food court/new in town: DUN HUA ESLITE FOOD COURT

DUN HUA ESLITE FOOD COURT
No. 245, Dun Hua S Road, B2
02-2775-5977

website: eslite.com

hours: 11 AM - 10 PM (10:30PM on Fri and Sat)

$-$$

Kid friendliness: crowded during peak hours, but some room for strollers

Visit reviewed: 10/11/2008



Whether you have jetlag in Taipei that has you up at 5am or you're a night owl who likes to stay up until 2am, you can wander over to the Eslite bookstore (Dun Hua flagship branch) that is open 24 hours a day. If you've never been, it's a super deluxe bookstore ala Barnes and Nobles, but like a mini-mall complete with clothing stores, Apple computers and accessories, and a food court. I went last weekend to check out the reopening after their revamp and had to squeeze in between the massive crowds of curious people wanting some free AC on a hot Sunday afternoon.

They opened up the area between the food court and kids floors (see first picture above) that does make the space more airy and perfect for people watching.

If you've been to the bookstore before, they didn't really do much to the bookstore area. I thought I might take a crack at looking for some books that were on my wishlist, and while the associate at the info desk was friendly (as well as spoke English), it took quite a while to find the area where novels/fiction in English were. And once I found it, though some sections were arranged alphabetically by author's last name, it seemed to be inconsistent and in sections-- meaning that one section would have it arranged alphabetically but 2 or 3 separate times which made it very hard to find what I was looking for. There's a reason that Amazon is so successful!

While I was browsing, I spotted this sign that made me laugh out loud.



1- that they would have a category for "chick lit" and group it with movies based on books
2- that it's "chic lit" rather than "chick lit"

But onto the "new and improved" food court...



Adjacent to the food court, there are some posh areas selling wine and teas..



The food court itself doesn't have as many options for "real food" as others in town. There's an omelette rice place, Penang South Asian restaurant, herbal soup place, Minder vegetarian serve yourself plates, a couple of sit down restaurant and then dessert/snack options like ice cream, shaved ice, bakery and almond tofu.

I wasn't hungry enough for a real meal, so I opted for a sampling of sweets. Plus with the grand re-opening, they were offering some good deals, like buy 1 scoop, get one free at the ice cream vendor.



Mmm.. green tea and mint chocolate chip cone (NT$80) make a surprisingly good combo.



The pre-packaged almond tofu (NT$40) came in original, milk, red bean and caramel flavors.. it was softer than the typical jello type that comes with fruit at dim sum restaurants- almost like flan. The red bean gave the silky almond tofu a good mix of textures.






Bonjour bakery was busy with customers. Their signs only had Chinese, but I eyeballed a crispy carmelized round puff pastry (NT$60) that looked like a cinnamon bun on the outside.




Can you spot the typo?



There's also an Awfully Chocolate, which sells fancy (expensive) chocolate cakes and ice cream. But the stores never display them. If you want to know what you are getting, you have to browse through their photos/catalog.


All in all, a place to grab something to nosh on while you take a break browsing the multi-level bookstore, complete with music/dvd, stationary and kids books sections. Sometimes they have some cool events or book signings. For lunch, I'd probably opt for the Xin Yi Eslite food court, but it just depends which area you are hanging out in.

Too bad the food court isn't 24 hours!




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japanese: i strongly recommend DOSANKO LE SAN NIANG RAMEN

DOSANKO LE SAN NIANG RAMEN
No. 5-3, Lane 66, Yi Tung Street
(02) 2506-6770

Hours: 11AM - 2:30PM; 5:30PM - 9:30PM

$

website: dosanko-twn.com
Kid friendliness: lots of booths but no high chairs

Visit reviewed: 7/19/2008 and 8/16/2008

ED NOTE 9/2010 The menu is back to Chinese/Japanese... no English menus anymore.. Weird!

ED NOTE 11/9/2008: Went back for dinner and the menu now has English with still pictures for every dish. Lots of set menus or stand alone bowls of ramen. Onion Rings have also been added to the menu!

I'm not that picky about ramen, I think. But I've run into so many medicore bowls in Taipei. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to serve a bowl of hot, slurpable broth with fresh ramen and a variety of equally hot, tasty toppings. Even places I thought that were pretty above average ended up being not as good on later visits, such as Noodle Shop (it was work rather than joy to eat the whole bowl and the broth wasn't up to par that day. Maybe watching them put together the bowl assembly line style didn't really help) or Watami where the cold noodles were so tough/chewy they were hard to bite apart and the soup was vinegary but not sweet, so sort of bland actually.

