taiwanese/event: TAIPEI INTERNATIONAL BEEF NOODLE FESTIVAL 2011

2011 TAIPEI INTERNATIONAL BEEF NOODLE SOUP FESTIVAL 
EXPO DOME, EXPO PARK
No. 1, Yumen Street
台北市玉門街1號

MRT: Yuanshan

website: tbnf.tw (official site has English but hasn't been updated since 2005)

A bowl of beef noodle soup is like the chicken noodle soup of Taiwan- a bowl of comfort, one of the must eats if you visit Taiwan, and one of the top things missed once you leave.

It's almost that time of year again, so I thought I'd pull out my photos from last year's 7th Annual Taipei Beef Noodle Festival and post them up to prep us for this year. If it isn't on your calendar, then save the date now, as it usually happens every fall (and hopefully the details will pop up soon!). A few years ago, I caught the festival in front of Taipei City Hall, but last year they moved it to the Expo Dome near the Yuanshan MRT. The Expo park might look familiar to those of you who caught the Flora Expo there.

Follow the golden signed road.

If I could offer a few friendly pieces of advices to the organizers, it would be (1) If you are going to romanize the Chinese for the event, then please use "niu rou mian" and not "new row mian." I know that it's probably too late ("new row" is now even in Wikipedia for beef noodle soup), but when I saw it last year, I was confused. Heck, if you are going to try to make foreigners try to pronounce it correctly, it would be closer to "neo" than "new." Or at least capitalize the "r" in Row if you are going to separate the words. Anyways, probably not going to happen, but I had to get that off my chest. 

But maybe they can hear me out about my next point. (2) All the pamphlets and information at the event are in Chinese. There's a handy booklet with all the beef noodle shops at the event, and their addresses to visit after the event, but it's ALL in Chinese, and no separate English information whatsoever. If Taipei wants to become a top international foodie city, or have tourists flocking from around the world to come sample bowls of beef noodles, then they are going to have to do the homework and help us out by printing up some English. I (of all people) know that it's a tedious task, but it would make a world of difference. And the demand is there-- I know because the readership for the blog has grown so much and that's because of the lack of information in English out there about Taipei destinations, and not the lack of love for Taiwanese food. If you need an English consultant, let me know!

At the entrance, there's a small entrance fee and the inside is split into two sections- one is various vendors selling foods to eat or take home, like Taiwanese sausages and the other (more crowded) side is where all the beefy, soupy goodness is.

Be prepared to wait in line and to take some time to find seating. If you've ever been to an Asian food court on a busy weekend day, you know what I mean. Even though the seating was more than in previous years, it still wasn't enough. Bring some friends and tag team. Have one save seats and switch off browsing for beef noodles.

Over 30 vendors bring their best to create a one stop shop for beef noodles lovers and sell small bowls for NT$50 each to sample and slurp. Besides being a food carnival for the past seven years, there's also a competition for the official title of Taipei's Best Beef Noodle Soup. There's different categories to compete for- best traditional spicy braised, best clear broth, and most creative. Last year's winner for best hong sou or red brothed niu rou mian ended up being first time participant Chef Hou Chun-sheng whose bowl can be tasted at Room 18 beat out 200 competitors. I didn't get to try it last year, but maybe I'll look for it this year.

I was a bit impatient, so I opted for booths with the shortest lines. I figured that I could always try the champions on another date and I didn't want to wait in long long lines for lunch. Others might have a different approach, only wanting to wait for the best.

I didn't do a great job remembering which noodles were from which booth since everything was in Chinese, but I'll try to take notes this year.

Lots of food being prepped on the fly, like tripe and tendon to eat as a side dish or in the noodle soup.

I waited in line for some beef rolls, but I probably would skip it next year. There was barely any beef in the roll, filled with mostly lettuce, and I've had better at the food courts.

Working as fast as possible for the hungry people in line.

Where's the beef? Hehe.

A good bowl of beef noodle soup should have equally delicious sum of its parts- the broth, the noodles, the beef and the flavors all play a role. If you've never had knife shaved noodles, where the chef sends slivers of dough flying into the boiling pot, you must give it a try. This was probably my favorite bowl of the bunch I tried that day.

My last bowl was also chosen because there was no wait, but definitely not a traditional bowl. It had udon noodles and kimchi and thin slices of beef. Probably most like something I could make at home, but maybe this year I'll have to wait in line for some of the previous winners.

japanese/noodles: i strongly recommend FU YU WU SANUKI UDON

FU YU WU SANUKI UDON 

富玉屋 讚歧烏龍麵 

No. 14, Lane 83, DaAn Rd, Sec. 1 

大安區大安路一段83巷14號 

(02)2778-5255

MRT: ZhongXiao/DunHua

website: wanpan.tw

hours: 11:30AM - 2:30PM / 5:30PM - 10PM

$$ (cash only)

Kid friendliness: lots of options for udon loving kids to eat. no high chairs spotted

Visit reviewed: 9/25/2012

Sanuki udon is made daily at this cute udon shop tucked in the alley between Lao Yo Ji and Rakumenya Ramen. Opened in May 2012, Fu Yu Wu Sanuki Udon takes over the corner that used to be Kitaro. 

I haven't had good udon since my previous Xinyi District favorites Jika Udon and Tenpura Sanuki Udon had closed down. So I was pretty excited to try this with my cousin.

The open dining room has seating mostly for couples and small groups, and is brightened by the distinctive graphic patterns decorating the columns and walls. Looking over the menu, we kept talking about how we could bring our dads (or my grandma) here. It was also a good sign that the customers behind me were speaking Japanese.

