CLOSED! chinese: i strongly recommend XIAO SHEN JI

CLOSED a/o 2014

XIAO SHEN JI
No. 45, MingSheng E. Road, Sec 4, 2 FL
SongShan District
(02) 2713-3232

$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs

Visit reviewed: 9/26/2009 and 10/29/2009



If you're looking for spicy flavors of Sichuan (or Szechwan, the spelling I grew up with), you can try Xiao Shen Ji, a non-descript, but authentic eatery on the second floor of MinSheng East Road area with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it red sign flagging the entrance. Newly opened in August, the casual space is brightened by the orange felt chairs and clean decor.



Each time I've gone, the room is packed with customers that it can be hard to waive down someone to take your order. The second time we went during lunch, the wait staff seemed to be frantically running around the room and we asked three times if we could get someone to take our order. So we just helped ourselves to the small appetizer dishes on the side near the kitchen to munch on before we could grab their attention. This spicy soybean dish packs a huge punch in a small bite. There is also a cold blanched soybeans wrapped in soybean skin and sesame sauce appetizer that is quite good.



The large menu of affordably priced dishes is two pages of small Chinese type, so you might have to take someone that reads Chinese with you to this meal (if you don't). The menu includes small bowls of wontons and noodles, as well as a range of stir fried dishes, vegetables and hot pot.



I liked everything that was ordered both times I went and that's a measure of a good restaurant, especially one where you are sharing family style. I should just start a category called "My Grandma's Finds," as this is another one of her successful picks for our occasional family dinners. What's best about the places she picks are that they are usually delicious meals for can't-beat them prices.

Be sure to get the tightly wrapped wontons (NT$65) which you can get with or without the vinegar accented, blood red chili sauce. Here it's called tsao shou on menu.



I also strongly recommend getting the spicy stir fried eggplant which looks scary soaking up all the red chili sauce, but is balanced out by the slight sourness of the vinegar. The first bite slightly burns my mouth, but I built tolerance to the heat and it ended up being addicting in the end.




My favorite was the first dish to arrive to the table- the fen zhen fei chang steamed intestines and yams buried underneath a soft, couscous-like rice. Or if you don't like the chewiness of the intestines, you can get it with fork tender pork or fen zhen pai gu.



For those who cannot eat spicy foods, there's quite a bit to choose from as well. They did a wonderfully fluffy scrambled egg with shrimp for which you'll probably want a bowl of white rice to go with it.



Or the sesame shreddred chicken salad, which can be a refreshing alternative to all the chili flavors going on.



One family favorite is the stir fried green beans or gan bian si ji dou. The healthiness of them being vegetables are balanced out by the fact that they are fried in oil to make them tender and wrinkly before being stir fried with garlic and seasonings.



Are you getting full yet? We're not done yet! You can see that it's definitely the type of restaurant that you'd benefit from taking a large group so you can try a little bit of everything. This post is the combinations of two different meals, but there was some overlap.



I was a little scared to try the gong bao ji ding (NT$200) with the huge slices of fat chili peppers mobbing the diced chicken. But it turned out to be one of the best kung pao chicken I've ever had- the chicken was slightly crispy from being stir-fried and had a fragrant spiciness that was not overwhelming.



The first time, we ordered hot and sour soup which had a strong pepper flavor and silky slivers of tofu and pork blood. Flavorwise of the soup and ingredients, I liked the soup from Xiao Nan Men better.



It was a clear broth with meatballs, bamboo and cucumber was at the next lunch. The soup can be a light flavor to balance the spicy dishes, though some of my friends didn't like the starchiness of the meatballs.



All in all, a great place to try something new (or familiar, depending on how much Szechwan cuisine you usually eat). I'm still thinking about slow burn and sour notes of the eggplant and the chewy fattiness of the intestines, which were my favorite dishes.

revisited/japanese: i recommend SHAN HUA lunch

SHAN HUA
or MOUNTAIN FLOWER
No. 1, Lane 146, Dun Hua S. Rd, Sec 2
(02) 2708-3080

lunch: 12 PM- 2:30 PM
dinner: 6 PM - 10 PM

$$-$$$

visit reviewed: 10/9/2008
last reviewed: 11/17/2006



Shan Hua is an intimate, elegant sushi bar that I had been to before and enjoyed thoroughly. But I had never been there for lunch until we were celebrating our friend C rejoining the world after having her baby. While Shan Hua was her favorite place for sashimi, she didn't have any for months while she was pregnant, and of course during the one month after she gave birth when she was holed up in Taiwanese maternity rest.

So she was excited to be out and we were excited to be seeing her. And best of all, the lunch set at Shan Hua is NT$800 (in contrast to the NT$2000-3000 omakase for dinner). But as our meal progressed, I discovered the reason why and I ended up yearning for more sashimi and sushi in the lunch set.



