my kitchen: cupcakes

Cupcakes are a trendy thing in the US right now.. but pretty much non-existent in Taipei. Even though there are tons of bakeries that have mini-cakes, tarts, breads and even Hello Kitty pastries, you just don't see cupcakes. So if you are craving one, it's much easier to make your own, although I'll admit that I brought the mix and frosting back from LA. Today I made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Not everyone likes frosting, so I only frosted some of them.



I know there is one bakery that does sell cupcakes- Ginjer- but I haven't been there yet. I've heard their selection is slim, but good. I guess demonstrating the lack of popularity for cupcakes from the Taiwanese palate. Or maybe they just haven't discovered them yet.

Happy Chinese Valentine's day!

dessert: YANG JI PEANUT CORN ICE

YANG JI PEANUT CORN ICE
38/40, HanKou Rd, Sec 2
Hsi Men Ding
(02) 2375-2223

Hours: 11 am-10:30 pm

$



visit reviewed: 7/2/2006

I think the picture says it all. Creamed corn shaved ice. It is supposedly THE topping to get at this Hsi-Men Ding shaved ice shop. I knew that people in Taiwan LOVE corn, but this was a first for me. I was speechless. The friend who had taken us there proclaimed that he didn't get it at first either, but after he tried it, he was hooked. He insisted that I have a bite. Against my better judgement, I had a bite and... I still did not get it. It tasted like canned creamed corn, cold, on top of shaved ice, with some evaporated milk on top. UGH! *shiver shiver*

Unfortunately, the topping I got, red bean with mochi balls and evaporated milk was not that satisfying either. I think it was because they dumped the milk on top of the toppings instead of on top of the ice, which I prefer. It was too dense and mushy for me to be satisfying. And it wasn't cheap, as shaved ice goes. It ran about NT$50-80 a dish, since they add charges for additional toppings and milk. I actually prefer the more basic shaved ice in the shaved ice alley in Hsi Ming Ding.

Sorry I don't know the street other than it's off of Hsi Men Ding. I tried googling it to try and find more info, but all I found was that they also put creamed corn on top of shaved ice in Malaysia and Singapore. I suppose if you really want to try it, you can ask around that area for "Yang Ji Bing," as "bing" is chinese for ice.


The shop was very busy even with a lot of seating, and there is usually a short line. The signage says they have been around over 40 years, so local neighbors should be able to point you in the right direction. Everything is chinese, but you can point at the toppings. I would recommend it if the toppings pique your curiousity, otherwise, I would stick your favorite shaved ice locale.

revisited/afternoon tea: CHA LOUNGE

CHA LOUNGE
Grand Hyatt Hotel
No.2, Sung Shou Road
Taipei
(02) 2720-1234

Hours: 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm (Monday - Friday)
1:00 pm - 6:00 pm (Saturday, Sunday and Holidays)
Evening dessert buffet: 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

$$$

date reviewed: 4/27/2006



I suppose the key to ANY buffet style venue is to go early. Everything will look beautiful, you will get to have the first pick of array, and everything will be freshly made. You will get to have the first slice of desserts, or the first scoop of fruits, rather than having to settle for other people's leftovers.

My second experience to Cha Lounge was very different from my first one. This time, the cakes stood up straight, there weren't missing elements in the buffet, and we didn't feel rushed.

While I still think it's quite expensive for afternoon tea at NT$600 or US$18 (I have since discovered a lot of coffee shops and different places offer afternoon tea to drum up business during sleepy hours), it's a place you could go with a bunch of girlfriends to treat yourselves, or to have a business meeting where you could charge it to the company. The lounge is quite stylish and the Hyatt is very easy to find.



Their assortment of desserts varied from cakes to ice cream to fruit tarts, as well as the chef station, which apparently they change up every so often. Nothing too special, but a lot of variety. Last time, it was sauteed strawberries.


This time it was some mysterious funnel-cake like pastry, though it was not crispy or sweet like funnel cake. Unforunately, it looks better than it tasted.



