French Food- Le Flam

Inexpensive French food in Taipei? Are you having an old tin bath?

That was my first reaction when I found out that it was indeed possible to eat French food here that wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. I have looked around a lot for it over the past year and could only find stuff that was probably great, but people, specifically local people, were probably only going there to look sophisticated, and to show off the size of their wallets. As we know, nothing is more posh than French food and the likes of me would be thrown out on our ear for even looking at the menu. Bonus points if it was from a snooty Parisian waiter.

Reading this, you are no doubt aware that it is one of the great culinary places on Earth, and I only ever had a good time eating the stuff, but would often be in a food coma afterwards. I’ve been to France several times, being just over the water in the UK- it is not exactly exotic for me to have been there, but I know for Asian people that France sounds like a paradise. I have often found it amusing that there was a study done years ago that discovered many Japanese young women dreamed of visiting Paris, thinking it was a place of high fashion, carafes of wine on the streets and all that. On finding out it is dirty, the people hate everyone and everything- the Japanese government kept statistics on how many people they had to airlift out of Paris due to the profound shock of reality. Could be apocryphal, but it is still funny.

Of course Paris is not France, as the capital is also not <insert your country of choice here> and it is a lovely place. I’d like to see the south again one day.

Any road, I found myself with a free bit of cash and on hearing on the grapevine via I think The Absent Minded Professor that Le Flam neat Jiantan MRT was a good spot, and as they have stuff on the menu that would count as a meal below even 300NT, I thought that was something I should look into if I was nearby. Actually, in the end I went up there specifically with the missus and young ‘un for Friday lunch of the long weekend and 10/10 holiday.

I was a little wary of going in, mostly because I’d sold the idea of tarte flambé as being “French pizza” because that was the only frame of reference Mrs. Bao had (I do apologize to any French people here); also the younger has a fondness for it so there would be no tantrums. It was a success, for reasons I’ll go into in a minute.

Firstly the place is very easy to find from Jiantan MRT station. There are currently a few road works on the way there due to the construction of that big museum thingy across from the station, which could throw you- but it’s not far. Inside very simply decorated, pleasant atmosphere, lots of wine bottles on display. It being holiday lunchtime, I couldn’t tell you if that was a busy Friday, but we got in easily without reservation.

flam. It was “flam-tastic”. Sorry, I’ll see myself out…

So, we opted for the flam fermière and the L’ecossaise tartine and a brownie for dessert. The flam was ridiculously moreish- according to the menu: crème fraiche, chicken, white mushrooms and emmental cheese. Amazing, and crappy that I had to share. I was actually in luck though because the preschooler didn’t want to eat it on account of the colour. She decided that it was “Marmalady pizza”, which, for those of you who are not subjected to kid’s TV, Marmalady is the main rival of Butterbean on Butterbean’s Café . The evil Marmalady frequently steals recipes from Butterbean to attract customers, messes them up and then they end up all green and rubbish. So no customers here, or indeed arguments from me.

The only problem I had with it was it was too small. I could have happily eaten another three of them, even though they look quite big on the plate. I guess I just enjoyed it that much. If that one was as good as the others, blimey I’m in for a treat next time.

The L’ecossaise tartine, (salmon, red onions, salad, capers and herbs) was equally great, very fresh and pretty much looks as good as it tastes. The missus enjoyed it, and though our Spanish meal way back in February is still her favourite, she put this one near the top

The dessert was fine, mostly necked by the daughter but as she hadn’t eaten much flam (we tried all the tricks) we had to improvise later in 7-11. Kids eh, what you gonna do?

So all in all, a triumph. As someone who isn’t the biggest fan of pizzas, if I found out tomorrow all the pizzerias in world had become places that sell tarte flambé I wouldn’t be disappointed. In fact, I would probably actually smile.

In public.

Menu:

Address: No. 6, Qiangang Street, Shilin District, Taipei City, 111

Best way to get there: Jiantan MRT. Probably walk five minutes if you don’t have a child with you asking questions like “Where is the white and blue?”

Lebanese Food- Sababa Pita Bar

Sorry for the delay, real life once again got in the way of doing this stuff and I had to focus my attention on real work, i.e. my first speech at an international conference and a bit of research there on. Also, it appears as though work is back on the agenda, so I can at least do this more regularly again and finally finish this off.

It had been a while since I’d been to Sababa’s, and in fact I’d kind of forgotten it was there. It IS in one of my usual haunts, but it is too far down the street from another place I usually go to, and as I’m a bit of a simpleton (think Homer Simpson “Food goes in here”) I find it hard to change habits. Which of course, was one of the reasons I began this thing.

In fact if I think about it, the last time I had been here was about six years ago after a Jewish colleague had left his job. Now, the fact he is Jewish has absolutely no bearing on anything except for the fact that in his words, he had been to nearly every place he knew about that served food he could accept. I had noticed that there was some Israeli food or something from a glance I’d taken at the menu a few weeks earlier and suggested we go there. I don’t recall any complaints.

There is some suggestion that I could be Jewish by the way. Ethnically at least. My maternal grandmother was probably the most Jewish looking woman who ever existed. Famously, the Scottish twins who make up The Proclaimers won a competition to find the most Scottish people in the world. Well, if there was a Jewish version, auld Miriam would have come in first. Yep, her name was also Miriam and several things about her just didn’t add up. She swore all her life she wasn’t but, my Slavic features and so many other things point to a high possibility. As Jewishness is matrilineal, I guess I could be. I dunno I guess it could explain my fondness for early Woody Allen films, not Woody himself, as adults we should be able to separate the person from their work (see also James Brown- godfather of soul and terrible man, Dave Grohl lovely bloke- does nothing for me musically and so on).

Anyway, what can I say about this? Well middle eastern food again, doing its thing and me enjoying it too much. The décor and menu had changed a bit from when I had last been in. Things I remembered weren’t on the menu anymore. I can’t vouch if they had gone due to unpopularity or whatever as I’ve never been blessed with enough cash to work through a restaurant’s entire menu. Overall, nice vibe and I think this may have been the first time I’ve been in an ethnic restaurant during this and all the customers (not including my party) were foreigners. I assume they were young people studying Chinese at the local University upon earwigging their conversations.

