Ling

Yes,we were the table that ate for 3 hours straight. I loved the uni spaghetti with breadcrumbs best, though the pasta might have been too al dente for some. Great crudo list. They also have shigoku oysters if you're too lazy to get yourself down to the farmer's market.

I like the small rolls at Dahlia Bakery.

It was delicious and I am glad to have tried it, but I am not sure I would go and spend $100 to have it again. The pot of soup was equivalent to about five generous Chinese soup bowls full of soup, so that's $20 per bowl right there. It was similar in terms of richness and flavour to tonkotsu broth, and a bowl of tonkotsu doesn't cost $20. I know that's a roundabout way of describing how much I think that soup is "worth", but I hope you get my meaning.

Dammit, I forgot to get gnau lay so in HK! Delicious pics, keep 'em comin'!

The name of that dish is three-cups chicken (三杯雞) It's made by braising chicken in soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, sugar, ginger and/or garlic. Then adding basil near the end. ← Yes, san bei ji! We actually ate it yesterday too, at some mediocre Chinese restaurant in Seattle. prasantrin: I think our wedding may be featured in Seattle Bride (at least, the editor said that the magazine should profile it...we'll see if it happens. I hope so!) So you might get to see pictures of the food if you can get ahold of the magazine. If not, I'll send you a link to our wedding pictures through email or something later on in the year. We have a bunch of awesome Seattle chefs cooking for us. aprilmei: Oh, someone had asked me about wax apple, not custard apple... Thanks for letting me know the English name.

Don't quote me on this, but IIRC, I leaned over to take a closer look at those buns and they had dried dates (the red ones) pressed into them. Those are the dark spots you're seeing.

I was gently reminded by Rona that I had left some of you hanging in this thread so I'm back! Again, I apologize for the long delay. Here is our last home-cooked meal in Taiwan. Henry's mom made 5 spice beef and tea eggs. This is octopus stir-fried with what I remember to be Chinese celery. (I didn't touch the green--I hate celery, both Chinese and the regular kind.) prawns This is a fried pomfret fish. Henry's aunt splurged on this fish--apparently it cost about $40US for this one fish. It was delicious. Very fresh and the meat was firm and sweet. It was simply coated in rice flour and fried. I have no idea what this is, but judging by the way the dish was attacked, it must've been tasty. Henry's mom's egg pockets and Lion's Head meatballs. This is always one of my favourite dishes! So in the evening, Henry's sister really wanted to go to Din Tai Fung because she had not arrived in Taiwan yet when we went there a few nights ago. First, we went to the location in Sodo (on the bottom floor) and the lady said the wait was 1.5 hours. So we decided to walk to the other location, only to find out that it was closed for CNY that day! We trekked back to Sodo tired, wet (from the rain), and hungry, and the wait was now 2 HOURS for a table! I suggested that we put our names in and then go to another food court to have a snack before dinner. Here are some people pleating xiao long bao. Each of those little balls of dough will be rolled out for the wrapper. rice burger, anyone? I bought one of these taro sweet buns while waiting for my takoyaki balls. It was pretty good. I lined up for the takoyaki balls at the food court because it was the stall with the longest line. Henry insisted I just order six of them since we were going to share some of his food too (plus we had dinner coming) but I inhaled the first plate and had to get another one because he didn't get any. I probably had 9 of them total--they were large and absolutely deliciousy gooey in the middle, and covered with lovely dancing bonito and seaweed! takoyaki being made I guess we forgot to take a picture of Henry's food--I remember it being pork chop, egg, and noodles. He also got sorbet, which I didn't care for (too icy). By that time, we were pretty full and decided to order food from Din Tai Fung for take-out, which would save us from waiting another hour and a half in line. We got the red bean ones, the crab dumplings, the pork chop fried rice, and the pork dumplings. We ate that as a late night snack. For breakfast the next morning, we had a version of daikon cake without the sausage/dried shrimp. Gotta say I like the other version better. Henry's mom's friend made this. I put my hand on the package of shrimp to show you how large they are. The head alone on the biggest prawn was almost as big as my hand! The bodies were like small lobster tails. cooked prawns...I had two of these giants! Maybe my hosts were being polite but they insisted I have two since they had to watch their cholesterol... Remember the chicken soup from that famous place I posted about at the beginning of this thread? The chicken soup that starts from around $80US a pot? We got one delivered from Henry's mom's friend with bamboo fungus in it. I think this version is just over $100 a pot. It was very rich and thick--think tonkotsu broth but made with chicken and Chinese ham. It was almost like drinking gravy! Braised pressed bean curd and pork Quite possibly the most delicious fruit in the world! This is called "sika" (sp?). It's very soft and fragrant, kind of like mango. This brings us to the end of our trip in Taiwan. I may have double-posted some pictures since I didn't go back to check to see what I've already posted, but hope you enjoyed this thread nonetheless.

