indian: i strongly recommend SAFFRON

SAFFRON
38-6, TianMu E Rd
(02) 2871-4842

Hours: Lunch: 11:30AM - 2PM (closed Mon lunch)
Dinner: 5:30PM - 9:30PM

$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs available

Visit reviewed: 1/18/2009



The past week, two of my friends happened to bring up how Saffron is the best Indian food in Taipei. And I agree. Though it's a bit far for me in Tienmu, I've been daydreaming about going back and ordering the Chicken Murgh Mahkmali Tikka (NT$360) and the Lamb Safed Rajasthani Ghost (NT$380).



I'm a chicken tikka masala and tandoori chicken kind of girl. Most of the time when I eat at an Indian restaurant, that's what I gravitate towards. That's what I know and like. I don't want it too spicy and I like it a little sweet.

So when the server handed us a menu with a lot of unfamiliar dishes and names and no pictures and recommended some new dishes, I was nervous.



But I'm glad I ordered out of my comfort zone because otherwise I would have never gotten to try some of my new favorites. And although the names don't roll off the tip of my tongue yet, it's okay because I'm more confident that the others dishes on Saffron's menu will be equally satisfying.

Next time, I will probably pick the vegetarian samosas (NT$170) over the methi pakora (NT$170) which is chopped fenugreek, onion and potato and green chili deep fried in chick pea batter.




The naan (NT$75) is made to order by the chef in the corner working at the tandoor- it's huge, hot and puffy and good. You can wander over and watch while you wait for your food to come.




At first glance, the portions for the curries seem small, but the dishes are deep and there's a lot hiding inside. I also like that Saffron's curries are rich without being greasy, and all the flavors were distinct from each other, rather than each curry being indistinguishable from the next as I've experienced at some places.

I enjoyed the sweet eggplant Baigan Bharta (NT$270) which were charcoal flamed aubergines flavored with garlic, coriander and onion...



and the spicy bhindi masala, (NT$240) okra cooked in kadai spices sprinkled with coriander.



The Murgh Makhmali Tikka (NT$360) had a creamy, nutty taste and the boneless chicken was tender and juicy.



Being one of the newer Indian restaurants in town, it's elegantly decorated with some fun seating in the corners with colorful pillows and areas to lounge. It's right next door to the Spice Shop which I've also heard is good, but it's funny that they are seriously right next door to each other.

Writing up this post, the pictures have my tastebuds salivating over all again. Has anyone been? Where is your favorite Indian restaurant in Taipei?


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my kitchen/japanese: cute seaweed smiley faces from HANDS TAILUNG

Have you ever seen those pictures of those really creative bentos? Just google "cute Japanese bento" and you'll see what I mean. So when I happened upon the plethora of kawaii! plastic goodies from Japan at Hands Tailung, I oohed and aahed and giggled.

You could make Winnie the Pooh or Hello Kitty shaped toast...



Bear, bunny, fish or car shaped hard boiled eggs...



Or as you could see up top, smiley faces for your rice balls, inari sushi or whatever the heck you want.



You can see which one I picked. I would have bought more, but the Sogo price was a bit steeper than I would have liked to have paid.

Not that creative? You could just put the food in a kawaii bento box and be done with it.



For all my panda friends...



When I was a kid growing up in Indiana and Southern California, my lunch was leftovers from dinner before, usually rice and veggies and some meat. Other kids would say, what's that? Sometimes in curiosity and sometimes in faux disgust. I remember trading nori seaweed strips for Doritos.

But then I worked in my elementary school's cafeteria as a student helper in exchange for free lunch everyday and giving extra crinkle cut french fries to my friends. I ended up growing up on sloppy joes, country fried steak, pepperoni pizza lunches and 15 cent ice cream sandwiches, in addition to the fried dumplings and braised pork and mushrooms over rice my parents would make for dinner.

So making these smiley faces brings out the kid in me...



Sure you could spend hours cutting them out by hand, but a sharp punch is much faster... Just punch, punch, punch and assemble. You could also mix and match the eyes and smiles. You could use a regular craft punch too, but I've never seen smiley face ones before.

When I make the boiled eggs, I'll give it a post as well. I ended up buying these at a much cheaper price at a little discount store on ZhongXiao near Pizza Hut that I like to shop at.

You can find a lot of other cute and random stuff here that you never knew you needed- browse at your own risk.

HANDS TAILUNG

Breeze Center
No. 39 FuXing S Rd, Sec. 1, 6F
(02)8772-1105

Xinyi Mistsukoshi A4, 5F
No. 19, Song Gao Rd
(02)2723-8050

Nan-Xi Mitsucoshi
No. 12 NangJing W Rd, 9F
(02)2563-0080

ZhongXiao Sogo
No. 45, ZhongXiao E Rd, Sec 4,10F
(02)2771-8007

TienMu Sogo department store
No77, Zhong-Shan N Rd, Sec 6,7F
(02)2838-27289

hotpot/taiwanese: i strongly recommend MALA YUANYANG HOTPOT

MALA YUANYANG HOTPOT
No. 62, SiNing S. Road, 2 FL
(02) 2314-6528

MRT: XiMen

website: mala-1.com.tw

hours: 11:30 AM- 4 PM (NT$399); 4 PM - 5 AM (NT$459)

$$

Visit reviewed: 9/7/2009



Walking into Mala, I knew I was going to like it.