So though this post is to soften my previous "do not recommend" to a try it if you want to try it. I ended up here since my friend wanted afternoon tea and Joyce East closes theirs at 4:30pm. Just be sure not to go the last half hour or so. There's not much left and they promptly remove everything on the dot of their closing time.

chinese: YI-YUAN PEKINGNESE RESTAURANT

YI-YUAN PEKINGNESE RESTAURANT
Westin Hotel Taipei
133 Nanking East Road, Section 3
(02) 8770-6556

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
6:00 PM - 9:30 PM

date reviewed: 6/25/2006



The peking duck was awesome. I love the touristy experience of the chef carving the whole duck in front of you into bite size slivers. The plate of duck was beautifully presented, and definitely fulfilled my craving. The paper thin pancake, the hoisin sauce, the green onion, and the duck with crispy skin all made a perfect little peking duck dance in my mouth.

Unfortunately, the rest of the food we ordered was surprising disappointing. The dumplings were subpar and sat on the table uneaten. I can't even remember what else was ordered. Ja jiang noodles. Unfulfilling. An egg omelet thingy. The service was unnecessarily fussy (wanting to split the dishes onto little plates and serve them, rather than us serving ourselves).

At hotel restaurant prices, you should book your peking duck (NT$1500) in advance during your reservation, take the leftovers home to eat and don't order anything else!

dessert: BERRY AND MILK

BERRY & MILK
Breeze Mall (and other chain locations)

$$

review date: 4/25/2006

Enticed by the combination of strawberries and chocolate cake, I got an assortment of cakes to share (NT$50+ each). However, like many Taiwan cakeries/bakeries, the cakes were tweaked for the Taiwanese palate. Rather than being fulfillingly chocolately, the cakes were light and sponge-cake like and not chocolately at all to my disappointment. The frosting was too sugary and one of the cakes had cherries instead of strawberries (to my mistake) which I don't like. So if you prefer your cakes on the lighter side, you can try Berry and Milk. If you are looking for a chocolate cake fix however, don't get your cake here. Personally, I was underwhelmed.

They also have a range of assorted tarts and pastries with strawberries that looked appetizing- you might try to find this chain if you love strawberries.

to revamp or not to revamp?

I started this blog originally with the idea of posting some pics, thoughts and phone numbers to make future reservations... as I got more into it, each post took more time.. I wanted to get the reviews just right and capture my experience. I started having a backlog of drafts of posts that I was juggling, and the memory of my experience of eating it would get further away from the time I had time to post.

So now, I'm going to try and post closer to when I'm actually eating what I'm eating.. to document.. even if I only have time to put down a few thoughts instead of a full review..

I wanted this to be a resource for other people like me living in Taipei and unsure where to eat, but I haven't gotten much feedback, so I will try out this new mode since it is my blog. haha!

So look for a flurry of activity in the coming week, as there have been a lot of places I've been wanting to blog about, good and bad!

CLOSED/japanese: i don't recommend NIKO NIKO ROLL AND SUSHI

CLOSED a/o 2007

NIKO NIKO ROLL and SUSHI
19, SongGao Road, 6F
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A4
02) 8788-1155

11am-10pm

www.nikoniko.com.tw

date reviewed: 5/16/2006

Sushi. To some people it means raw fish, or sashimi. I personally was not a big fan of sashimi until I was introduced to some of the freshest sashimi I've ever had about 7 years ago. So before I dared to eat sashimi, my definition of sushi were sushi rolls, like California rolls. Are rolls typically an American phenomenon? They definitely seem harder to find here than in LA, where I have become accustomed to the crazy diversity of "make-up-your-own-combination" of ingredient rolls if you don't find what you want here. Rainbow rolls, spider rolls, catepillar rolls. Or the more random "da bomb," "woody," "hole in one," "sunnyscape," or "cesar" rolls from California Roll Factory in West LA.

So I was very excited to hear about and try Niko Niko Roll and Sushi which was supposed to feature over 30 types of rolls. Their diner-like atmosphere is a bit of strange setting for Japanese food, but a sign of the "fast food" sushi that was to come. Actually, the almost empty room should have been a bigger sign, but I thought it was the random location on the 6th floor of a mall.




The menu has lots of pictures, and sorts the rolls into categories like Pretty rolls, Seafood rolls, Warm rolls, Spicy rolls, Vege and Crunch rolls. They have English names for the various rolls like Grand Canyon or BLT roll, but no English descriptions of what are inside each roll. The waiter is not a lot of help, so unless you have someone in the party to read the Chinese descriptions, you kind of have to just go by the pictures. We got one from each category.