It was lunchtime, so I went for the 220NT meal deal. I had lamb yoghurt pita (as always, the missus was not around so I go for lamb when I can), which came with potato wedges and drink, (I had mint tea).

Now I enjoyed it, I was always going to because I’ve now decided that this region is my favourite food, but felt it was a bit small. This was for me a little bit of checking it off the list, rather than finding anything new. I’m told the pita/falafel crown has been taken by another restaurant, which I’ll have to get round to at some point but I chose this one because I know it has the pedigree.

So tip top for what it is, I’d say it is a good entry level food for the Middle-East if you don’t know much about it and need to start somewhere, but veterans of the food will like it but may come off wanting.

I’m likely to do another entry pretty quickly this week because we have a three day weekend this weekend and I need to show a couple of ladies a good time 😉

Address: No. 17, Lane 283,Section 3.Roosevelt Rd, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106

Opening hours: 12-2:30 then 6- 9 weekdays

12-9 Saturdays

12-8:30 Sundays

Normally I don’t comment on this but this is a bit strange considering the area. They are situated slap bang in the middle of Studentsville so I would have thought it would have been an all-day affair in the week, but nope.

Best way to get there: it is between Taipower Building and Gongguan MRT stations on the Green line. Taipower probably takes it for being closer, but I’m not about to take out my stopwatch.

Mexican Food – Teotihuacan

One of the easier cuisines to find in Taiwan, old timers such as Crispy Pete and Det. Mickey String recall being able to get low quality-ok Mexican food way back in the era when TV was called books, nobody locked their doors and everyone queued up for up to four hours to marvel at the zoetrope at the traveling carnival.

Nowadays there is even more Mexican food, and for some reason most Americans see themselves as experts on it, in quite the same way a significant number of Britishers claim to know everything about Indian curry (as I said last time something like 90% of curry available in the UK is actually Bangladeshi). Personally, I could always take or leave it. When I was still living in the UK, it wasn’t a big thing. I’ve eaten tacos, enchiladas, guacamole, nachos and all that, but it never really did anything for me. There was always one dish I wanted to try having seen it regularly on travel/cooking TV shows and in kids’ ESL (English as a Second Language) books: mole. In kids’ books it is usually introduced as “And in Mexico, they cook using chocolate! Isn’t that crazy? “, and cooking shows take the line of “Cooking with chocolate, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it”. For some reason me and mole had never crossed paths, and I never thought I’d get the chance until I noticed it on the menu at Teotihuacan. I was actually going to go to their sister restaurant Tenochtitlán which specializes in vegan cuisine today, but my lunchtime guest forgot that today was a government mandated workday to make up for an upcoming national holiday. It is a shame because I haven’t seen Lobster Johnson for ages; he lives high atop Lion’s Head Mountain in his Sanctuary of the Damned, and has become something of a bearded mountain man. As he is a vegan, I decided that Tenochtitlán could wait for another day. I’m also broke, so by using the coins in my spare change tin to get through this task I set myself, I wanted my Mexican restaurant visit to count in my quest to find less common stuff.

Teotihuacan, which is a real pain in the behind to spell (thank gawd for copy and paste), is located in central downtown, in one of the more expensive areas close to Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT. I was the first customer of the day, though I was later joined by a gaggle of “ladies who lunch” who were ordering expensive cocktails and ordering food like it was going out of fashion. Not uncommon for the area. The restaurant is a nice space, lots of Mexican bric-a-brac on the walls, old black and white movie played on the walls. A running theme across all these restaurants I’ve visited. Very pleasant place to find yourself, and the prices seemed good on the other dishes (though not a particular fan, everything did look good).

So, I ordered chicken mole enchiladas at 450NT. Visually, I would never say it is the most impressive dish I’ve seen, and I wish I could agree with classic reggae band The Gladiators when they sang ”Looks is Deceiving” . I’m still, a few hours on, trying to work out if I liked it.

Portion size was fine, the chicken and rice were fine, but that sauce… hmmm, definitely an acquired taste. There is still an aftertaste and I’m trying to put my finger on what I could compare it to. It’s not chocolate like we would know it, it has a spice thing that doesn’t really go anywhere and just… yeah. The best image I can think of to describe it would be that curious dinosaur meme that was going around a few years back. I want to know what it is that it tastes of and if I enjoyed it or not. All I can say is that it is a puzzle.

Chicken mole enchiladas. in a word “unique”?

I’m not knocking the food, once again this is my experience of a food I’d never had before and I was willing to give it a go. Everything about the place suggests it is a very high standard, people whose opinions I rate have all enjoyed themselves immensely, and as I said earlier the more conventional choices on offer (to a non-Mexican palate) looked great. Not sure I’ll try mole again though, now I’m just confused. Like if you pressed “up” in an elevator and then went down.

So I’m down for going to Tenochtitlán in the future, and I’ll come back here for sure, it looks like a place the Bao family would enjoy, and very easy for us to get to.

But hey 37 out of 52 done! I’ll update when I can!

Thanks for your support.

Chicken mole enchiladas 450NT

Address: No. 9, Lane 21, Section 1, Anhe Road, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106

Nearest MRT: Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT

Southern Indian Food- Amma’s Kitchen

And so, 36 visits into this thing and the end in sight, I finally start coming to the big hitters.