First off, it's all you can eat and mostly self serve, so you can mull over if you want seafood, veggies, ramen or fried you tiou from the abundant wall of choices without having to wait for a server to come to your table (which sometimes takes too long at other places when they are busy pushing the vegetable cart around) or feeling guilty about piling up your plate up high repeatedly.



Second, there's also all you can eat dessert- which includes not only a freezer of Movenpick, but also Haagen Daaz ice cream, which is proudly displayed at the entrance as well. Smart move, considering that a scoop or two of name brand ice cream is half the price of all-you-can-eat entry fee. If you don't want ice cream, there's also fruits, flans and cakes to choose from.



Third, it was packed on a Monday night. The setting is modern and bustling- groups of friends talking over music and spicy hotpot. Don't even try to add in friends who come late like we did, as tables are allotted for only 2 hours or so and then booked through the night to other reservations.



Did I mention the wall of food?



It had everything and it was fresh and tasty- more types of soy and tofu than I could name, packaged ramen, shrimp, mussels, scallops, fish, fishballs, at least four types of mushrooms and lots of cabbage, chinese cabbage and vegetables. The servers were efficient about constantly refilling pans that had run out.



I put half of my goodies into the non-spicy side and half into the mala side, especially the you tiao which soaks up the spicy broth and is crispy and soggy at the same time, sort of like a crouton bathed in french onion soup. I find the broths here a bit saltier than the others I've tried, as I was pretty thirsty the next morning.



And there's the meat. Lamb, Black Angus beef, chicken- just ask the server and they will bring the trays of thinly sliced meat to dunk and swish and devour.



To combat the spiciness, there's quite a few self serve drinks as well as Coke in glass bottles and Taiwan beer. There's also an array of soy, sesame, vinegar and chili sauces to mix and match to your own liking (though all labeled in Chinese).

I recently passed the famous (and some say overrated) Tripod King in a taxi and saw the lines outside. Save yourself some waiting and a few bucks and try out some of the other Mala places in town. Advance reservations strongly recommended though!


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OTHER LOCATION:
No. 86, DingZhou Rd, Sec. 3
(02) 2365-7625

chinese/steak: CHIA CHIA STEAK

CHIA CHIA STEAK
No. 169, Zhong Xiao E Road, Sec 5
(02) 2768-9541

MRT: Taipei City Hall

$-$$

Kid friendliness: high chairs available and lots of finger foods. steak might be too chewy for some.

Visit reviewed: 12/7/2008



When I was a kid, Sizzler and Todai were the two special event places to go for dinner in my family. When I was in middle school, Sizzler might have been one of my favorite places to eat. I could get your own soup and pick and choose what to put on my salad. My sister and I got to have garlic bread. Best of all, my parents were in a good mood because we had a coupon and we could eat steak and all you could eat salad/soup. It would be at least 15 years until I'd even hear about or eat at Morton's or Ruth's Chris or Lawry's or BOA. To us, Sizzler = steak = good times.

So to me, when I eat at a place like Chia Chia Steak, even though my tastebuds are a lot pickier and older, I can understand the popularity. An affordable night out for the family, with a sizzling steak for each person, plus a salad and ice cream buffet. Shrimp chips. Curly fusilli pasta. Corn.



Even though the steak is bit chewy for me and I wonder why it's drenched in overpowering sauce that I end up scraping off, I see tons of happy kids and families chowing down and waiting in line for their seats.

In this case, my grandma's friends wanted to take us to dinner. The menu is in English and Chinese and has different cuts of steak available, as well as lamb, pork and chicken- you can also order just the salad bar. Most of the sizzling plates are under NT$300 with the most expensive cut being the US Choice Sirloin at NT$450 (or about US$14).



I hoped for the best after seeing the menu, plunged into the pasta and lettuce at the salad bar.



I was strangely addicted to these UFOs (Unidentified Fried Objects)- I think they were squid?



I had asked for mushroom sauce on my steak, but instead it came with a spicy pepper sauce sauce. I just scraped it off and tried it with the Chinese A1 steak sauce and ate the fried egg. I know that sizzling steaks on the cast-iron pans are popular in Taipei- I've had them before at the night market and food courts.



And try the day glo ice cream at your own risk. It was artificial tasting and sugar sweet, but you know that's the kind of things that a kid loves, right? So Chia Chia Steak might be the Chinese Sizzler that some will remember fondly when they grow up.



