Dim Sum in Yonghe?

I often visit the Yonghe area because I have several friends that live there. However I always seem to come to the same dilemma. What is there to eat around here? There used to be a nice AYCE hot pot train restaurant next to the DingXi MRT station, but that has been replaced by a large stationary store and Thai Town. Besides thai food, cake shops and a few traditional fried rice/noodle places, there isn't much to offer. Until my girlfriend told me of a Dim Sum place very close to the station. She discovered it with some friends a few weeks back. It's called 大大茶樓. So made an afternoon of it and invited some friends over to join us. It's on the third floor of the building. Ironically, you need to use the elevator in the large stationary store I spoke about earlier. Note* Upon exiting, we discovered there is another private entrance next to the Starbucks. Anyways, upon entering the restaurant lobby, we were surprised by the design of the place. It was upscale and pretty. YongHe is sort of the ghetto of the Taipei area. It's not the cleanest or most well sorted part of Taipei. So it's a change to be in a relatively upscale restaurant in YongHe. My friend said she felt like she wasn't in YongHe anymore...and she lives in YongHe. The host (later we learned he was the general manager), greeted us and offered us seats and tea. All tables were full and we had to wait for about 10 minutes, so it seemed to be a popular place. After being seated we started ordering immediately. They push the food around on carts. I truly love this old style. It's slowly being fazed out as more and more Dim Sum restaurants are converting to ordering from a menu. But I love ordering my food seeing it. Not because there's a language barrier, but with food, a picture says a thousand words! Better yet when it's actually in front of you. Moving on to the food. The restaurant's selection seems to cover the most common of dim sum offerings that I'm used to. They are missing a few, but from what was available, it wasn't bad. They still stick a few Taiwanese menu items in there, but I won't devalue them for that. In the States, you'll still find egg rolls and fortune cookies on the menu at Dim Sum. It was a delightful experience and so far one of the best, if not the best, Dim Sum places i've been to in Taiwan. The price tag ended up being about $350 a person. Not too shabby. I wouldn't mind coming back here another fine weekend afternoon. Afterwards, a few of us headed over to the LeHua 樂華 night market (still partially open during the day) for some dessert at Yu's Almond Tofu. We tried something new. Their almond soft serve on a cone with almond crumbles. Deliciously awesome as usual. Highly recommended! And I end it here, so have a good weekend everyone!

大大茶樓
新北市永和區永和路二段116號5樓
02-6637-5959
10am-10pm
http://www.dadatea.com.tw

Home cookin': Quiche

keesh...correction Quiche. Kind of a weird word I can never remember to spell. Tonight, I cooked again for my dear friends at the YongHe flat for my appreciation for letting me hang out there so often. At the orders of my short and hyper, but extremely joyful good friend, I bakes some delicious quiche for everyone. She also helped out tremendously with her own recipe for the filling. I just brought the pie crust. The wonderfully flaky hand mixed pie crust. Baking is tough on the arms. It requires hours of mixing, stirring, pressing and kneading. I guess it's a great exercise too. My arms will be huge after a few more recipes, or at least my right arm! In the end, the Quiche came out perfect flaky golden brown with a healthy pepper, onion, potato and bacon filling. OK, I added the unhealthy bacon. But I love bacon! I enjoyed baking with my friends and we all enjoyed the great meal scarfing it all down. I wish i could send a piece over the internet, but alas until 4D is invented, enjoy the photo.

Home Cookin': Potatoes Au Gratin

For lunch, I ended up heading to the school to use their computer lab. While I was there, I happened to meet one of my old school mates. I'm always so happy to go back at MTC. For now, most of my friends from MTC are still there. It's a happy environment for me. Everyone's out and about, happy to learn Chinese, discussing in their own language about where to eat for lunch/dinner, plans for the weekend or trying to solve a Chinese problem they had in class. I even still see my old teachers walking the halls too. And it puts a smile on my face that they instantly still remember me. After my business with in the computer lab, we headed to MaryJane Pizza. If I recall, I reviewed this place before. I have definitely ate there before though. Well..it's still the same. Same thin artisan crust with the same unique toppings. I still miss my old fashioned Chicago deep dish style, but I'm definitely starting to see why the Taiwanese make it their way. It's a lighter fair and allows you to leave room for dessert or more street food. We had a group of 4 in total. Therefore we ordered two pizzas and that made for more sharing and more fun. As an added bonus, my friend found a coupon for a free cake dessert. Bonus points! Afterwards, I headed back with my friend to her home because I wanted to use her oven. It's a small portable one, but it works just fine. So I decided to cook a simple dinner to all the housemates to enjoy. Potatoes Au Gratin! Such a simple recipe. Slices potatoes, onions and a heavy cream/cheese sauce. Of course there's more ingredients than that, but you can google it and find hundreds of recipes online. But if you want my recipe, feel free to ask me. I also take special joy in introducing western cuisine to two of the Taiwanese housemates. Asian cuisine doesn't use as much potatoes and cheese and cream as French cuisine does. So it's a special treat for them, they were happy and returned their plates empty. I hope I have more opportunities to use their oven in the future to cook more oven-required cuisine.