My pick would be Kenny and Zuke's--their pastrami Reuben is something I daydream about regularly. I heard consistency a bit of an issue at the beginning, but they've been open for months now and should have worked everything out. They hired a baker from Pearl Bakery to develop a hearty rye (with caraway) to stand up to the fat-streaked pastrami. I liked it a lot more than my pastrami on rye at Katz's. I would definitely visit Teardrop Lounge in the Pearl district for cocktails. They have an extensive selection of homemade bitters and make the best cocktails I've had outside of NY. I also really enjoyed Toro Bravo (tapas which are more based on what tastes good, than what's "authentic"--you must get the oxtail croquettes with the spicy mayo!) and Apizza Scholls, but they're not walkable distance. Definitely worth the trip though. At Cacao, I think I ate one of each from Oriol Balageur's line, and my favourite was the corn nut praline truffle. I do like the drinking chocolate as well. I also like the salted caramel chocolates from Sagahun. I didn't really care for Sel Gris.

It's been mentioned over on Mouthfulsfood.com Ali Scheff wrote about it here: Mistral to close at the end of this month I wrote about it here: Mistral chef William Belickis hashes over his future And Rebekah wrote a great article about it here: Mistral Sale: here's the good news

Oops, I am actually not finished with this thread! I have more pictures to post tonight, after I finish up some work. Sorry I left you guys hanging...

aprilmei: So glad you liked the beef brisket! We were going to order a second plate of that as well but we were already beginning to suffer from meat overload. Rona: Have a great time in HK! I expect pictures when you come back =) Shelby: it was my pleasure to share our trip! We wouldn't have found some of these places without EG. I will finish my Taiwan picture post tonight...I have been working like crazy and had no free time lately. (Well, actually I did have yesterday off work but I spent it shopping. )

I think H's aunt lives in the hills in Taipei but we didn't get to do much other than visit the night markets and go to Din Tai Fung. Almost every minute was planned out for us as this was more of a trip for me to meet some of H's family friends and relatives since we're getting married soon. And also, H's mom paid for our trip so I felt obligated to be around all the time. I will definitely come back soon and get to all the places I've missed, though!

That is SO true! That's right, my Americano at 85C was really cheap. Can't say I really liked it though...it was quite acidic. My first purchase in Taiwan was actually a Venti Americano from Starbucks, as I was so jet-lagged and couldn't sleep on the plane. I did my conversion AFTER I had already paid for the coffee and almost had a heart attack over how much I paid! I think it was $112 Taiwan dollars or something. aprilmei: You are making me feel like I totally missed out on the specialty items! No I didn't get to try the roe and I didn't get to have iron eggs! I saw the iron eggs in a snack shop and Henry said the idea of eggs packaged in a snack bag sounded gross. I didn't know these were called iron eggs at the time (I just googled it and recognized the image.)

Breakfast the next day were the tea eggs from 7-11 and some various pastries H's mom had around the house. Oh and we sometimes had H's sister's cookies, which were cream cheese, orange zest, chocolate chip ones. It was the only American food I ate on this trip. tea eggs from 7-11 Lunch at H's aunt's house slivered pork with pressed tofu and chilli there are lion's head meatballs under these egg pockets my favourite dish of the meal was the liver sausage, Hunan bacon dish. SUPER SPICY! the ubiquitous 10 veg dish for CNY smoked pomfret and chicken H's aunt: "I woke up at 4am in the morning to get this fish!" Apparently there's a huge line at the store for this smoked fish and people are out there by 5am!

I seem to have forgotten to photograph our lunch on the second day, and I don't remember where we ate. I think we ate at Henry's aunt's house. It was probably a 6 course lunch or something, because I remember I was really full and didn't eat an afternoon snack that day. After lunch, H and I escaped to Shimending, a shopping district for the young and hip. I got a few pairs of $12 US shoes there, and a $12 US sweater! Shimending This is awesome Engrish--"Athletics of Sexy"! Dinner that night was my H's family friend's house. The lady, Auntie King, is a fabulous cook. She taught us how to make black sesame siao bing before and they were delicious. cold meats platter (sorry for the blurry pic, the flash on my camera is broken) pressed tofu, tripe, smoked duck, Chinese sausage, jellyfish on the left is the 10 vegetable dish that's traditional for CNY bok choy, dried scallop fried pomfret homemade spring rolls her lion's head meatballs with the egg pockets filled with pork, and braised cabbage garlic chives, bacon, chilli she even made shark fin soup! 8 treasure rice with red bean inside, and sweetened beans (I think they're broad beans?) on top