Because having only one dish out of eight be sashimi was a tease. Their sashimi is so stellar that it made the cooked dishes pale in comparison. I just wanted all sashimi, all the time.



Some of the hot dishes were excellent- the bento box of duck and tofu and the grilled fish and jumbo scallop- were fresh and simply seasoned and the highlights of the set, but the drama and pleasure of the omakase where you eating delicious sashimi after nigiri after roll was missing.

I wanted uni. I wanted seared scallop. But to no avail....



The mountain yam broth and crusted crab claw were pleasant, but uneventful.



Surprisingly, I didn't like the mushroom rice... I think it might have been to gingery for me.



The soup is a filling cap to the meal if you aren't full yet...



But I wasn't crazy about the green tea tiramisu- probably because of its mousse-like consistency and flavor and I'm not a fan of mousse.



If I came back again for lunch, I'd probably order ala carte from the sushi bar like many of the businessmen lunching that day, or at least add some scallops or uni to the lunch set. I wonder how much sashimi you could get there for NT$800. But note that the sets change all the time, what you see here might not be what you get another day if you order a lunch set.

Be sure to make reservations if you do want to go, the space is not large and can fill up quickly.

my kitchen: brownies from a box

Anyone else caught off guard with the sudden cold turn of the weather? It was so grey and dreary this afternoon I needed to bake something to warm up the house, and my sweet tooth.

The quickest way? Brownies out of the box. (Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge today)

My last box from LA. I might have to give the ones from Costco a try next.

MMMM- hot out of the oven, the top part of a cake-like brownie is my favorite. Having a small slice before dinner.

my kitchen: bunny & bear hard boiled eggs mold

Who wouldn't want to eat cute hard boiled eggs?

And it's not that much more trouble than boiling the eggs, peeling them and putting them in the molds in ice water for a few minutes to set the shape. The longer you let them set, the better the shape will hold, but five minutes should be enough. Also, I rinsed the eggs in cool water before peeling them- otherwise the eggshells are hot and can be hard to peel.



I was too excited to see if it was really going to work to take pictures of the "before" of the eggs... after all, y'all know what plain hard boiled eggs look like right?!



Add a little salt and pepper and you're good to go! Or be a kid again and play with your food a little bit before you eat it.



You can also buy fish/car molds, or splurge on a Hello Kitty one.




I will probably end up buying the Hello Kitty one someday soon. Some hard boiled Hello Kitty eggs to go with my cheese sandwiches from my Hello Kitty sandwich maker.

Because, you know, Hello Kitty makes it taste better. LOL

night market/dessert: i strongly recommend TONG HUA NIGHT MARKET

TONG HUA NIGHT MARKET
Linjiang Street between Tong Hua Street and Keelung Road

$

Kid friendliness: crowded but lots to eat on the go

Visit reviewed: 5/2/2009



This should be a familiar sight to those of you who read my blog. Night market crowds and lots of food vendors. Fresh fruit, fried foods, meats on a stick...





One surprising thing I had was good gelato from Seven Nine Gelato. The cheeful vendors happily handed out lots of mini spoons of samples and big scoops of your favorite flavors.



And it was so good, I ended up getting two scoops for the bargain price of NT$60.



It's too bad I was too full from dinner, otherwise I would have love to have sampled the Chinese sausage and sticky rice or the candied sweet potatoes I saw at the end.





I'd love to explore Tong Hua night market more, which is a great location for those living near 101/Xinyi or DaAn area and don't want to trek all the way to Shilin.





For those of you who have been to Tong Hua, what's the best to eat or shop there?




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PS. Found this cool little shortlist guide of Taipei nightmarkets.

italian: PASTA WEST EAST

PASTA WEST EAST
No. 7, An He Rd., Sec. 1
(02) 2721-0029

hours: 12 noon-2:30 pm lunch; 6-10:30 pm dinner

$$-$$$

Kid friendliness: upscale, business setting not entirely suitable for kids/toddlers; no high chairs spotted

Visit reviewed: 10/15/2009



When I first started spending more time in Taipei in 2005, I remember one of the first Italian restaurants I was taken to was Pasta West East. It was classically classy, the kind of place where we saw couples out on fancy dates, where we took important clients for meetings, where you worry if you're dressed nicely enough and you're charged for your Evian water. I have memories of quite a few nice dinners there, but for whatever reason, over the years, I found myself going there less and less.

But when I was in the area and we needed a place for lunch, I was happy to revisit and finally get a chance to write it up for the blog.

You can order from the menu or order from the business set lunch menu which had three choices (NT$520-820) for the main course, and included soup or salad, dessert and tea/coffee.