Indian food: something that has always been dear to my heart. In the good old days, it was something I took for granted and finding Indian food in Manchester was like trying to find a 7-11 in Taipei, it was pretty flipping simple. Of course, what qualifies as Indian in the UK would often actually be Bangladeshi or Pakistani foods that changed for UK tastes (much like Taiwan does with most foreign foods), the real stuff is/was available, and all regions are/were accommodated. In Rusholme, which was student central in those days, Wilmslow Road has a ridiculous number of curry restaurants. One of the city’s large Muslim communities is also centered around that area. It used to be nicknamed “the Curry Mile” by people who didn’t live there and would piss off the locals, such as when you call San Francisco “San Fran”. You mark yourself very quickly as someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. Nevertheless, that road and its curry remain massive business and as far as I know, there is still a competition every year for Best Curry House. Winning that competition is/was a very big deal, and in the year I left, Shere Khan (I think it was Shere Khan. It has been a while) had won it about seven years on the trot. That would translate to big sales.

I’ve seen Indian food improve a lot in my time here. It used to be a bit niche, and it would mean traveling to far off places in the city to pay exorbitant prices. It has become more mainstream nowadays, and the overall quality is better. Amma’s Kitchen in its previous location on Roosevelt Road was a spot that had been recommended to me earlier by an Indian gentleman who left these shores a few years back, so I think it qualifies. It was also easy to get to. By the way, I’m not doing that UK thing where my being British somehow qualifies me as an Indian food expert, I know a bit, but I’m more than happy to be corrected if I get something wrong.

salty vanilla lassi with Tibetan lamas in the background

Boo Lion and Ant were with me today, it had been a while since I’d seen both in the flesh. Boo Lion has been out about with me before, however Ant only got a passing mention once. Ant (which is his real name, unlike some of the other people I’ve dined with in the past) is one of the bosses at top New Zealand eatery KGB Burgers, one of my first outings. A longtime supporter of this experiment and as equally as tall and thin as me, Ant knows a thing or two about bladed articles and plays rugby. He is also so darned laidback, the very dictionary definition of “a safe pair of hands”. He had been keen to come along as he had told me in the past if you are in the restaurant trade, you don’t really get to see other stuff that often. Other than his own restaurant (which is super-duper, of course) he would be hard-pressed to tell you “decent places to go”, anyone with a bit of nous should know by now that owning your own restaurant is ridiculously hard work. Also typically, he forgot it was Thursday and was a bit late. Boo Lion had requested we come here as it been recommended to him elsewhere too. He is a vegetarian and a curry fan, as well as knowing everything about history and nearly every film ever made.

Amma’s Kitchen is now in a small alley just off Heping East Road, close to the University of Education. I was there earlier than my friends and was the only customer until a group of Tibetan monks stopped by. It had the authentic Indian restaurant vibe: decoration (Check!) TV playing Bollywood music videos (Check!), the nationality if Ivan Lendl (Czech!)… I perused the menu and saw straight away there were many things I’d never seen before, so was very happy to eat something new, or at least know I would at a later date. Our waiter was attentive and was happy when I asked where he was from in India “Tamil Nadu”. Yep, all good there.

Unusually for me, I went for one of the vegetarian lunch time specials, the sambar (which is a lentil stew), it came with rice, soup and payasam for dessert. Boo went for the veg masala and Ant for the mutton, which came with all the above. We ordered masal vada (a deep fried vegetable street food thingy) and a plate full of pakora. Drinks wise- we had lassi (though I had salty whereas them two had sweet).

sambar set meal. clockwise: potato curry, soup, payasam, papadum/rice and sambar

As always, we have been spoiled. Really great, and cheap for a lunchtime set. Not one of us complained while we opined about the issues of the day, the new three minute trailer for Dune which had been released earlier that morning and literature. I can’t really bore you with adjectives or superlatives, but we can definitely say we enjoyed it. Knowingly eating Southern Indian food was a surprise and there were so many things on the menu that we are going to go back for, when time and budgets allow. Times remain hard for all, and I’m still trying to solve my own work conundrum.

I’m not sure what it all came to in the end because it was generously paid for by Boo Lion, but the menu sets were 150NT for the Sambar, 165 for the veg and 220 for the mutton. I’m guessing around 1000NT for two appetizers, three drinks and three set meals- darned good in my book.

After googling and finding out that I was right about which Evil Dead film the tree scene was in, we decided it was time to do one. They both had work and I had to see the dentist. These truly are the lifestyles of the rich and famous. We agreed this will be the venue we come to next time, and we’ll probably get a bit more avant-garde when we do.

Menu:

Address: No. 2, Lane 357, Section 2, Heping East Road, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106

Best way to get there: Heping E. Road is served well by buses, and I don’t know all of them, but if you were from out of town- I’d say go to Guting MRT, and then take 235 bus to the University of Education.

Indigenous or Aboriginal Food- 翠山飲食店 (Cuishan restaurant)

City living man, it can bring you down.

After a particularly trying week and me doing my best to maintain the stiff upper lip that British people are supposedly famous for, me and Mrs. Bao went to Wulai for a day of seeing nature. After dropping off Preschooler at her kindergarten, we got into the green stuff and saw how it can really put things into perspective.

I was going to cover indigenous food towards the end of the year when my old university mate Gozzeh was going to stop by Taiwan after visiting a conference in Japan. As we know by now 2020 has been a fickle mistress and it really would not make sense to visit anymore. If it goes ahead in Japan (my guess not), he would have to quarantine in Taiwan for 14days just to pop his head in for a few days to see me and the family. I’d been looking forward to it as it was going to be one of the highlights of my year we get few visitors here, and me less than most. I had thought of local island food would be the kind of thing that would blow up his skirt, as I can’t see indigenous Taiwanese food being easily available in Oxford.

For the uninitiated, Taiwan has 16 distinct local tribes of non-Chinese people, all dotted around the island. Wulai, which is situated to the south of Taipei, is one of the homes of the Atayal people. They aren’t the biggest group of indigenous people in Taiwan, that would be the Amis, but they do have an interesting culture. I’m not that well versed in local island non-Chinese folklore, or traditions (and I’m bound to get something wrong here) but I will say they have their own languages, which in the case of the Atayal is still used, and very different cultural practices. The Atayal for example are famous for facial tattoos and traditionally men had to take an enemy’s head before they could have it done, whereas women had to prove their skills in weaving. Headhunting across Taiwan finished in 1930, and as recently as 2003, elders who were alive in that period do remember it happening. The last fully tattooed elder died in 2019. I’m skipping a lot because this isn’t a history class.

