a wicked sideline in selling bottled positivity. I’d be a repeat customer. He was of course as Indian as could be, and the fact that he didn’t sound like he was from Yorkshire threw me for a few moments. Why oh why does that happen?

Getting back to food stuff. I’m still on a budget, so I only had enough for one dish so I went for an old fave of mine, Murg Saag Wala, or in UK speak “Chicken saag’ (spinach), It is spiced at “enjoyment” level rather than “friends with the toilet” if you get what I mean. And of course, the garlic naan. It will never be the most beautiful of dishes to look at, being dark green and everything, but it is great. I don’t mind if it is not the most famous or best example of this cuisine or not, it was my light at the end of a tunnel. I also got a free saffron ice cream, which was a new one on me. Very nice, and as it was free it was more like a sample- but no complaints, I’d have a full one of them if I can next time.

Looking through the menu, there are indeed some really amazing dishes, it certainly wouldn’t be a hassle to go through the whole darned thing, and I know from many friends who have been before, I’d have no shortage of willing participants who’d come along for the ride. Choosing between this place and Amma’s Kitchen I can’t really say which is better because they are so different yet, both fantastic. I would never have thought that it would actually be difficult to choose a favourite Indian restaurant in Taipei.

So in short, I liked it, though I knew that already before I walked in. I will go back because of course I will. Price is fine, nice place, very nice owner and unusually there was no TV playing Bollywood music videos in the corner. That has to be a bit of a boon for anybody.

Menu: I didn’t get the full menu, but I took down the main courses for veg and non veg

Address: 12 Guangfu North Road, Section 1

Best way the get there: I’d say blue line Sun Yet San Memorial Hall MRT, follow the way out of Exit 5, cross the street at the intersection with Zhongxiao East Road, turn right into Guangfu and walk maybe ten minutes. Less for me because I’m kinda tall.

Ali Mama Nanyang Cuisine- Singaporean Food

This entry was actually unplanned, I had a few things to do in the area and I needed lunch. I had walked around this area of Gongguan a few times but there are quite a few alleys to explore and I’ve been pretty lazy to go down them all. I figured, student area, I have little money on me and I’ll pin prick Google maps in the rough area I’m in to see if there is anything around. Bonus if it hasn’t been covered yet. And, hey ho- I found some cheap, well reviewed Singaporean food in the back streets, just like Singapore food is supposed to be. It also seems to be a secret among TaiDa (National Taiwan University) students, if you believe the Chinese language blogs.

I can lay claim to visiting Singapore once, but it was actually on a coach trip where we never got to get off the bus. We were stuck in Changi Airport for nine hours waiting to come back to Taiwan from the UK and we figured we would go out and look at the city. It looks pretty nice, but from everyone who I know who has lived there, they say you get bored quickly and it is Asia-lite. What they mean is it is Asia made too easy. I dunno if that is true, my own experience of living in this part of the world was a very conservative town in the most conservative part of Korea, and Taipei have had differing levels of easiness/frustration. If I had been in Taipei first and then gone to where I lived in Korea, I would have told you Taiwan eased me into the Asia experience. Living in Korea first basically took any shock I could have experienced here beforehand. What they say about Singapore is it is a European/American country in Asia. What am I talking about? Lord only knows, but yeah… something.

lots of artwork on the wall that look like they are from thrift shops

Incidentally, Changi is still my favourite airport to be stuck in; it could be classed as a day out on its own. What they say on TV about it is true, and if I could afford to go to Singapore as a stopover on my occasional trips back to the motherland, I would do so every time.

Looking closely at the intro photo there you can see my monstrous figure, but don’t let that distract you from the place. It is pretty unassuming from the outside, but inside was rammed because it was lunchtime and filled with local students and (I guess) businesspeople.

I only saw a Chinese language menu, but could tell that on the left were Singapore dishes, and at the bottom of the left hand column was Indian. I decided to go with the fish curry; as usual I think I don’t have enough fish in my life, and a drink of tea. Rice was self-service so I guess it was unlimited but as I’m trying to keep trim, I had a small bowl.

The curry was served with roti which is something I haven’t seen over here outside Indian places, it was great. Portion was big (I can see why it is popular with students) had that coconutty curry thing I really like about South East Asian food. The milk tea was good, a bit sweet and smoky buy a bargain at 10NT. I will definitely go again because it is actually not that hard to get to, and the price is right. There are more Singaporean dishes I’d like to find here like fish head curry, and I probably have to up my spending to find them, but at 140NT all in I’m not going to complain.

