The best dishes I had in 2023

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Another year of eating pretty well, now that we've been released from the shackles of the pandemic and resumed travel around the world. Revenge travel, it is called, and I've made no less than 6 trips to Taiwan just to see the Parental Units. Of course, there were other trips, too... and I finally made it outside of Asia towards the end of the year.

Once again I have compiled a list of dishes I've enjoyed during the year which drew the most emotional reactions from me. I've had many, many delicious dishes over hundreds of meals, and as always it is no easy task to pare the list down to a manageable number. The dishes were tasted in Hong Kong unless otherwise indicated.

Golden roast pigs from New Territories Farms (新界農場大金豬), from Red Seasons Aroma Restaurant (季季紅風味餐廳) - it had been four years since I was last able to taste this roast pork... where the pigs were roasted in underground ovens and the very crunchy crackling come with that beautiful smoky flavor. Just so, so happy to be able to enjoy this with friends again.

Last dance for Steve

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I got pinged by Giona a couple of weeks ago, asking if we were interested in joining dinner at Hansik Goo tonight. Chef Steve Lee is leaving the restaurant for greener pastures, and tonight would be his last "regular" service. Foursheets and I haven't been back at the restaurant since receiving terrible service at our last meal, and I figured we could join the gang for another taste. The restaurant was right to put us in the big private room at the back, since we would be pretty loud.

The menu said "Steve's Last Dance", which is reminiscent of the documentary elBulliLastWaltz...

Dry aged in Taipei

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It's Christmas day and once again, the Parental Units are at my place for dinner. While we pandered to mom's tastes last night, tonight we are firming aiming to make dad happy. And that is easily achieved with a piece of good steak. On the advice of Big Mac, we went to Taylor Butchery (泰勒肉鋪) and picked up a nice, big piece of dry-aged côte de bœuf. And Foursheets built a nice dinner around this hunk of meat.

A 4kg Christmas

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It's been four years since I last spent Christmas with the Parental Units, and this time we decided to cook dinner for them. More specifically, Foursheets will be doing the cooking so that mom doesn't have to. We decided early on that the main theme for Christmas Eve would be an Alaskan king crab, and we spent some time doing our homework in terms of sourcing our crustacean. In the end, we ended up picking up a live one from Addiction Aquatic Development (上引水產).

The crab I chose weighed in at over 4kg, and while it had been out of the water for 9 hours by the time Foursheets stabbed its heart with a knife, it was still alive enough to wiggle its legs while we posed for pictures with it.

Good beef, meh broth

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Foursheets always wants to have beef noodle soup whenever she's in Taiwan, and tonight she's decided that she wouldn't hit her favorite Lin Dong Fang Beef Noodles (林東芳牛肉麵). Instead, we decided to return to Noodle Cuisine (天下三絕麵食館) as we liked the beef there.

Cold eggplant (千張茄子)

Beef chuck rib noodle soup (牛肩胛小排麵) - I've always liked this place for the amount of good quality beef they serve, and this bowl was no exception. Three delicious ribs. Tender and flavorful. The broth, though, was pretty middle-of-the-road. It's neither really rich and intense like what you'd get at Beef Father Beef Noodles (牛爸爸牛肉麵), nor light and herbal like Lin Dong Fang. It's a very decent bowl, but nothing more.

I guess we could do some more exploring to find other options in the future.