I have known relatively few indigenous people. When I taught the reigning world champion female tug of war team (Yep, I did honestly) the majority of the team were of indigenous decent from around Taiwan, and were at university on sports scholarships. As we all know, not everyone is designed for academia, nor do they have to be and I’ll be honest- this was probably my favourite ever class. The absolute nicest people I’ve ever taught, and were genuinely grateful for every class I taught (they needed English for traveling the world to compete)and while they weren’t the smartest people in the world (by their own admission), they were the most fun. It is one of the many opposites to the world order I’ve noticed in Taiwan. Sports students are interesting here, and not booze-filled bell ends like you would find elsewhere while the gifted intelligent students are not that interesting, and can be a real pain to teach as they believe they are above everything.

Anyway, I’ve included a few pictures of Wulai itself to show just how beautiful the place is, it certainly helped us and as I say every time I go there “I should come here more often”.

It was a bit of an off the cuff visit, so we didn’t go in to the restaurant particularly hungry and were going to wait til we got back into town, as Mrs. Bao was a bit hungry we went for a simple meal here.

As with a lot of Taiwanese restaurants, it was completely no frills, the décor isn’t anything beyond functional but the choices are amazing, and the food is pretty exotic to outsiders. There is unfortunately no English menu- so if you go here, Chinese is definitely needed, but those of you that can read, I’ve provided the menu. We went for a simple salted chicken leg that was too small if we look back (our fault not theirs). Really lovely stuff and the sauce that went with it as surprisingly spicy. We also bought a plate of noodles and two plates of vegetables that were in season. The plate size for those was huge. Mrs. Bao enquired why this would be the case and was told that they don’t want people to go home hungry. Very nice owner. We will go back you can see the menu is huge and we weren’t hungry enough to take advantage. All in all, 750NT total.

After visiting a juice stall for pure orange juice, we went to the bus stop to take us back to “civilization” and our real lives. The pause and the food were very much welcomed and this will be a memorable visit.

Getting there: Your best bet via public transport is to go to Xindian MRT and take the 849 bus until the end. It is about a 45min bus ride, but you’ll be rewarded with great views along the way. There are also some nice barbecue/pot chicken restaurants along the way, which I may document another time. That could be another project for next year.

I also want to say here that sadly, the Greek restaurant I visited for my first “review” has had to close for a number of reasons, another case of 2020 being the horrible thing that it is. The food was great, and I’m hoping that he can find a way to open again in the future but he will be laid out for a number of months after a motorcycle accident where he shattered his collarbone (among other things).

Arabic Food- Abdu Arabian Cuisine

First off, you get only one of these per calendar year so you’d better make it last, from the bottom of my heart a very big thank you to people who have stepped in to help me continue this in the short term while I sort out my finances and my mind. I had a particularly heavy blow this week, that even by my standards is not something I’ll be able to walk off easily, but we can but go forward. I’m generally pretty bad at saying stuff like this in public, because I’m pretty shy and socially a bit heads gone, but I have no such qualms with the written word. Seriously, thank you, your kindness and words will not be forgotten and I will return in kind. I’m glad my nonsense has kept other peoples’ attention and is actually useful/interesting.

Anyway, on with the show.

I was pretty much winding down my quest, knowing about the black clouds on the horizon when Ms. Crew of the earlier Rocksteady Crew sent me details of this place. I’d put it down on my list of possible visits, not knowing when I’d be able to do so. Thank you once again Ms. Crew for the detective work and as surreal as it may sound to overseas readers, I will try to make it out with my own four year old question fountain to Preschool Crew’s birthday party at the Sock Museum. Yes, Taiwan really does have a sock museum. Along with the Soya-Mixed Meat Museum in Kaohsiung and the Beneficial Microbes Museum and Tourism Factory in Yilan. And the Taiwanese government still wonders why Taiwan is not a particularly big tourist attraction…

Somehow, this is a pretty good segue into who came along and funded my visit to Abdu, the gentleman and scholar Crispy Pete who has remained a champion of this blog from the very beginning. Alongside his many academic escapades, CP is also something of an adventurer who usually spends summers traveling the world. This year being 2020, and all logic having gone out of the window about eight months ago, CP has been spending his time traveling the lesser known areas of Taiwan and has shown some interesting places around and about that I’ll look at in the future ( A Catholic Church famous for its bread? A Belarusian restaurant? Why yes, of course I’ll go). It is he, as well as Our Man in Paris, that discovered the “museums” mentioned earlier.

Abdu is located near to Taiwan’s most famous University near to the Gongguan MRT station. It is generally a pretty good area for cheap-ish eating because of the nearby university, but stuff does seem to come and go quite frequently. There was a Uighur place run by a strict Christian Korean man that wasn’t halal (my mind still boggles) there until I think last year, which I would have included here had it stuck around. It is also close to the university I teach at, but mine has cheaper food areas and things tend to last.

It is odd that the two universities are about a ten minute walk from each other, yet students who attend one, do not know the area around the other. I asked my students why that would be, but they wouldn’t give an answer. I can only surmise that eating near “the other one” is like going deep behind enemy lines. I took a group from the department I work in to a restaurant in “the other territory” at the end of semester one time, and they were looking sheepishly around the place like they were frightened to be there. The jury is still out.

Abdu is on the second floor of an otherwise nondescript seedy looking building that also houses an internet cafe. If you have seen any of the Hong Kong Heroic bloodshed category of action films (particularly the late 80’s or 90’s ones) you’ll know the kind of place I mean. There are so many places like this in the city, and they contain pretty much any kind of business. I always poke my head in to the lobby and look at the floor guide to see if they have any obscure martial arts (I once found a place that taught vovinam this way- but then I forgot where it was because all these places look the flipping same), but rarely get lucky.