The rolls reminded me of rolls I had from the chain Sushi Mac. If you've ever eaten there, they sell rolls for US$2 each. However, it kind of tastes like what you are paying for. And though the prices at Niko Niko are not that cheap, they seem to have skimped on the things that might notice. The eels were thin. The shrimps were small. The crab was more fake than fake. The avocado constantly fell off the catepillar roll. The rice and rolls were mushy. In our rolls that contained eel, the eel was sliced so thin, I felt like they had taken a normal piece and sliced it into 4 or 5 slivers to hide in the roll. Instead of appreciating the tastes of each roll, unfortunately each roll tasted the same as the next.






For some reason, I haven't had any good spicy tuna in Taipei. The spicy tuna we had here was just hot and I think there were onions in the roll? The warm roll we ordered was baked and strangely appetizing, but you could not tell what was in it at all! The rolls here made me miss the roll with the jumbo clam in it from Hide and the spicy tuna rolls from Nijiya.

They also have combos and teriyaki, tempura, sukiyaki type meals that actually looked pretty good. The table across from us had opted for the recommend combo which delivered both sushi rolls and tempura, sukiyaki meals to share. We hadn't ordered any of that because we wanted to save room for the rolls. Oh well. Maybe next time, if there is a next time.

italian: i recommend COSI O COSI

COSI O COSI
No. 155, DunHua S. Rd., Sec 1
(02) 2771-5883

Lunch 12 pm-2:30 pm,
Dinner/ 6:30-11 pm ( last orders 10:30 pm)

kid friendliness: high chairs available, pretty friendly service

date reviewed: 5/18/2006 and 3/27/2005

I was introduced to Cosi O Cosi a few years ago by my cousin who had lived in Taipei for awhile before I had, and we shared the common dilemma of finding good places to eat. She knew I liked Italian and thought that I would enjoy the food at Cosi O Cosi, citing it as a popular place and I've been there quite a few times since. For awhile, it was the go-to Italian food craving destination for me, before I had discovered other places and the more convienent Macaroni Grill was opened.

Cosi O Cosi is one of those places you might pass by many times and wonder if you should stop by to try it out. You should. It's not fancy or overly trendy-looking from the outside with an simple awning and chalkboard menu and fairly casual on the inside- a small room with part of a kitchen and brick oven in the corner. But it's clean and friendly with lots of sunlight- and the ambience kind of reflects the food and service- which is quite clean and sunny and friendly, if you could use those words about food.

The menu has both English and Chinese, featuring limited appetizers/salads, and many pizzas and pastas, but no pictures. The prices are pretty reasonable at $260-$420 NT for pastas and pizzas.

The tomato and mozzarella caprese features huge slices of mozz- and it tastes fresh and delicious. The order is generous for two people, and large enough to share with a group. The crostini which features toasted slices of bread with bruschetta and pesto is also tasty.


The fried mushrooms also piques my interest, however, picturing deep fried mushrooms in my mind, instead we get pan fried sauteed mushrooms. While I love mushrooms and I enjoy the different myriad of mushrooms featured, the gravy like sauce is not quite I was craving and a tad salty for me as well.



The clam linguine is very simple, but very flavorful with garlic, white wine and olive oil flavors melding together with the slippery linguine and clams. Cosi O Cosi's portions are just right for one, but not enough to share with a group like Macaroni Grill's huge portions.


However, you could order an assortment of pastas and pizzas to share if everyone just wanted to have a taste. We have done that in the past quite successfully. Cosi O Cosi's shrimp angel hair is quite delicious as well. The one off dish that I can recall is that their tagletelle had a cream sauce that was too heavy and not enough mushrooms to balance out the dish.

Though we didn't order pizza today, I've had it a number of times. The last time I had it was over a year ago, and I was with a vegetarian, so we ordered the mushroom pizza. My notes from that day say, "good. seems like canned mushrooms. crust crispy perfect." I really don't care for canned mushrooms on pizza, or in pasta for that matter. So I will have to try the pizza again sometime soon to refresh my memory and try different toppings. And have more caprese and crostinis.

thai: I strongly recommend MEI-KUNG

MEI-KUNG THAI AND VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT
157-3 Yanji St
(02) 2752 3051

11:30am - 2pm; 5:30pm to 12:30am

$$

kid friendliness: high chairs available, very friendly service

visit reviewed: 5/13/2006

One of the luxuries of living in LA that I miss having in Taipei is delivery and take out. The stereotypical delivery is Chinese food. But the favorite at our house is Thai food. Mmm, satay, pad thai, pad see yew and pineapple fried rice coming to your door while you just tip the driver while wearing sweats that you were too lazy to change so you couldn't leave your house, but you could still order Thai food. If there were a place in Taipei that I wish had delivery service, it would be Mei-Kung.

