chinese/dessert: i recommend HONOLULU CAFE

HONOLULU CAFE 檀島香港茶餐廳

at Xinyi Mitsukoshi A11, B1

No. 

松壽路11號B1 

( 02) 6613-1013

MRT: Taipei City Hall

website: Honolulu Cafe Taipei facebook page 

hours: 11AM–3PM, 5–10PM

Price: $$

Kid Friendliness: 

Visits reviewed: 

THE SATISFYING FLAKINESS OF 192 LAYERS of pastry and a jiggly, custard-like center. This is the egg tart that has lured me and all the other people to Honolulu Cafe's first Taipei shop. 

If you hadn't heard of Honolulu Cafe, the famed cha chaan teng from Hong Kong yet, then the trays of freshly baked egg tarts from the entrance's window and the line of people wrapped around the corner outside the building might pique your curiosity to wait in line too. The store introduces itself with well placed signage "Honolulu Cafe | Since 1940" at the entrance, and hand drawn posters diagramming its egg tarts features for newbies. 

Even though I had been a fan of Honolulu Cafe's egg tarts for years, even bringing boxes back to Taipei from Hong Kong, I didn't know there were 192 layers until I saw it on the poster. I just knew that the flaky crust was one of the best egg tarts I had eaten. So I was extremely excited to hear about the opening at Xinyi Mitsukoshi A11. 

Honolulu Cafe's menu is a dizzying array of choices, especially without English translations, but luckily the waiter drops off an iPad menu of glossy photos to browse and order. 

As we swipe through the menu, everyone excitedly agreed that each person will get their own egg tart, and everything else we can share family style, including a few pineapple buns with thick slabs of butter inside, another classic Hong Kong treat.

The pineapple bun is spongy and sweet with a crumbly crust. Those who love this dish devour it with the butter, those of us who can't just eat straight butter nibble around it. I would choose the egg tart over the pineapple bun, which is not as moist as the Taiwanese bolo pineapple bun or the cha siu version of it at Tim Ho Wan. 

And let's not forget, the drinks. Iced lemon tea, coffee brewed with sweetened milk tea, or iced coffee, something that I've never had at the original shop. 

To be honest, I've never actually eaten inside Honolulu Cafe in Hong Kong, I've only picked up takeaway of a half a dozen egg tarts from their shop's front counter outside the store every time. So stepping into their restaurant I'm surprised by the bright modern decor- there are several seating sections, all slightly different with booths, tables and outdoors. 

After we've ordered, a medley of Hong Kong classics arrived to fill our table and the ones around us- dim sum favorites like steamed shrimp chang fun, platters and noodle soups of roast bbq meat, and claypot tofu dishes. 

For a filling bite, I also enjoyed the Hong Kong style french toast, two slices sandwiching a layer of peanut butter and then drenched in maple syrup and a pat of butter. 

My favorites were the roast bbq pork, crispy pork and duck that come with four different dipping sauces, the deep fried soft shell crab, and the sausage claypot rice. And of course the egg tart. 

Try to eat the egg tarts as soon as it's served. It's best eaten hot, though of course don't burn your tongue. The crust is flaky which makes it messy to eat, and the filling is more custardy and soft than dense and sweet like bruleed Portuguese egg tarts, but that's what I love about it. If you prefer the shortbread crust and filling that doesn't wobble, this might not be the egg tart for you, but for me, I'm happy since I won't have to haul back boxes from Hong Kong anymore!!! 

korean/delivery: i strongly recommend CHEOGAJIP

CHEOGAJIP 起家雞
No. 26, Lane 290, GuangFu S. Road
台北市大安區光復南路290巷26號

(02) 2773-0737

MRT: SYS memorial Hall

hours: 11:30AM-10:30PM, Friday and Sat until 11PM

$$ (about NT$300 a person)

website: Cheogajip facebook page 

visit reviewed: 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU'VE JUST come back from a trip to Seoul and had a lot of glorious eating of everything BUT Korean fried chicken (韓國炸雞 )? If you're me, you call Cheogajip for a couple of boxes to go and then dig up photos from your visit last year to finally throw up this post. A few years ago, when Korean soaps started to invade Taipei, I started to see cups of korean fried popcorn chicken pop up on my instagram feed from Chicken in Bok and Beer, Chimac 175, and in real life, at the now closed Mom's Chicken, at ATT4Fun and even oven baked versions from Oven Maru. 

