Pin It
After a late one last night, it was not surprising that we would get a slow start this morning. We reluctantly bid the hotel bed goodbye and checked out just before our early lunch, and thankfully Shan-Shin (膳馨創作料理) is within walking distance from the hotel, on the other side of the National Museum of Fine Arts.
I thought things would be easy at a restaurant serving up Taiwanese cuisine since we could order à la carte, but that just meant I would inevitably over-order…
Preserved radish cracker (菜脯餅) – our welcome snack was nice but the seasoning powder definitely packed lots of MSG…
Stir-fried egg with mixed chili (椒香催淚蛋) – with a Chinese name like that, one naturally expects the chili to deliver so much heat that it induces tears just like tear gas. But… no. Not really spicy, even for a wimp like me. The fragrance of chili peppers are there but there’s very little heat.
Pin It
The real reason for dragging the Parental Units to Taichung is dinner at JL Studio. Jimmy Lim (林恬耀) is, of course, now a familiar name on the food scene in Asia - having climbed the ranks of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants and also bagging himself 2 macarons along the way. I was first introduced to him a few years ago in Macau, but as his playground is not in my hometown, it was never convenient for me to go check it out. Well... I'm in Taiwan for a whole 3 weeks this time around, so I figured I could plan a trip. Since Little Rabbit is a regular customer, I asked her to join our little gathering.
The young side of our table took the alcoholic beverage pairing while the old fogeys took it easy. But first, Jimmy very kindly offered us an extra bottle of Champagne so the Champagne Monster could start the meal with a smile on her face... and the old fogeys got to drink it, too!
2012 Huré Frères Instantanée, dégorgée le novembre 2019 - pretty lean on the palate, since it is, after all, extra brut.
Taste of home: Kueh pie tie - in a variation on the classic, we have botan shrimp (牡丹海老), cuttlefish, and shredded carrot and radish... toppped with a ton of herbs like chervil and flowers like chrysanthemum. The dried shrimp flavors were pretty strong.
Taste of home: Rose kueh - the achappam came in a savory variety with green soy beans and pea shoots - the latter delivering very green flavors along with coriander seeds in the sweet pea cream on the deep-fried dough.
Pin It
We're taking the Parental Units on a short hop to Taichung for the weekend. I'm kinda surprised that mom hasn't been here since that concert back in 2008 - and they didn't even stay over - so this would be a nice change of scenery for her.
The train ride on Taiwan High Speed Rail was smooth and uneventful. After a 20-minute ride in a taxi, we arrived at The Place Taichung (台中大毅老爺行旅). It was much too early to check-in, so we left our bags with the hotel and went for a stroll. It would be nice to do a short walk on the grounds of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館) across the street.
I chose Caffè Firenze for lunch because, in addition to its proximity to the museum, it was the one place among many recommended to me by a friend that was least likely to cause issues with mom's palate. An added benefit, as it turns out, was that we were the only customers for lunch today - a definite plus when one is spending time with one of the top two cities currently with the biggest Covid case counts...
I ordered a selection of antipasti, primi piatti, and secondi piatti. Imagine my surprise when one of the primi piatti showed up first, before any antipasti. I questioned our waitress, and the answer I got was that since the veggies were still being grilled, the pasta naturally arrived first. HUH?!
Handmade king prawns and Burrata ravioli - the only handmade pasta on the menu. Yes, the dough was kinda al dente, and the presentation was kinda pretty, but both mom and Sankala complained that the prawns in the filling weren't fresh. Maybe due to poor business, the prawns had been frozen for too long.
Pin It
I've never had the urge to follow in the footsteps of others to do these year-end "best of" lists, neither for restaurants, meals, nor dishes. Heck, I haven't even done a "top 10" list of my favorite restaurants since the middle of 2009. But as 2016 drew to a close, and similar lists from friends and others started popping up, I started to wonder what a "best dishes" list would look like for me.
Well, the last week of 2016 wasn't a particularly busy one in the office, so I started browsing through all my posts during the year to try to narrow down to a "reasonable" list. I knew it would take a lot of effort to narrow down to just 10 or even 15 dishes, and at the same time leave out a number of memorable experiences, so I decided not to restrict myself to an arbitrary number like that. Instead, I'd take a hard look and pick out the ones that had the most emotional impact and gave me the most pleasure - not necessarily only the most "fine dining" or "high end" dishes. Many of these dishes are ones that I'd be happy to eat an enormous quantities of... or ones that I'd be happy to eat day after day.
The following list isn't ranked, and are listed simply by chronological order.
Sliced whelk in consommé (清湯螺片) from Howard's Gourmet (好酒好蔡), Hong Kong - I've never been a fan of whelk, as I could never appreciate this ingredient enough to justify paying the price commanded. This dish changed how I look at whelk, and was the single most elegant whelk dish I have ever had.
Pin It
So... after a quiet dinner at home with the Parental Units on my Gregorian calendar birthday, I would go out for a celebratory birthday dinner of sorts on my lunar calendar birthday - which happened to fall on the very next day this year. For this occasion, I would be joined by a couple of special guests...
According to the Great One, it has probably been more than a decade since she stepped foot in Taiwan - outside of Taoyuan International Airport, that is. She had been asking me to take her around Taiwan for a few years, and she's finally decided to grace my homeland with her presence. Since she's flying into Taoyuan anyway, we decided to start her tour in Taichung with a meal at the highest-ranked restaurant from Taiwan on the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list - Le Moût.