Strangely enough, the signage in English for this restaurant is Mei-Kung, but everyone refers to it as "Mei-Huuh" in Chinese. Either way, it translates to "good Thai food," in my opinion (not literally!). It can be tough to get a table during prime dining hours, despite their two floors of tables, so be sure to make a reservation in advance if you can and don't want to wait long. It is a great place to go with large groups so that you can order more variety of foods to sample. They have smaller tables and larger tables, and their larger round tables can comfortably seat 8-12 people. They even have a set "group" course menu (but I am not sure if this particular set menu is in English) while their regular menu is in both English and Chinese and has lots of tantalizing pictures.

On this occasion, we had the set menu for 8 people, with a few alterations and additions. I believe we added or swapped out the satay. This set menu included squid seafood salad, shrimp cakes, fried chicken, crab curry, chicken curry, pineapple fried rice, fish, chicken feet, shrimp pot with glass noodles and dessert/fruit. Also, I usually order Thai ice tea at Thai restaurants, but I find that the Thai ice tea here is a little watered down for me.


The squid salad was very fresh and refreshing, with a lime and chili flavor to the squid and cucumbers. The round shrimp cakes were hot and crunchy, not greasy or heavy at all. I probably prefer and would recommend the triangle shrimp cakes, which feature the same shrimp filling but in a won-ton like skin deep fried and cut into triangle slices.



The satay is spectacular. They have chicken, pork or beef, or you can get a combo, which I recommend. The meat is grilled, tender and especially flavorful. You almost don't need the sweet and spicy peanut sauce to put on top. In case you needed it, they also give you soy sauces and chili sauces with fresh chilis of varying heat to accompany any of your dishes.


The fried chicken, thai style is unexpectedly delicious. Whoever is frying everything in the kitchen definitely knows what they are doing. Oftentimes, when you are eating something fried, it is either (a) oily/greasy (b) soggy (c) burnt or (d) too tough for whatever was being fried. Mei-Kung's fried offerings, especially the fried chicken is definitively none of the above. It is perfectly crispy, while the meat is tender, juicy and not greasy- it is surprisingly light for something deep fried. The batter and meat have also been seasoned so that it has an addictive slightly spicy salty sweet taste. The chicken quickly disappears from the plate.


The shrimp glass noodle pot is, for some reason, something I have been often thinking about eating again since I've eaten it. The noodles have soaked up all the soup, so they are tender rather than chewy. While I chew it, it seems to call to me to have more. The shrimp is also steamed, flavorful and tender. I actually don't know if they have pad thai or pad see yew here, but this dish make me glad that I've tried something new.


The crab curry is a little tough to eat. While it is very popular (I saw it quite a number of other tables that night), it features crab in the shell in curry. You'd have to be quite dedicated to de-shelling the crab in the first place, much less de-shelling crab covered in curry. With all the other food on the lazy susan, most of us were not in the mood to attempt it and this dish went mostly uneaten.


The chicken curry on the other hand is a more friendly curry accompany your pineapple rice. A typical yellow curry with potato, carrots and chicken, the only thing I dislike about it is that the chicken is on the bone (which seems to be the trend with most Thai restaurants here). However, the chicken is so tender it falls off the bone without much resistance and the curry is fairly thick and spicy (and can be adjusted by request).


One of the last dishes to arrive (maybe so you don't fill up on it?), the pineapple fried rice has fresh crab, cashews, pinepple and dried pork to top it off. It's dense and reliable, but you've probably too full to have much of it by now. And though we are quite full- we've of course saved room for dessert.


Mei-Kung offers a hot or cold dessert. The hot dessert is like a sesame paste soup, which is an acquired taste. The cold dessert is an assortment of tapioca and starches/jelly in a coconut milk soup with crushed ice. It's sweet and colorful and I can only take a few bites of the tapioca and ice.