MaryJane Pizza
No. 25, Lane 44, Tàishùn Street, Daan District
Taipei City, Taiwan 106

World Soy Milk King (世界豆漿大王)

World Dou Jiang (Soy Milk) King or so it says, directly translated. Yuki and I were in Yonghe（永和）during the afternoon looking for a good place to eat. But since we couldn't find anything that looked good, we decided to go to the ever famous 世界豆漿大王 (shi jie dou jiang da wang). They're famous for their soy milk if that wasn't obvious. Story has it that soy milk is not native to Taiwan, but it started in China. But during the wars between China, Japan and Taiwan, many immigrants immigrated into what is now Taipei's "New Taipei city" district. They brought along with them soy milk. And thats why most of the higher quality soy milk and famous soy milk restaurants were established in Yonghe. Particularly this establishment. Yuki has been meaning to go here, so we took advantage of this opportunity to try it out. We ordered two cups of cold soy milk, Xiaolong Bao, pot stickers and Xian Bing (餡餅). The soy milk tasted familiar, but I couldn't place where or when. Oh well. It was excellent! It has a different smokey and deep soy taste that other places doesn't have. Other places, like ones near me in Tianmu, are more sweet and artificial. The pot stickers were ok. The Xian Bing was good, but nothing to praise about. The Xiaolong Bao, surprisingly tasty! It's just about as good as Din Tai Fung! I was very surprised by this, I didn't except to find good xiaolong bao at a breakfast/dou jiang place. No lines and it's much cheaper than Din Tai Fung! MMMmmmmm soo good! I really need to have a return visit and see what other surprises they have stored up their sleeves. Afterwards, we took a long and confusing trip just to visit a eco-green Starbucks in Neihu. As confusing as the trip was, we got to explore and discover new things while walking. We discovered a Porsche mechanics shop. You know, in case I get a car in Taiwan, it has to be my favorite, Porsche. haha. And more on the dreaming, we discovered a kitchen ware store. A fairly large one with a lot of unique, imported and beautiful kitchen related plates, tools, pots and bbq grills. It was like a Taiwanese version of Williams-Sonoma. Both places were on Section 6, Minquan East road. Finally arriving at the eco-green coffee house, we got two cups of coffee and found a seat in a corner. I brought my laptop and worked on my resume. Although it was a pretty arduous to get to that Starbucks, it was nice to see Neihu. It was my first time, so I got to feel the vibe of this district. It's really more like Taizhong. Wide streets, modern buildings and much less automotive and foot traffic. It would be a nice place to live, if you had a car (Porsche ;)) and a garage. Distance to the MRT is far and the bus system is never simple. So personal transportation is a must there. Evidenced by the numerous dealerships we say from the window of the bus as we headed back home.

LEED Eco-green Starbucks (Neihu)
Southeast corner of Section 6, Minquan East Rd. and Section 6, Minquan East Rd. Lane 180
Neihu area, New Taipei district, Taiwan

世界豆漿大王 (World Soy Milk King)
台北縣永和市永和路二段284號
No. 284, Section 2, Yonghe Rd.
Yonghe district, New Taipei city, Taiwan

Hot Pot...on a train

After class, I was craving hot pot. Yuki knew of a famous "hot pot train" in DingXi (頂溪). It's just east of the DingXi MRT station, literally across the street. It's located on the second floor of the Sushi Express building. Apparently one single company owns all the restaurants there. They're more famous for their AYCE (all you can eat) places, but they have a la cart places too. The restaurant is clean and offers unlimited drinks, red bean tapioca soup(紅豆湯圓) and ice cream along with your meal. It's $300 for AYCE hot pot on a train. It's like sushi boat but with hot pot ingredients. Also disappointingly, it's not really a train. More like a flat moving walkway like you see at the airports. One minor thing I'd like to mention that I like, is the individual hot pots are built into the table, not placed on top of it. So there's a better view of what's simmering in your broth for the height challenged. They don't serve a lot of meat. Mostly vegetables and cheap filler ingredients. So grab more meat as it rolls on by. They have pork, beef and lamb, thinly cut and of mediocre quality. But still, I really liked my meal. And it's affordable. I think I need to start eating healthier, but I'll be my "go to" cheap hot pot place after school. I have a question. How do Taiwanese stay so thin when there's such an abundance of AYCE places for so cheap!? It's ridonkulous!