So there we go, from memory that is now 42/52. At the beginning of this we counted about 25 different cuisines (at a stretch) and from the tip offs I get from other people and around and about, I think the number of different things available in 2020 is closer to 60.

Thanks as always for tuning in to my inane blather.

Address: No. 3, Alley 1, Lane 136, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei

Best way to get there: Gongguan MRT exit 1. Google Maps is actually pretty bad for finding it, but it is about a five minute walk from there.

Senegalese Food- Chez les Diatta

First off, a big round of apple drinks and a thank you to Boo Lion and the TW Foodies facebook page for highlighting this place for me. I can’t say it would ever have crossed my mind I’d find this food here; we went in with absolutely no information.

Senegal is not exactly a place on my radar either. I think any previous things I’d heard about it came from my B-boying days and my (very brief) diversion into French language hip hop or la rap maghrébin (I know Senegal is not Arab Maghreb, but there was a lot of crossover because of French speaking North Africans) I remember hearing some hip hop in Wolof but those days are sooo distant in my memory I can’t recall names. They also won the opening game of the 2002 World Cup against France, the previous winners, and went on to the quarter finals. Other than that, unless there is a secret Senegalese community lurking in Taipei that EVERYONE knows about, and everyone stops talking about it when I enter a room, I am pretty much in the dark.

This place is a pop up joint, only open on Mondays and Thursdays 12-8pm, inhabiting the same space that is used by Yuca, who I talked about ages ago and do Brazilian food in the evenings. That makes it a little difficult to plan around but as I’m perennially underworked (about to change), that doesn’t affect me too much. With me this week was Boo Lion who is Watson to my Sherlock. This is a pretty accurate description because Boo is pretty clever, and he also has a bad leg (though not from Afghanistan). I am also quite erratic, but don’t play the violin nor alas, am I a cocaine addict.

bissap, made from hibiscus and made fresh the night before

One of the advertised foods on the TW Foodies page (I recommend it if you aren’t a member already) was vegan, which blew up his skirt so he was on to it before me. It turned out in fact that today’s menu was all vegetarian and I would put money on the fact (maybe as much as 1USD) that even the most meat loving of people would be at least satisfied with what they received if they were to go veggie.

As the space is very small (two seats outside and a kitchen) I can’t really comment on the décor, it was an alley in a Taiwanese city. So a lot of scooters either parked or zooming past, old women shouting at someone you weren’t sure was the target (if at all), and mystery stains on the road. Perfect Taiwan basically.

Sam, the guy running it is Senegalese but grew up in the US, I didn’t press where, and he runs the place with his wife. At the moment as I said above it is only Monday and Thursday with the odd Saturday which is announced on social media in the days before. They are looking to hopefully do this permanently if they get enough business, and me and Boo agreed that yep, what they have there is tip top.

We got there at 12pm so if he was going to prepare anything else today, I’m not sure, but what we got was vegetarian fataya ( think empanadas) , which were filled with mushroom and had a bit of spice to them, bissap which is a drink made from hibiscus and bit like kombucha, and the main event thiou which is a kind of curry thingy made of sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini (Urrgh, too many Americanisms in my language now) and rice. All food was served with a slightly spicy sauce that I’m sure could be made hotter, and sour cream.

The fatayas (I dunno if it is pluralized) come in orders of three (100NT), we got four though and were the highlight for Boo. They were just spicy enough without overpowering, and had that feeling of volume that you were eating meat, and given enough that could be a good meal on their own. Definitely having them again, so will he, as he works nearby.

In between the chat about the latest un-happenings in our middle aged lives, time travel, novels and how we know so few Australians in Taipei, we drank the bissap (55NT). This now ranks highly on my unofficial list of “effnik” drinks. Somewhere between mouth and the wall of your throat, it goes from being very sweet to conning you into believing it is going to be fizzy. This sentence probably doesn’t make much sense, but this is something we both agreed on and I’m sure if you have it yourself you will know what I’m trying to point out. I drank mine a bit too quickly because I could have done with a bit more when we came to the thiou (pronounced something like “ch”).

The thiou (180NT-I think) was very tasty too. Of all the curry, and curry-like things I’ve had over the last year or so I’d say this one was different enough to be memorable as the spice didn’t take over and you could taste other components. It wasn’t spicy for spiciness sake and it added to it. Once again, it was a pity there wasn’t more of it.