The unique dessert here is also the green mochi cakes. They are chewy and sweet, but not too much so, and the perfect ending to your perfect Thai dinner. Called Khanom Chan, they multi-layers represent the many layers of happiness.

The restaurant has its share of gold statues and paintings to complete your Thai experience and it's ambience is quite talky with many parties of groups and families. The service is relatively fast and they are fairly personable. A visit after this one, we had a baby that was almost asleep, and one server gave us two chairs for him to sleep and a tablecloth to use as a blanket, without us even asking for anything. I was very very touched and impressed with his thoughtfulness, and we've had a good experience with Mei Kung's waitstaff overall being relatively more helpful (or perhaps better trained and managed) than many Asian restaurants in Taipei.

I can still hope and dream that they might someday offer a delivery service, but in the meanwhile, I will have to get out of my sweats, make my reservation and head over the the restaurant to eat my favorites.

CLOSED! dessert: HELLO KITTY PATESSERIE

HELLO KITTY PATISTORY
Eslite Mall (XinYi)
11, SongGao Road, B2
Taipei 110

$$

visit reviewed: 4-23-2006

ED 11/9/2006: Sorry Hello Kitty Fans! It seems like the Hello Kitty Patistory is no longer there. I went by last week while in the Eslite Mall foodcourt, and to my surprise the space was now occupied by a store selling furniture. Boo hoo!! Even though I can understand why- people liked to look, but probably not enough people bought stuff to keep it in business. Although I never really bought anything after my initial review because it didn't taste as good as it looked, I was sad I wouldn't ever get the chance to ever again, even if I wanted to. :( .. So if you are looking for Hello Kitty decorated cakes, I think there is a place in one of the other food courts in Mitsukoshi malls, but it's not as charmingly pink and packaged like this Patistory was.

(ED note 7-3-06: While I spelled "patisserie" wrong in the original review- OOPS- I will leave it in the title for those that are linking to it, however, upon double checking, the name of the shop is actually spelled "patistory".. so either someone else can't spell or it's a play on the words "pastisserie" and "story.")

Wandering around the food courts in Taipei is such an adventure- there is such a wide assortment of foods on just one floor- noodles, curry, steak on hot plates, desserts, drinks, bakeries. So was I surprised to see a bakery full of Hello Kitty decorated pastries and breads and cakes? The adult in me marveled at the marketing/retail genius who decided to extend the brand into food products, but little girl inside me shouted "must try some."

I think every little girl must have some memory of wandering through a Sanrio store and picking out a notebook, pencil, stationary or stickers to take home. The same little girls were wandering through this bakery, as well as the ones like me who used to do so, and now had the pocket money and sweet tooth to buy our own stuff. And the box.. the Hello Kitty box you got to take the pastries home in. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a sucker for packaging.


I'll have to take a picture next time of the brightly lit, pink and glossy area. The refridgerator section that held the rows of tiramisu, fruit tarts and white chocolate Hello Kitty toppings, as well as the area with the varied baked breads and cakes with Hello Kitty image burned into them.


The strawberry tart (NT$99) is like any other strawberrry tart- sweet little strawberries drenched in jelly sugar, with a crust that is too dense and stiff to eat.


The signs in the bakery unfortunately are in Chinese, so I had to ask them what was inside these breads. This one had red bean (NT$40). Though the dough is soft, it wasn't really sweet or particularly tasty. The filling inside was a glob of read bean. I didn't finish it and wouldn't try it again.


The tiramisu (NT$108) was more cream than cake and the Hello Kitty chocolate on top had no flavor at all. I expected it to be a tasty reward at the end, a sweet piece of white chocolate to savor, but instead it was just pretty display. Maybe for the mold and decoration, they couldn't use chocolate that tasted good? I don't know! But I was extremely disappointed. At least I get to keep the glass container that came with it.


This one (NT$108) I gave away, as I thought it was so cute. I'm not sure how it tasted.

Was I suckered into it? After all, picking out the pastries and bringing them home in the giant Hello Kitty box made me really happy, and the desserts cost no more than the desserts I would try at the other bakeries. I sampled the chocolate and cheesecakes that they had available, which were actually pretty tasty. So I would give it another chance. I think they would probably make really cute gifts or party favors, for die-hard Hello Kitty fans, as the presentation is really great.