So, up the stairs and through the door and the smell of Middle Eastern food hits you very quickly. I’m going to say that as a region- Middle Eastern food has never disappointed me. Abdu continues that streak, it is bloody marvelous.

I arrived a bit earlier than CP, I live a bit closer and as always, map navigation isn’t my strong point. As Indiana Jones remarked about Marcus Brody in The Last Crusade “He could get lost in his own museum”.

I was welcomed by the owner’s wife, who is Taiwanese yet her accent in English sounds very Saudi, not unexpected of course, I had a similar experience with the lady in the Iranian restaurant, but it is that slight jarring moment where your mind adjusts. And once again, as has been shown to me oh so many times in my life, Muslim hospitality cannot be beaten. However, I’m getting ahead of myself; at this point she had only given me water.

CP rolled in and I told him the unedited version of my last few months as we looked through the menu. There was mandi, kabsa, (choices of lamb, chicken or beef) , shish tawook. (Halal obviously) There were also fish dishes, salad and hummus. Basically everyone is covered- and everything is under 400NT. We went with the meal deal where we also got soup and a drink. They forgot the drink, but we got an extra dessert- which was fine by me. That hospitality again man!

CP went with lamb kabsa, really tender, very representative of the region, I had a bit- he loved it. I went with salmon and pineapple, mostly because it sounds like it shouldn’t work and I’ve been eating far too much meat recently (OK, pedants I know fish is meat, but you know what I mean. I’m looking mostly at you Conquering Lion of Sanchong!). Well, it was fantastic, really fragrant rice, unusual to see long grain rice here, and it is the first time I’ve seen raisins included in Taiwan. Somewhere along the way, we also got vegetarian hummus, high fives for that too. As I have vegetarian friends, I should try to eat more veg options when I go out, so this one is for you. Go there eat hummus and enjoy.

We weren’t quite full yet, so after hearing about recent travels and general “why 2020 has been a train wreck” type conversation, we went with baklawa. There were three pieces on the plate and… man alive- I’m going back again anyway- but I’d go just for that alone. As I may have said before when writing about Middle Eastern food and its sweetness, it can be full on. This was no exception and definitely one of the top desserts I’ve had this year, in this project or outside it. Wonderful stuff. As we were finishing that up, we were served “mystery dessert” because I didn’t catch what the lady called it, also amazing. It was good enough in itself to be a main event, so a free dessert that was in no way an also-ran, no sane person can complain.

I really can’t praise this one any more than this. I want to, nay, must go back here, and I want all you Taiwan people to go so they don’t close down. Selfish I know, but then again you’d probably agree if you went.

In my head I now have a pretty good food tour sorted out if any of my Islamic friends back in the old country want to visit. You will not be disappointed, this is not something I could have said ten maybe even five years ago.

As we went our separate ways, CP indicated he hadn’t been to Gongguan for a while he went off on, if his Facebook page is to be believed, another adventure around town and I mooched off to Xindian, to finish up the real business of the day: cleaning the fridge, writing this and preparing to fight young people who will kick my head in at wing chun class. Not a bad life.

Menu:

Lamb kabsa 360NT

Salmon with pineapple 300NT

Vegetarian hummus 190NT

Baklawa 100 NT (?)

Plus 30NT for soup and drink

It came to 1010NT- but because they are super nice it cost only 1000NT

Address: Section 3, Xinsheng South Road, Daan District Taipei City 106 (opposite NTU campus- next to Eslite bookstore)

So what country is next? If I can get this project out of mothballs, I will let you know as soon as I can. It is as fun as it looks.

Vietnamese Food- Pho 168 越南河粉

Unfortunately for us all, this could be my last blog entry for a while due to the fact that I’ve run out of money and a job I was supposed to be starting moved the start date until February which has left me in a difficult financial position. I’m currently trying sort that out as writing this blather is something that keeps me slightly sane. I’m at about number 31/32 from memory and I know I can get to 52, but maybe not in the year’s timeframe I originally set myself. Bit of a bummer, but hey- there are worse things going on in the world.

My original plan to cover Vietnamese food was to visit Minh Ky Vietnam Cuisine over in Xizhi as it is considered THE best place for it, but that would require a special journey and as Vietnamese food is everywhere now, and I ate it last night next to the missus’ office, I figured I would include that meal here before what I hope is a brief intermission. My original aim also wasn’t to always find the best, but more to find what is out there, so I’m not actually breaking my own rules.

There has been a definite marked increase in Vietnamese food in Taiwan in the last few years, as always some good, some bad. I have been visiting Madame Jill’s in Gongguan for many years (in fact, I went there with The Other Stew a few weeks back but didn’t include it here), always enjoyed it. I discovered that pho had become a thing in the US with the yoga pants wearing food fad set and didn’t know I’d been eating it long before it became fashionable. As you can tell: I don’t follow fashion honey, I start it.

Or something.

So yeah, the weekly ritual of Friday evenings, I finish one of my only classes I have right now at the university and then walk over to the kindergarten to pick up Preschooler, and then wait about 20minutes for Mrs. Bao to come downstairs from her ivory tower so we can go to eat. Unusually this week, we ate close by as we were all hungry and couldn’t be bothered with the wait to get back to Xindian. She was in the mood for something a bit sour and she remembered a Vietnamese place in one of the alleys in the labyrinth of alleys and side streets near Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.

Pho 168 越南河粉 is a small, friendly neighbourhood kind of place, white walls, functional with the odd bit of Vietnamese stuff on the walls. As you should have noticed by now I am no expert, so I decided to compare something I’ve enjoyed in other Vietnamese places (such as the aforementioned Madame Jill’s) to one they served here Banh mi cari or curry chicken with French bread. The wife split her pho ga (chicken pho) with Preschooler. This curry was definitely different to the ones I’ve had before, more coconutty and with peanuts. I’m not always a big fan of peanuts and hadn’t been aware that they would be there as I’d never experienced them in this dish elsewhere, but I like it a lot and for 110NT, bargain. They also weren’t stingy on the baguette which was pretty big itself. I’ve been fascinated by the French influence on their food ever since I discovered it, but I’ve been too lazy to read up on it.