I had a crepe (90NT) for dessert, very good but unpictured as I figured we have all had that before and wasn’t particularly dramatic. All in all it came to 660NT for two people. Good cheap eating and in a student area too.

I really do recommend you try this, it isn’t often you have African food in Taiwan (I had Gambian as some of you may recall, and Moroccan- but that is world’s away from what I had today and shows Africa has some very different things going on there), and Sam really knows what he is doing. I want these guys to do well and even though I have no real influence in the world, I want to do my bit to help them get recognized. Also, I want to try their other stuff.

Very rare that I’ll promote someone like this but you can find them at

https://www.instagram.com/chez_les_diatta/ and Facebook under Chez_les_diatta

Best way to get there: Taipower Building MRT Exit 3, turn right and walk down Shida road, it is in the alley behind the 50 tea shop, less than three minutes’ walk.

Hawaiian Food- Kame House

I had been hoping for this for a while. Yes, it is America and I’ve had barbecue, but I have had a Puerto Rican dish too, and Hawaii is very far away from America in pretty much every respect. In the same way that if I was to find Chamorro food (from Guam) I‘d also include it.

It was a pretty bleak day out, so I figured I’d go out to for some fake tan sunshine grass skirt, tiki tiki hula action to lighten the mood. Then I realized that actually, I do all that at home anyway, so it is no different to a regular day.

There are a few Hawaiian places in Taipei and most of them apparently aren’t authentic. I’d had poke before and enjoyed it but from what I’ve been told the places I’ve been to didn’t cut it. This came from Hawaiian native Dr. J who, although she isn’t the NBA star from the 70’s, does have a fine head of hair in her own right. I can only hope the good Doctor approves, because she would not hesitate to tell me otherwise.

So Kame House won my favour mostly due to very good reviews, and the prices seeming to reflect what someone who was homesick would be happy to pay, for a bit of home. Homesickness is never really a factor in my world (especially right at this moment, as I write Manchester has just gone into a severe lockdown against the wishes of the Mayor and Mancs in general. That will not go down very well). I do feel like I need to check in with the UK every now and then, but when I do, I always end up freaking out about the amount of choice there is compared to Taipei for everything. A supermarket alone can be a dizzying experience; just walking down the breakfast cereal aisle is enough to bring on palpitations. I can spend hours in bookshops or whatever when all Mrs. Bao wants to do is see tourist attractions.

I arrived early because I had other appointments today and wanted to be sure I could pack in all my usual stuff, along with a quick mooch around the shops, a chance I don’t get much these days. As is often the case, I was the only diner in the place, and I had forgotten about the concept of Halloween.

The décor is probably great when it is not Halloween. It feels bright, fresh and smelled like a restaurant in London which I have no idea what that reads like, but trust me, it does. As Preschooler Bao’s kindergarten doesn’t celebrate Halloween, and I haven’t been teaching for a while, I’d forgotten it was coming. Maybe it is also 2020ness as well, who knows.

The menu is pretty extensive, ranging from about 300NT to 3000NT for steak. They have teppanyaki and various other things too, but as I still have a limited budget, everything looked good, and I haven’t really got a bloody clue what I’m doing, I went for the mixed plate which contained a mini loco moco, poke, fried shrimp, a mini burger and some not on the menu fried chicken. You have a choice of two sides and I went for fries and roasted veg. As I was keeping it under 500, I didn’t get a drink.

from left to right: fried chicken, loco moco, fried shrimp and mini burger thing. Above I *think* they are called fries, and roast veg.

The plate is advertised on the menu as being cheehuuuuu, as I have no idea what that means; I can only surmise that it is a good thing, so I’ll repeat it: cheehuuuuu. It was really great, and I’d have the larger versions of each of them any day of the week. I’ve forgotten how I can describe them to be honest, other than they tasted tip top and I want to go back, probably with other people for teppanyaki and not be a Billy no mates.

So yes, worth the trip to the posh end of town near Sun Yet San Memorial Hall and Taipei City Hall. The door to the place is pretty non-descript (at least in the daytime) so it is possible to blink and miss it but definitely poke your head in. It is good stuff, and there are no pineapples.

Next week promises to be well outside any frame of reference I have for food, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Cheers for your support!

Menu (partial)

Address: No. 13, Lane 32, Yixian Road, Xinyi District, Taipei City, 110

It is apparently a four minute walk from Sun Yet San Memorial Hall MRT on the blue line, so easy to get to. Unless you are a bit ‘eads gone like me and get lost in the alleys.

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