Cheogajip is a two story shop near the SYS Memorial Hall MRT, near the alleys that house Wendel's, Mazendo, Brookhurst Seafood Bar. Most of the seating is upstairs, and suitable for big groups. 

Cheogajip's menu offers over a dozen different types of Korean fried chicken. Sweet, spicy, boneless or whole chicken with bone, it can be difficult to narrow down the options if you have never tried it and only want to order one. If you can only choose one, I would go with the Boneless Spicy Yung Nyeom ($410) which is both sweet and spicy, with some honey to balance out the spiciness. Even if you get the regular Yung Nyeom it still has a tiny tinge of spiciness, so it just depends on your tolerance. If you have zero tolerance for heat, then you can opt for a Half Half box which has plain original fried chicken and your choice for the other half. Be warned though, there isn't much else on the menu besides fried chicken besides side dishes like salad, fries, spicy rice cake and rice with seaweed, so don't come expecting a fuller Korean menu.

For my first visit, I rounded up a group of friends who were excited to have some chicken and beer with me, so we were able to try a variety of flavors. Sticky, spicy, sweet, crispy, crunchy 🍗🍗. If you've never had Korean fried chicken before, Cheogajip is a great place to start. Just make sure to bring enough friends to share. Thank you to Cheogajip for hosting us that first time. 

Cheogajip has four main flavors that you can choose to be spicy or non spicy. Plain fried chicken original, their signature honey "yung nyeom", crispier soy sauce "warak", scallion fried chicken w a sweet sauce, and supreme with a drizzle of mayo. You can order a whole chicken (with bones), boneless or wings, and for the whole chicken you can choose 2 flavors. Sides include seaweed rice, salad, fries or beer. That's pretty much the menu. 
My favorites were the spicy signature honey boneless (this pic) and the non spicy soy, which is the crispiest. I think I might switch it next time and try non spicy honey and the spicy soy.. Lol! Portions are huge and the chicken meat was meaty and tender.


The servers were quite helpful in explaining to us what the differences were. Only the Yung Nyeom comes boneless, all the other are a whole chicken fried, but if you're a wings lover, it's no big deal. The only difference is that you can eat the boneless version with a fork and not get your hands dirty, where the regular kind you ware going to get sticky.

Yung Nyeom - Sweet and mild
Spicy Yung Nyeom- Spicy and sweet
Warak- Soy garlic
Supreme Yung Nyeom- with a drizzle of mayo
Scallion- Scallion

Whole chicken
Boneless chicken
Wings

(top left spicy young nyeom, top right scallion, bottom left warak)

Warak is slightly less sweet than Yung Nyeom since they use soy sauce instead of honey for the marinade. It's slightly crispier as well. If you can't finish a whole chicken, you can order just Warak wings.  Each piece was very juicy and tender and such a guilty pleasure to eat. Everyone gluttoned out on korean fried chicken and left very happy. 

Spicy rice cake (NT$90) 

Korean rice balls (NT$80) - DIY complete with glove to mix up the rice and seaweed and make your own rice balls

Yung Nyeom boneless (NT$360) mildly spicy honey glaze. Sooo hits the spot!

Boneless Scallion (NT$380) 

Warak (NT$430) soy garlic glaze

If you need anything you just press the call button on the table. 