But then you find a little shop like Dosanko Le San Nian Ramen and want to try everything on the menu. Every so often, I visit my grandma and relatives and I ask them to pick a place to eat. They were the ones to take me to Celestial, THE place to go for roast duck in town, and the equally crowded Chinese Restaurant at Brother Hotel where the dim sum is still offered tableside by carts and everything is fresh and good enough to order seconds. Anyways, relatives will always take you to their tried and true favorites, so I've gotten a lot of "strongly recommends" from them, and Dosanko is no different.



A totally non-descript shop with a bright sign outside in a small alleyway, it quickly filled up after we sat down. (But after digging around on their website, they have four other locations around Taipei and even a location in the Bay Area).



The menu is in Chinese and Japanese only, but there are a lot of pictures. And a lot of choices, with all the ramen from NT$145- NT$210. Everything from the stereotypical hot ramen with cha-siu, to vegetarian cold salad noodles, there's ramen in curry, topped with tonkatsu,or with options for pork broth, miso broth, spicy mala style, shoyu broth, or even topped with corn or butter!



On my first visit, I ordered what my grandma ordered, which was the Chiang Pon Ramen which is kind of like Chef's combo with slices of pork, egg, fishcake and some bamboo in a pork broth.



I devoured it. Everything just fit together and made it a complete meal. But I also sampled from the other people at the table and I could not stop eating my mom's cold salad noodles.



With miso dressing that was sweet and vinegary, it was full of sliced cucumber, tomatoes, asparagus, corn and seaweed. These two were my favorite two and what we ordered again the following time I went.

I had a bite of my cousin's tonkatsu ramen (pictured up top), and it was also good.

It made me want to try the curry tonkatsu the following visit, but it was a bit of a let down. The curry was less thick than I like it and filled with too much onions.



Stick to the ramen.

My friend also ordered the cold soba, which was cold green ramen served soba style. The texture was definitely chewy like ramen, not like buckwheat soba. He liked it, it just wasn't I thought it was going to be.



When we were finishing up with our meal, the owner was chatting with my grandma. He had moved here from Japan over 20 years ago after spending awhile in NY. It also amused me that he sat down to eat himself and read the paper, and he had freshly made onion rings!

If you are ramen lover, you will totally have to try out this shop. I hope it won't disappoint and maybe I'll see you there. It's a great place to take the family, yourself or even a date who will be amazed that you found this little shop.


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Other locations:
Linshen
No. 22, Lane 135, Sec 1, Chung Shan N. Road Taipei

Tianmu
No. 12, Lane 9, Tianmu Rd. Taipei
02-28733981

ChungShan
No. 3, Lane 93, ChungShan N. Rd. Taipei
02-25510758

National University Hospital, B1
No. 7B, Chungshan S. Rd. Taipei
02-23225465 (轉 639)

Taipei Veterans General Hospital
No. 201, Shih-pai Rd., Sec. 2, Taipei
02-28766580 (轉 620)

tea/coffee: i strongly recommend GENKI Q MILK

GENKI Q MILK or YUAN QI Q NAI
No. 21, Lane 51, Da An Road, Sec 1
(02) 2777-5200

website: genki.ecoda.cc

$

Visit reviewed: 8/13/2008

Is the boba milk tea craze over? Will it ever be over? While I was in LA, there was a big scare all over Asia of powdered milk from China being toxic and not only affecting a lot of moms who formula feed their babies, but foods that might have been made with the tainted powdered milk and in Taiwan, the boba milk tea business was hit hard as well with business down by as much as 50 percent. I think everyone knows by now that boba milk tea is not that good for you, but can you imagine if it had poisonous milk powder in it too!?

I still feel like drinking one every now and again and I think I might have found a place to knock off my favorite, 50 LAN as my go to spot.

In August, after getting some pho to-go from PHO HOA,I asked the hostess if the boba place across from them was any good. She said, you have to try this place around the corner.. it's really good.



And so I did. And I was soo glad I did.

Genki Q Milk or Yuan Chi Q Nai makes their boba milk tea (NT$40) from fresh cow's milk rather than condensed or powdered milk. They also boil their boba or tapioca pearls with brown sugar. The result? The milk tea is not that sweet- you can actually taste the tea. It's the big chewy tapioca pearls that have a carmelized sweetness and it's gratifying to chew each one like candy, rather than because they're there. And it helps me drink the whole thing slower because I'm savoring the boba rather than mindlessly sucking them down.