It's been almost 5 years since my first and only visit to the restaurant, and I found it a little wanting back then. HaoKouFu told me that she thought the cuisine has improved over the last few years, so I was looking forward to checking it out...
Pin It
The reputation of Le Moût, a fine dining French restaurant in Taichung, is well-known to foodies in Taiwan. It has been held up like a shining star for almost as long as it's been open. I have heard about it for quite some time, but never found the opportunity to visit due to the location... and it didn't seem to make sense to make detours in the past during my short stays in Taipei.
Things have changed recently, of course, and when my friend J kindly invited me to join him - on a rare occasion when he is back in Taiwan - I didn't hesitate to say "yes". I booked my ticket on the Taiwan High Speed Rail, found myself a room in a hotel, and off I went.
Pin It
I was walking around Taichung today and looking for a place to lunch around the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, when I came upon Gulu Gulu (咕嚕咕嚕), a cute little joint with whacky decor. It turns out to be a theme restaurant focused on Taiwanese Aborigine culture, and I stayed to check it out.
The specialty of the restaurant was roast meats, and after some introduction by a waitress, I chose roasted mountain dove (山鳩). There was a simple salad and a vegetable/seafood soup that wasn't bad. Then the roasted bird came. It was smaller than a pigeon, and had been roasted outside using charcoal to perfection. Basically, it's a healthier (less fatty) version of the pigeon. Crispy on the outside, and still tender and slightly moist on the inside. I relish the moment by crunching on the tiny wings of the bird. This was pretty good!
There was traditional aborigine music playing from a CD. The restaurant also seems to have live music in the evening. The interior is decorated with tons of aborigine paraphernalia, and they really try to promote the culture. A pretty interesting place.
At NT$ 330 including service for the set lunch, I got a glass of mixed fruit and veggie juice, a salad, the soup, the main course with loads of veggies and a bit of rice, a plate of ripe pineapple slices and ice tea. That's a real bargain considering the quality of the food. I'll try to come again the next time I'm in town!
Pin It
Yesterday I travelled to Taichung to attend Andrea Bocelli Live in Taichung. This was one of three stops on the tenor’s Asian tour, and the only one in the Greater China region. After a negotiation process reported to have been as long as two years, Bocelli finally agreed to make his first trip to Taiwan. Kudos to Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) for the achievement.
It was a star-studded evening of sorts, where lots of local celebrities and politicos made the pilgrimage to the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. President-elect Ying-jeou Ma and wife entered the stadium to a round of applause, accompanied by Jason Hu and other KMT heavyweights.
I was lucky to have secured seats on the floor, 4 rows behind the VIP section and directly behind the sound engineers. In terms of acoustics I don’t think I could have done better. However we did sit behind a couple of camera scaffolds, so we didn’t have a good view of Bocelli and the conductor. But never mind, in a venue like this there is no choice but to look at the screens – you are just too far away from the performers.
The night was perfect for an outdoor concert, although the acoustics of an open-air stadium left a bit too much echo for my liking. The conductor, Marcello Rota, took his position and started the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra on the first piece. The first few notes sounded, and it was…the National Anthem...?! This took us by surprise and we slowly rose to our feet. It has been 8 years since the National Anthem was heard at events like this, and it was an emotional moment for KMT supporters inside the stadium. My parents and uncle were certainly ecstatic, as this was but another reminder that the days of DPP running the country were coming to an end.
The first half of the program focused on Italian opera, with solos and duets in turn by Bocelli, soprano Maria Luigia Borsi and baritone Gianfranco Montresor as well as performance by the Taipei Philharmonic Chorus. Quite frankly I was a bit disappointed in this part of the performance. Borsi gave a terrible performance of O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi, and I felt Bocelli’s performance during Brindisi from La Traviata was a little off in terms of tempo. His rendition of E lucevan le stelle from Tosca was interesting, showing the softer side of the character rather than continuing to hit the high notes with full force like Pavarotti. Or did he simply not have what it took to hit those notes with power?
The second half of the program was a bit more modern, including Italian classics such as O sole mio, which Bocelli sung with Borsi. I always felt that the real magic of Andrea Bocelli was his delivery of modern classics, and not his operatic work. The highlight came during the last song of the regular program, when Heather Headley sang a duet of Canto della terra. This was a great show of Bocelli’s powerful vocals at its best, coupled with the angelic voice of Headley. She was way, way better than Borsi in my opinion. The song itself, composed by the same team behind Con te partiro, is another masterpiece.
There were five encore performances, including The Prayer, another duet with the wonderful Heather Headley. I just couldn't get enough of Heather, and I wished she had a bigger role in the concert. The third encore was his international hit Con Te Partiro, which, fittingly, is usually his last encore song to close out the concerts. Here he invited Borsi on stage, but she only played backup and did not have a duet role like the original version with Sarah Brightman.
Bocelli finally closed the event with Nessun Dorma from Turandot. Now, EVERYONE knows this song, so this brought the crowd to their feet. Everyone left the concert with a feeling of elation after these two crowd favorites.
I was still a little disappointed, as I had hoped the concert would be more contemporary. But Bocelli's voice has no doubt wowed everyone, and I'm happy I was here.