You could probably sail to another country in that

I didn’t get to try the pho, but I was reliably informed by her indoors that yep, it was good. If you can’t trust your spouse’s opinion then who can you trust?

Pho ga, a bit out of focus becuase daughter tugging my arm (again!)

Well we will certainly be back because of proximity to wife’s office and kindergarten, price and food is good enough. It isn’t the Ritz, but it doesn’t have to be or even pretend to be.

Now I just have to find the bloody place again…

Menu:

No English unfortunately, but the hip set can read “pho” so that is ok.

Address: No. 3弄1號, Lane 108, Section 1, Nanchang Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100

Best way to get there: Probably Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall MRT Exit 2, and then Google Maps. I walked there from her office but I might as well have been wearing a blindfold or been severely drunk because I dunno how we got there. So, many alleys…

So there we are, sadly I have to leave it there for a bit. Let’s hope I’m back sooner rather than later or I get handed a briefcase full of money from a mysterious benefactor in the next few days. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for being around for part one, it means a lot!

(intro photo taken from Pho 168 website)

British Food-fish and chips at Churchillls

I was going to save food from Blighty until near the end of this experiment, thinking it would be best to use Christmas as an excuse to have traditional food from round my way, but then I figured, well Churchills (the sausage and pie people) have opened up a thing in the Xindian Carrefour, it’s cheap and I’m feeling oddly nostalgic. So why not?

OK, background. I know for many people, and it is usually people who have never been, think of British food as some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare, and while it is true there is terrible food in the UK, there is bad food everywhere. I’ve had Taiwanese people tell me that all they could find on a trip to London was McDonalds, which if I had said the reverse they would have been horrified. The first time I took Mrs. Bao back to the UK, a friend of hers (who had never been) had warned her that UK food was terrible and she actually packed instant dried noodles just in case she starved. She was having none of it that the food was good and that you could get anything. We saw the same noodles for sale in Chinatown- and other flavors not available in Taiwan. 10 points to me.

Though I’m not a Londoner, I urge any visitor to the capital to go to Borough Market, and although it is pretty touristy, go there and then come back and tell me that you think all British food is crap. I know you’ll find something there that will tickle your fancy.

My daughter would like to let it be known that her favourite sausages are the ones with red white bits and the blue triangles.

I’ll be honest, fish and chips was never really a thing in my life when I still lived over there. I definitely had it, but was actually relatively expensive and a bit of a rarity in the towns and cities, you were more likely to find curry and or fried chicken. I recall going into a chip shop near my cousin’s house in Stretford (yes, with an “e”, it is a part of Manchester) and asking for fish and chips and the guy behind the counter told me they only sold pies, I gave him the stink eye and left. To this day, I still don’t know if he was taking the piss.

Speaking of expense, a thing you’ll find with a lot of British folk is that they are not very well traveled within the UK as domestic travel is expensive. It is/was actually possible to go to Spain more cheaply than it is/was to visit somewhere closer to home ( I have to use “is and was” here due to the coming apocalypse of leaving the EU) . The weather is better too, so why would you stay home? People expect that you’ve been everywhere, eaten everything and all that, but it just ain’t true. We are much more likely to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of Indian food. Everyone’s best mate (including yours even though you might not have met him) Stueycool over in Edinburgh, who used to live here in Taipei, is older than me and last time I’d checked he has never been to London, but has been to many many other places.

Oh where was I? Oh yeah. Fish and chips.

Dining with me today was just Preschooler Bao. Mrs. Bao was tired as this weekend is the weekend where her company does its annual charity thing where they bring a bus load of kids from a Taidong orphanage up to the Big Smoke to have fun, see the sights and so on. A few years back, I tagged along and the kids loved me, so I started going every year. Some of these kids have had really tough lives so far- and I find it a genuine privilege to get to hang out with them. They are adorable and, over the years there have been several I’ve wanted to bring home to stay with us. Today however, I opted to stay home with the bairn. Tomorrow is ice skating and I hope to put in an appearance.

Being only four years old, and over here, I haven’t really had chance to give Preschooler much UK “kulcha”. She is too young to take the piss effectively, and she’ll never need to understand the nuances of the class system- so I have to find some other ways for her to learn her other 50%.

And after 720 words or so, I come back to food I have eaten.

As they didn’t have fish and chips ready when I went there, they said it would be 20minutes or so, as it is not something I have been hankering particularly I could wait. In the meantime I got a sausage roll and a drink of Fanta. Yep, perfectly done- I was instantly transported back to pub gardens, gossiping old nans and school dinners. I’ll have that again. Preschooler was only interested in the Fanta though- damn you multinational branding!

fish, chips and vinegar, not pictured is the tartare sauce

Then on to the main event, fish and chips with vinegar, tartare sauce and mushy peas. It was never going to be fine dining (fish and chips is said to have been invented by Jewish immigrants who used the fact that fish isn’t considered meat or dairy in Jewish law and can be easily eaten as leftovers on Saturdays), but I don’t care. It is comfort food that I have never been a particular fan of, and then suddenly it felt like I had just found a missing limb. It was great, perfect size, uneven sized chips, and right amount of sauce, nice to taste vinegar again. It got the thumbs up from the younger one too- though like her dad she will never be a fan of “the green”. I’m in my forties and I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy mushy peas. Does this mean I have to hand in my British man card? I already don’t like football or drink booze.

mushy peas, an acquired taste, which I still haven’t acquired.

We left Carrefour more than satisfied, and I’ll be back for sure if not for the fish and chips but also for the pies and sausages. Totally bang up job. All I have to do now is convert the missus…

Fish & Chips 289NT

Sausage roll – I forgot, I just ate

Address:It is in the Xindian Carrefour No. 1號, Section 3, Zhongxing Road, Xindian District, New Taipei City, 231

Closest MRT is Qizhang, but to find Churchills, they are actually in the supermarket part of the building on the 3^rd floor in the corner near the bakery section.

