western/dessert: i recommend MOM's PIES

MOM'S AMERICAN STYLE HOMEMADE PIES
75 Neihu Road, Section 2
Neihu District
(02) 8797-1716

Various delivery locations around Taipei
Mr. Hsu 0935-504-554
Ms. Wu 0922-091-113
Mr. Hsieh 0922-324-060
Mr. Huang 0931-311-215

website: imomi.com.tw Chinese and English (worked for me in Taipei, but not in LA)

hours: check website for hours/locations

$

Kid friendliness: some flavors might be too dense for kids, but what kid doesn't love pie?

Visit reviewed: 6/19/2009



Taipei is a city full of desserts- you can easily find cake-by-the-slice in every coffee shop or bakery; fruit topped shaved ice or scoops of ice cream for the summer days; colorful macarons and delicate napoleons, and now even frozen yogurt.

But pie?

Pie seems to be an elusive Bigfoot in the world of Taipei desserts. Look long enough, and you'll find it offered on the menu of a few American places like Jake's Country Cafe, ACC, or the Diner, or your best bet for pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving time- Costco, or randomly in the basement of Sogo at a little shop called Rose Pie.

When I was craving a slice of lemon meringue pie a few years ago, I started searching for pie places in Taipei, and started hearing about Mom's Pies. It sounded so mysterious. It was sold off a truck? Would it taste American style homemade like its name promised? Most importantly, was it good?

So when I was having lunch with a friend at Happy Korean and spotted a woman at the table next to us with a bag that said Mom's Pies, I quizzed her about where she got it. She said it was just right around the corner of the restaurant, on the sidewalk across the street from AIT, and kindly gave me her flier.



So my friend and I paid the bill, hurried outside and sure enough, a woman with a table full of pies was on the street corner. We'd found Bigfoot! I'd heard about it for so long, it was weird to finally see it in person. Although some people would think twice about buying a pie from the street, this made sense to me since Taipei is a city where you could buy practically anything from a street vendor, before LA was the city where you could buy almost anything off a truck.

But instead of a truck, Mom's Pies has been driving a van and selling it around different spots in town from Tuesday to Friday- the updated weekly schedule can be found on their website, though it is only in Chinese. You can also call for free delivery if you order more than 2 pies.



I spotted lots of flavors- pumpkin, chocolate, peach, cream cheese, cherry cream cheese, blueberry cream cheese, and chocolate cream cheese, and I know they have some more interesting flavors like red bean, taro, green tea cheesecake, purple yam and oatmeal (?!?!).

But still no lemon meringue. :(

The slice of pecan pie(NT$45) was full of large pecans and had a good sweet, sticky filling and the crust was flaky. A whole pie of the same flavor is NT$300 with 8 slices.



I've had their cheesecakes after finding them this day- coincidentally, someone gave a relative of mine a pie of different slices (NT$360) and their cheesecakes are dense and a bit heavy. They are so thick that you could pick up the whole thing by the slice and it would be a solid piece. The red bean and green bean flavors also kind of weirded me out (not really American homestyle), but I want to try the peach and apple in the future.

Where have you spotted Mom's Pies and did you give it a try? What's your favorite flavor?