The menu is only in Chinese and Japanese (unfortunately no English menu), but has photos of their prime attractions- the bowls of hot and cold udon. The sets run from NT$280-500 with the options of ordering ala carte or pricier hotpot, as well a business lunch set at NT$180. With each set, you get a choice of appetizer (steamed egg, soft poached egg, tempura or salad), udon and on weekdays, they include dessert. There are some distinct cold udons, including one in a sweet tomato bonito broth, and about four different hot variations to choose from. We were hungry so we decided on sharing two of the NT$500 sets, which allowed us to pick udons from any set and get full sized shrimp or chicken combo tempuras, as well as an appetizer and dessert.

Giant spoon to help you get your noodle on later.

A small bite size starter arrives promptly- the first day was sweet burdock slivers. Another day a small cube of sauced cold tofu.

Set menu appetizer options are steamed egg (chawanmushi), soft boiled egg or side salad. Give me a soft boiled poached egg anyday! I thought about dipping my udon in this and mixing it up, but I ended up just enjoying the lightly sauced slippery egg in a few slurps. 

Runny egg deliciousness!

The cold udon came out first, long strands tangled atop a light woven basket. 

Loved the chewiness of the cold udon at the first bite. Too bad it didn't come on ice like the photo, but it was still very QQ.

The dipping soy sauce comes with chopped green onions and grated radish and tiny dash of ginger. It would have been nice to have a tad of wasabi too as a choice.

The NT$500 set that we ordered came with a choice of shrimp and vegetable tempura or fried chicken with vegetable and we ordered one of each to share. Super crispy and hot, the shrimp had panko crumbs while the vegetables had a sheer coating for the tempura. So good!

I was surprised to see the Japanese beef noodle udon that my cousin ordered was much like a Taiwanese style clear broth beef noodle soup. The flavor was good, but very light and the noodles were quite soft, bordering on mushy, in contrast to the al dente chewiness of the cold noodles. We did eat the cold noodles before touching the hot noodles, so it's possible that the noodles absorbed too much soup while we were busy.

I preferred the cold noodles over the beef noodle soup since the soup noodles were much softer and the beef was a tad tough. I didn't finish my half of the bowl. Next time I'd probably try the curry udon or the pork slices instead for a hot udon or the salad cold udon.

So crispy. Crunch crunch. Devoured. Half a mushroom, plenty of sweet potato and pumpkin and four pieces of fried chicken.

The set dessert was a small panna cotta with what I thought was the typical caramel sauce, but was actually a refreshing peach flavor. 

I came back a week after my first visit and tried the cold tomato broth udon (NT$300) with the vegetable tempura cluster, or yasai kakiage. There was actually a lot of crunchy slivers of vegetables woven into the compact deep fried goodness. And at first bite, my tastebuds didn't know what to do with the sweet, cold, tart flavors of the tomato broth udon, but the bowl was a surprising joy to eat.

afternoon tea/fusion: MIA CAFE

MIA CAFE 米兒咖啡洋食館

No. 235-2, Dunhua S. Rd, Sec. 1 

台北市敦化南路一段235之2號1~2樓 

(02) 2741-8080

MRT: ZhongXiao Dunhua

website: Mia Cafe's FB page

hours: 11:30 AM - 10 PM 

$$ 

Kid friendliness: lots of space, seating area on second floor with stairs only.

Visit reviewed: 9/25/2012

Mia Cafe sits across from the Dunhua Eslite bookstore, a gleaming storefront at the base of one of those new high rise office/apartment buildings. The first floor holds only the dessert shop area, for people who might want to browse and takeaway. Diners head up to the cafe on the second floor, where the hostess asks if you have a reservation or not. We didn't have reservations, but luckily there were still some tables in the quite full space.

Small yellow chandeliers adorn the large open room seating area, while a large bar is the face of the kitchen where the drinks and food come out. 

I had heard nothing about Mia Cafe, only spotted it in passing, so the fusion menu was a surprise to me.

On the first few pages were sushi rolls, chirashi bowls and Japanese food which was unexpected for a ladies who lunch cafe. Then after some rice/pasta/noodles there were pages and pages of desserts - photos of fat hotcakes, fruit tarts, macarons, macaron cakes, ice cream, cakes, and coffee and tea.

If I wasn't so full, I might have ordered a roll or two. They were doing a photo shoot in the corner and we could see styled plates being shuttled over to the photographer.

Sweet or "sabory" hotcakes which looked like overfed pancakes masquerading as desserts. There were of course, also waffles.

The fresh fig and peach tarts looked interesting and something I might try if I came again.

Cold or hot coffees, lattes, cocoas and teas are available as well as smoothies, yogurt drinks and fresh juices.

I had just finished lunch with my cousin at a Sanuki udon shop behind Dunhua Sogo and was quite full, otherwise we were both saying how the rolls looked good.  My cousin ended up ordering an iced coffee and I got the fresh fruit tea (cold) (NT$210).

Presentation wise, the drinks reminded me a bit of Coffee Alley, with a frozen coffee ice cube and serving the drink, milk and sugar syrup on a tray.

The iced fresh fruit tea had the usual super sweet passionfruit and citrus flavor and came in a large carafe with a spoon and straw. I asked for a separate cup to pour my tea into, but I ended up drinking almost the whole thing anyway.

We were both amazed at how crowded it was in the late afternoon, even though the dining room was quite large. It was definitely mostly tables of women, with 1-2 men spotted. Was it the location? The food? The atmosphere?  Maybe it was the fusion and mega dessert menu, offering something for everyone.