Russian Food- Russian Castle

I can understand that Russian food is a bit of a hard sell for people. Really, I get it. I’d say some would have images of standing in line waiting to be served by a hooded, wizened old crone wearing finger-less gloves ladling out you some colourless slop. After you receive your slop, you and your rag tag companions find your places around the trash can bonfire, and wait out another cold, cold night.

Today I was joined by Lady Whirlwind. Lady W had been a student of mine some time ago, and on seeing I was doing my blog she asked if she could come along. She lives in Hsinchu which is a city about an hour and a half away from Taipei, so it makes me feel warm and lovely that she would come on one of my adventures. We had originally agreed to do this early on in the year, but family obligations ( Lady W’s husband is Hakka which means the Chinese calendar stuff they follow is slightly different to the rest of Taiwan), the virus (what else?) and various other switcheroos meant we kept postponing until now.

I have yet to meet Lord W, and was keen to, however he had stayed at home. I’d heard about their wedding preparations a year earlier; honeymoon etc. when Lady W was skiving off work and pretending, on the boss’s dime, that she needed English class for two hours a week. An accomplished cellist and bit of a foodie herself, Lady W also has many bizarre stories by way of her father who at one time worked as a doctor in the Taiwanese countryside. Some of the folk remedies and craziness he has seen would make your brain hurt and stomach roll, and it all happened within her lifetime.

Anyway, we went to Russian Castle at lunchtime. I would normally have had wing chun class a day earlier and look suitably battered and bruised, doing nothing to dispel the myth that I look like a Russian gangster as I entered a Russian restaurant. This time however, all I have is a scraped knuckle, from Wednesday. I woke up late yesterday, and had to take care of sick wife and Preschooler Bao who is in the “why?” question phase. Wednesday’s class witnessed a truly horrific injury in that “Rex” didn’t tighten his fist enough when punching the sand bag. He hit it so hard, that he bent his little finger outward, some really nasty dislocation action there. He will apparently be out for a few months.

So I wandered in slightly wide eyed, greying hair I haven’t shaved off for a while and that scraped knuckle. She of course, looked the picture of health. Damn you youthful vigor!

Our venue today serves as both a delicatessen of sorts and a restaurant. There were the now obligatory TV in the corner playing music of that country’s music/dancing as well as antiquey things on the walls and what looked like Russian national dress costumes that maybe customers could wear. I dunno.

The menu deals only in set meals, where you get salad, borscht, a choice from ten mains, a similar number of desserts and a drink. All for 399NT- which is a pretty good deal on the face of it.

Of all the things your mother warns you about, like not talking to strangers, not dissing Russian salad is probably not part of many peoples’ upbringing. I was conscious of this as we waited for it to arrive.

The words “They’re very proud of their salad” echoed in my ears as the emotionless Russian waitress put it on our tables. I have to admit it wasn’t as bad as I had feared; it was certainly colourful with beetroot, carrots, and onions and tasted a bit smoky, and as salads go it was unusual. It wasn’t “enjoyed” neither was it “endured”. I finished mine, however my sparkling wit meant Lady W didn’t eat all of hers. Today’s best in show was undoubtedly the borscht. The beef was tender, the soup was warming. There just wasn’t enough of it. I could probably eaten/drunk a whole vat of that stuff, if it was on the menu proper. Lady W particularly liked the sour cream in the borscht.

For the mains we went for chicken dishes, and I feel we both came away feeling a little cheated. The plate itself was big enough, with rice, pickles, chilies and cabbage but the chicken parts were mostly wing or bone so not enough meat. For the record, she had sour cream chicken and had expected more creaminess, and I had baked chicken with apple, both interesting but not memorable.

Next up was dessert; I went for olate (sour cream filled pancakes) which I enjoyed. Something in the batter works very well with the sour creamy/yoghurt stuff; there were only three on the plate but they were satisfying. Lady W though went for kefir with brown sugar, which we guess was natural yoghurt with brown sugar. Of all the different things I’ve eaten this year- this one is the closest to the negative stereotype I mentioned at the beginning. Adding the brown sugar changed the texture and made it weird. This reminds me of the time when as a student (and thus, poor) I bought a three litre bottle of coke and by mistake I had picked up the then new Vanilla coke. We brought it home and found out our mistake too late. We drank it and it was disgusting, but being impoverished students we couldn’t justify throwing away a three litre of bottle of coke. So it hung around in the fridge for months while we passed it off to guests with a hearty “Have you tried vanilla coke yet? What, no? Well good sir or madam now is your chance!” and after they spat it out, it went down incrementally until we could eventually get rid of it.

kefir and tissue paper. I would probably have liked the tissue paper more

That would happen in my house again if I bought kefir.

For drinks we had coffee, a drink I believe you have tried before and in my case Siberian milk tea which reminded me more of Indian tea. Nice stuff, but not a go to.

I saw another menu of different pancakes, which I’d be sure to try if I went again, but it will be a while before I do so many more things to go back to.

The conversation was good and the atmosphere was fun and despite what I write here I did enjoy myself, Lady W is really good fun to be around, despite the fact it looked like I was a divorced father out with his wee daughter on a Sunday. A fun time to be sure with not an old crone in sight.

Menu:

Address: No. 14號, Lane 333, Section 3, Roosevelt Road, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106

Indonesian Food- Sate House

Indonesia, or more specifically Bali, was the first destination I took Mrs. Bao to on holiday a ridiculous amount of years ago when we were only boyfriend and girlfriend. A memory I’ll never forget as we somehow convinced our hotel on the first few days in Kuta, and our villa people in Ubud, that we were newlyweds and thus got the newlywed treatment. A truly beautiful place, and I’ve dreamed of going back ever since. I also feel I have unfinished business there because we weren’t able to eat the famous Bebek Bengil restaurant’s Balinese smoked duck as you have to reserve 24 hours in advance, and we forgot to call them. Looking at their website now, it seems there are three special order items. Well, one day while these bones are still young. One day.