Once seated, we got our warm starter bread, which is a round thick bread sliced into pie-like pieces and comes with butter or a mini-jar of orange marmalade to accent the slightly sweet flavor of the bread.



My soup of the day mushroom soup came fairly quickly and when I responded yes to freshly ground pepper, the waiter went a little overboard. I ended up having to scoop most of the black pepper out and put it on the plate. But I liked the soup, which wasn't too heavy or watery with plenty of slices of fresh white mushrooms.



Two of my lunch companions chose to split a Caesar salad(NT$280) and clam linguine. Pasta West East pre-split the dishes for them and it still ended up being fairly healthy sized portions. I like the flavor of the dressing, though the few olives and hardboiled egg slices don't really add much to the salad. It was too bad because the menu said the eggs were poached, but I think it was just a typo.



My fettucine pasta served with chicken breast and pesto cream sauce was quite a disappointment. The pesto cream sauce less creamy than a thick watery sauce and lacked the aromatic pesto flavor that I love. The thinly sliced pieces of chicken were interspersed in the pasta and also lacked any individual flavor. My friend looked at me in slight horror as I grabbed the salt and pepper (I almost never do this) and used them for my dish, but it didn't help very much.



When I lamented about my disappointment of the dish to my friends who ordered the clam linguine, they told me that their dish was too salty and some of the clams were sandy. She agreed with me that the restaurant was not as good as it was in its prime a few years ago. I was definitely surprised- it was really too bad that the restaurant didn't put out consistently good meals to keep up with the competition.

The homemade dessert was more of the same- a banana cake that looked pretty, but was dry and crumbly- lacking the moistness or richness that would make it worth the calories.



Eating here was like trying on an old expensive sweater and seeing that it wasn't as good looking on as it was before. Maybe the moths got to it, or the trends changed. For whatever reason, maybe the sweater would look better on someone else, I probably won't wear it anymore.


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vietnamese/pho: i recommend THANH KY

THANH KY
No. 1 and 6, Lane 6, Yongkang St, Taipei
(02) 2321 1579 and (02) 2322 2765

hours: 11:30am to 11:30pm

$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs spotted, but roomy in newer location

Visit reviewed: 9/30/2009



I never noticed Thanh Ky until about six months ago when I discovered Yong Kang Kou next door. I guess before I was always "business" about this area- going straight to Ice Monster (which is directly across from it) after a meal and then back on our way. But after realizing that there was Vietnamese pho to be eaten here, it was just a matter of time before I tried it.

On this day, my friend wanted to take me to lunch at La Cocotte, but when we tried to "walk in," they wouldn't seat us without reservations at 1pm on a weekday. So we racked our brain on where to go and we were close enough to Yong Kang Street to give it a try. I guess you can get your food to go from the outside street vendor portion, adjacent to a small sitting space or you could go right across the alley, to the newer, bigger dining area and kitchen, which is comfortably air conditioned.



The restaurant is clean and the service is efficient and fills up quickly after we sit down with larger groups of young people in the back of the restaurant, even though it's a bit after lunchtime.



The good sized menu is easy to browse, in English and Chinese and lots of pictures.



In addition to the beef broth pho, they also have pho with sate, curry or even Tom Yum Seafood soup. Individual hot pots are also available with vegetables, seafood and meat options.



Pho #1 is their Hanoi Beef Pho (NT$165), which is their "no. 1 selling pho on the menu. Awarded 2008 Taipei International New Row Main Festival contest runner-up." (Totally not my spelling by the way). Appetizers on the menu include fried Vietnamese spring rolls, Thai-style shrimp cakes, Pig's Ear salad, Sugar Cane prawns, stewed pork liver and Vietnamese steamed chicken thigh.

I get the Tiger shrimp salad roll (NT$90) to start and comes out fairly quickly. It's a decent size, served with two dipping sauces. Classic taste and gone quickly.



I don't realize until after I get my Stir fried Beef with Rice Noodle (NT$95) that it's slices of beef, not ground beef, which makes it a little messy to eat. The beef is a little dry/tough, especially in contrast to the fork tender beef of my friend's Hanoi Beef Pho. In terms of dry rice noodles, you can't beat the pork noodle dish from Pho Hoa.



The Hanoi Beef Pho is perfect for anyone who is a fan of the clear broth beef noodle soup and I can see why it was a contender in the annual beef noodle soup competition. The tendons and beef are cooked perfectly and the soup is a pleasure to drink, even on a warm afternoon. It has a slightly sweet quality, aromatic with the basil, onions and lime juice.



If it's not spicy enough, there's chili sauce on the side to adjust it to your liking.



So the next time a craving for pho hits you, you can give Thanh Ky a try. The family run business has been around for almost 30 years and is a great option for a quick meal in the area.


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