But if you're feeling nostalgic, there actually is a Sizzler in Taipei. I've been a looong time ago, when my uncle would treat us when we'd visit from the states, but I haven't been in at least 10 years. Where are the best sizzling steaks in Taipei?


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japanese/sushi: i strongly recommend SASHI-MIYA

SASHI-MIYA JAPANESE CUISINE
No. 1, Lane 126, FuXing S. Road, Sec. 1, 3 FL
(02) 8773-4888

MRT: ZhongXiao/FuXing

website: www.sashimiya.tw/

hours: 11:30 AM -2:30 PM; 5:30 PM - 11 PM (11:30PM on Fri/Sat)

$$

Kid friendliness: booth seating available.

Visit reviewed: 7/5/2008 & 4/21/2009



You know when you are introduced to a new place by someone, and you think, this is a really cool place with good food and good prices. But for some reason, you don't go back for a long time- probably it's a little off your usual path, you're too busy trying out new places, or just eating at home. And then one day, you're with a bunch of friends figuring out where to eat for lunch and you somehow think about that place and end up back there and wonder why you don't eat there more often.




Well, in this case, my friends were craving sushi/sashimi and I went through my mental archives and cross refrenced it with my mental map, and beep, beep, beep, out came Sashi-Miya. Useful, huh? Haha.

Sashi-Miya is an izakaya Japanese restaurant that has a little bit of everything- the extensive menu has a lot of small plates to be shared, including yakitori/kushiyaki (grilled skewers), sashimi, salads, noodles, baked/grilled/stirfried and sushi rolls (NT$60-NT$980+), as well as a full beer/cocktail/alcoholic drinks menu.




The best thing about it is that it has really good prices for good Japanese food, the selection is huge and I liked almost everything that we tried. The menu not only has a picture for every single item, it also has English along with the Chinese.



The first time I went, we sat on the second floor, so we could see how big the space is. Sashi-Miya is a converted old theater with three floors and a huge screen playing films or tv. There's various types of seating, tatami or regular, or along the sushi bar. I'm sure you could find secluded seating for a romantic date, or a large seating area for a rowdy group.



From the second floor of the restaurant, you can get a nice view of the chefs busy below as well as the large screen (which is muted).



My favorites: the sweet shrimp (NT$240) and uni (NT$320).



And the tuna and avocado roll (NT$160). I could eat many of these.



Okay, let me try and break down the abundant food we ordered from my two different visits.

First, appetizers- get the agadashi tofu (NT$80) and avoid the cold tofu appetizer (NT$120). The agedashi was crispy and tasty, and the cold tofu was bland with a weird sesame sauce.




The chilled tomato salad (NT$100) was also not bad (picked off the UGH raisins and sprouts) with a sweet plum sauce dressing.



Onto the sushi and rolls. Rolls are harder to find in Taipei, but Sashi-Miya has some good ones. Futomaki combo,(NT$200) Unagi hand rolls, deep fried soft shell crab rolls, tuna avocado rolls and much more. They are a good size, unlike some other places that have good, but smaller rolls.




And the huge platters of fresh sashimi. The sashimi is fresh and generous and beautifully presented and they have different sizes of combos. I think this is the L combo (NT$580) with a lot of sweet shrimp added to it.



Did I mention how much I love uni? It melts on your tongue and it should be fresh and have a nice ocean, creamy, slightly sweet taste. You could hoard a whole order to yourself or be nice and share.



Don't like your fish raw? They have a miso marinated cod that is nicely grilled.



Gotta fit in the veggies too- I like kong ching tsai or Chinese watercress.



My least favorite are the stir fried meats. I've had the stir fried beef and the stir fried chicken and wasn't crazy about either. Something about the flavors and the toughness of the meat- just didn't care for it.



I also didn't care for the grilled shan yao (NT$220) which is a starchy tuber which texture is like a cross between daikon radish and taro. It's crunchy and a bit gooey and flavorless, but a favorite of my friend's family who brought us here.



The menu is so varied that you could eat here multiple times and not get the same thing. Or perfect for that large group of friends to eat and share food with the festive atmosphere and roomy seating. As you can see, the Chinese name is different, so look for this sign or San Si Wei Wu.



Sashi-Miya is not too far from the corner of Zhong Xiao and Fuxing. If you were coming from green Fuxing Sogo, you'd just walk straight ahead from the entrance, under the MRT subway and you'd spot it on your left.


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BTW- I enjoy making the maps to help people find the more out of the way restaurants, but somehow my maps keep getting messed with! I think Google Maps started consolidating user-created locations into 1 location, but only the Chinese address shows up and I do all my maps with English, and then I can't get the English to show, only the Chinese. I've also found some entries being "edited" by other users when added to their lists and it takes a lot of time to fix/redo the maps. Ugh. So FYI, that's why I haven't been keeping up with the maps. Don't know why Google allows you to edit other people's entries. It's annoying.