I’ve wanted to visit Sate House for quite a while now, after I read an article in The News Lens about the best places to eat food in Taipei in relation to some of the government’s hit list in the Southbound Policy. The Southbound Policy was devised (among other things) as a way to bring tourists to Taiwan to make up for the shortfall in visitors after China banned its citizens from visiting the island. Many hotels had set up their business around Chinese visitors and put all their eggs into one basket, when the visitors disappeared, it hurt a lot of businesses badly. Many people feel that the hoteliers and restaurateurs only have themselves to blame, but that dear reader, is another discussion for another time.

Sate House is widely known around Taipei and my students from Indonesia recommended it, having come to Taipei from outside the city especially for it. There is a sort of “Little Indonesia” around Taipei Main Station, which they said was OK, but not as good. They actually said the best stuff is found in the back end of Taoyuan (a city close to Taipei) which is populated by foreign workers, but they weren’t specific. Plus, I can’t be bothered to trek out into deepest darkest Taoyuan.

managed to keep the birthday party to my right out of the photo.

It has been a very rough week for me, and I have had more than enough rough weeks recently. I apologize if my posting times have become erratic but that is due to events outside my control in my “professional” life and the looming twin figures of depression and anxiety who are always waiting for me around the corner. I write this stuff for therapy as much as anything and it is useful for keeping me social.

For that reason I brought with me today one half of Xindian’s power couple Donnie Lonnegan and Lonnie Donnegan. I’ve known Donnie over 10 years and he has become one of my closest friends. Quite by chance, Lonnie used to work with Mrs. Bao when she used to work on the radio; Lonnie still read the news up until quite recently. They have been planning to marry since Taiwan allowed gay marriage, but the virus and a few snafus in Donnie’s native South Africa have made the date slide. When it finally happens, it will be the first gay wedding I attend (mostly because gay marriage was legalized way after my time in the UK, and over here none of the gay peeps I know have done it yet). They promise it won’t be an American gay wedding where everybody is dressed up nice and release doves from their roof. More likely we will be drinking bad moonshine from paper bags on deckchairs wearing flip flops, because that’s the way we roll baby!

Anyway, they are both cat lovers, know far too much about what’s good on TV and are ridiculously kind people. Lonnie took up cooking as a hobby a few years back and has been widening his repertoire over the last year. I had figured going here would give him some inspiration; Donnie on the other hand, looks forward to getting out no matter what. It seemed this time we would have to report back to Lonnie as something had come up.

When Donnie had realized we were going to be dining at Sate House, he mentioned it to a current private student who quite coincidently had visited the place regularly with her colleagues, one of which was Indonesian/Taiwanese. He arrived characteristically late, by taxi naturally.

The place is over two floors,though we were eating on the 1^st floor (ground floor for stupid British conventions) so I didn’t venture to the basement .. Some interesting décor, and a lot of fuss made about ships for some reason. We happened to be there while a birthday event was happening so it was a little louder than it usually is, but was otherwise fine.

First on the menu was gado gado, which was recommended to me earlier in the day by ginger Australian Mr. Images as a dish where you can’t go wrong. It’s a salad dish which was served with a peanut sauce and prawn crackers. I’d say it wasn’t the most appealing looking thing I’ve seen, but it was not too bad. Donnie didn’t care for it though.

Next up was rendang sapi which is advertised on the menu as beef having been marinated in Indonesian spices for 24 hours. I’d been expecting it to be more fruity/herby but it was spicy as heck. It was like if you got in an elevator and pressed up and you went down- your mind just isn’t ready for it. It was damn good though. In fact, everything we ordered ended up being pretty spicy so I made good friends with the toilet when I arrived home.

Rendang Sapi- yes, I know what it looks like.

We ordered Balinese chicken, also visually unappealing, and spicy as hell, As I have mentioned before, spice is generally not my thing unless it is a flavor thing rather than cock-waving bravado. This stayed on the right side of taste vs. bravado.

The highlight was probably the beef sate komo which was skewered beef, very tender and moreish. There were only five, and I could have put away a few more, but hey, money. Going again, I’d probably get two orders that and go for some of the other things on the menu.

Finally we came to exotic drinks and we both went for es rambutan. Rambutan is one of those fruits you’ve heard of but never actually had. They are something like a super sweet lychee, I liked the liquid part of the drink (you’ll see what I mean in the photo) but the fruit pieces were a bit much. It was a definite no-no from Dono. Well you can’t win them all.

It has a very big reputation, I’ve heard that Indonesian government bring high ranking officials there when on foreign business because it is THE best, so I’d have to try some of the other things before I could understand that it is the best example in Taipei. Their menu is also halal which is obviously a boon for many people. So it was good, and I’d go back but- more experience needed I feel.

After this and me receiving a bombshell of an email, we retired to a Turkish coffee shop as Donnie had said it was something of an ambition of his to try proper Turkish coffee. I replied “well, I know a place…”

Gado Gado 180 NT

Beef Sate Komo 240 NT

Balinese Chicken 320 NT

Rendang Sapi 240 NT

Yellow Rice 25 NT

Es Rambutan 80NT

Address: 15 Le Li Street, Da’an District

Best way to get there: It is very close to Carnegies on AnHe Road, so 235 bus from Liren International Elementary school and walk maybe five minutes.

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City living man, it can bring you down.

Anyway, I’ve included a few pictures of Wulai itself to show just how beautiful the place is, it certainly helped us and as I say every time I go there “I should come here more often”.

It was a bit of an off the cuff visit, so we didn’t go in to the restaurant particularly hungry and were going to wait til we got back into town, as Mrs. Bao was a bit hungry we went for a simple meal here.

After visiting a juice stall for pure orange juice, we went to the bus stop to take us back to “civilization” and our real lives. The pause and the food were very much welcomed and this will be a memorable visit.

Menu:

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