Since my first visit, I've ordered to go from them a number times. It takes about 20-40 minutes for them to get the order ready, depending on how busy they are, so you can't order from them when you are in a rush since they fry to order. Where else have you guys tried chicken and beer in Taipei? 

desserts/american: i strongly recommend THE PIE GUY

THE PIE GUY

(No storefront yet, order through order forms on Facebook or Rakuten)

website: The Pie Guy's Facebook 

visit reviewed: 2/17/2017

When a friend of a friend emails and says, "I have a friend that makes pies, can I introduce you?" the answer should always be YES. My ranting about the lack of American style pies in Taipei is nothing new and my search for them over the years has led me to try Mom's Pies, Rose Pie, My Sweetie Pie, Drip Cafe (their lemon meringue and banana cream pies were my favorite for awhile), McDonald's (they've kept the fried apple pie all these years), WXY, and now the The Pie Guy. 

Founded this past year, Pie Guy aims to bring traditional American pies with natural ingredients and crusts made with butter, but in mini sizes. He grew up loving and making desserts with his family, playing with the scientific side of baking and his idea for Pie Guy came with taking recipes that had used over the years but adjusting them for mini form. 

There's over a dozen flavors to choose from and I was lucky enough to get a special sampler back to try his top 9 so that I could try them for you guys. Each pie is packaged in a sturdy plastic case and bubble lid and then in a pizza sized cardboard box. (I received this for free, but the opinions expressed are my own.)

OOOOOOOOHHHH. Where do we start? 

The pies from top to bottom: lemon meringue, apple, blueberry, coconut cream, key lime style, chocolate cream, banana cream, chicken and chili. 

The lemon meringue was one of my favorites, with a sweet and tart filling and torched meringue atop.  You can actually find a lot of lemon tarts in Taipei, but it's so much better with pie crust and meringue atop.

Apple pie was another favorite, made with Granny Smith apples, since this is also one of those "lots of tarts but no pie" situations in Taipei. I still remember when I went to BING last year and they had the most amazing apple pie but a few months later when I went back, it had turned into a tart. Now I don't have to look because now I know where I can get my apple pie fix. 

Blueberry is made with Maine blueberries and the filling swirled through the top of the crust so you can see what flavor it is. 

Key lime style has a different crust, with homemade graham crackers that he also premakes. The fresh limes are from Taiwan, so that's why it isn't called key lime and he didn't want to use bottled juice. I am a sucker for pies with a bit of sourness to go with the sweet. Loved this one too. 

Chocolate custard was the right amount of sweetness and comes with bits of bittersweet chocolate atop the whipped cream, which all goes well with the buttery crust.

I brought these to a potluck and they all got devoured after my photos so I didn't get inside photos of all of them. The chicken and chili ones are, of course, best heated up and Pie Guy felt like the mini sizes made them easier for reheating in Taipei kitchens. You can eat them cold, room temperature or ten minutes at 180 degrees in the oven. 

So since Pie Guy doesn't have a store (yet!), he's made it easy to order with forms in English and Chinese on Facebook. Pies come in sets of three (NT$499) and multiples of three, with prices slightly cheaper as you order more, six mini pies are NT$799 or nine mini pies are NT$1069. There are also  weekly popups in Nangang or Neihu so you can see the pies in person, with the schedule also on Pie Guy's Facebook page. 

Usually the pies come is sets of three with the same flavor, but I'm excited to announce that I've convinced Pie Guy to do a special HUNGRY IN TAIPEI x PIE GUY sampler pack, with apple, blueberry and key lime style mini pies! 

You can try THREE different flavors in one 3-pack (which you would usually need to order 9 pies to try three flavors). The flavors available for this set are apple, blueberry and key lime style for a promotional price of NT$449 for a limited time (only until 6/10/2017) which will include FREE shipping, which takes 3-4 days. 

This sampler pack is available only through these order forms: 

HUNGRY IN TAIPEI x PIE GUY sampler ENGLISH order form 

HUNGRY IN TAIPEI x PIE GUY sampler CHINESE order form

I've also partnered up with the Pie Guy to do giveaways on my Instagram and Facebook pages this week, so try your luck with winning some mini pies there. Yay!!! Who doesn't love pies?