Their menu is filled with the letter 'Q', denoting boba since the Chinese word for chewy sounds like Q. The menu is in Chinese so I can't tell you everything on it, but there are hot, cold, slushy drinks and teas from NT$20-45. An extra NT$5 will get you extra brown sugar QQ, green beans, red beans, or extra NT$10 for pudding. Like the other milk tea places, you can request less sweetness, ice or boba.



Genki Q Milk is only in a few locations in Taipei, so I don't know if I would have found it if I didn't ask since it's just a tiny shop with no seating or lines or streetfront location. Look for it alleys near Zhong Xiao/Dun Nan intersection (and pick up some pho on the way home) or the other locations below. Maybe you'll rediscover your cravings for boba milk tea if you've given it up.

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OTHER LOCATIONS:

No. 4, Lane 152, Ming Chuan Road, Sec 2
(02) 2507-0862

No. 47-3, Shing An Road
(02) 2515-1533

No. 10, Lane 411, Nei Hu Road
(02) 2656-2856


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dessert/bakery: i strongly recommend the chocolate ganache cake from POZZO

POZZO
at San Want Hotel
172 Chung Hsiao E Rd, Sec 4
(02) 2772-2121 ext. 2126

website: sanwant.com

hours: 7AM- 10PM

$- $$

Kid friendliness: although not cutesy, the flavors will satisfy any kid

Visit reviewed: 8/5/2008
Last reviewed: 9/28/2006

I've eaten a lot of chocolate cake in my lifetime. Maybe too much. Okay, wait, you can never have too much chocolate cake right?

Most of the chocolate cakes you'll find in Taipei are a light, almost angel cake version of what chocolate cake should be. No fudge-y-ness, no decadence, no love. So if you've been searching for something you can sink your teeth into and use up your calories for the week, then look no further than the chocolate cake with chocolate ganache from Pozzo.



Now before you tell me about the chocolate cake from BLACK AS CHOCOLATE or AWFULLY CHOCOLATE (which I ended up trying a few days after eating this cake), I have to say they have a lot of similarities, but I actually like this cake better (and it's also slightly bigger and quite a bit cheaper). The 8 inch round cake (NT$520) is definitely sweet (but not sickenly so), rich with dark chocolate notes, dusted with cocoa powder, and the ganache makes it decadently equally creamy and chocolate tasting. After eating one slice, you are very tempted to have another. Actually typing up this review and looking at these photos, I almost want to go out and buy another cake to eat.

If you don't pick up a cake from Pozzo, you should browse their bakery selection. I also had a slice of their chestnut cake the other day (NT$500+) and it was pretty good too, one layer with pudding and the other with chestnuts in frosting, but not as awesome as the chocolate ganache.

It's THAT good. Pick one up for the next birthday, mother's day, Valentine's day or chocolate-craving day and let me know what you think!


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not taipei/los angeles: IHOP

Did anyone miss me? I was in LA and again was too busy eating, in meetings, cleaning and working to catch up on my posts. SIGH!

But I'm back in Taipei, discovered some new places that have popped up while I was gone and should have some weekly posts again soon.

Somehow with the jetlag, I always end up at IHOP the first day or two when I return to LA. It's open early, the pancakes are fluffy and it's near my house. But it seems the prices have gone up in the past few years, or maybe everything has slowly creeped up. Can you say $4 gas? Crazy! There are a lot of little cafes that have breakfast/brunch that are cheaper and even tastier, but maybe not open at 6am.

I also ate at some new places that friends recommended that you should try if you are in the LA area- get the carne asada plate at PACO's TACOS on Centinela, the $1.25 tacos or a $5 burrito from TACO AZTECA (so cheap and good) or even better, anything from family friendly LA CABINITA (long wait but worth it!) in Glendale.

Notice any common thread of what I stocked up on while I was not in Taipei? Haha.

Yesterday when I first got back to Taipei, I headed to get some hot shao bing- yo tiao or chinese fried doughnut sticks inside a sesame flatbread, with some fresh sweet soy milk or do jiang. There's a little busy place near the intersection of Song De Road and Xin Yi Road, that has great Chinese breakfast.

So look forward to my catch up posts. Here are some of the places on my to-do list that I'm looking forward to getting done:

- PAUL (French bakery and cafe)
- BLACK AS CHOCOLATE
- the chocolate cake from POZZO
- VVG BON BON
- AKASAKA RAMEN
- SASHIMIYA

See you soon!

thai/buffet: LACUZ THAI FUSION CUISINE

LACUZ THAI FUSION CUISINE
No. 29, Lane 236, DunHua South Rd, Sec. 1
(02) 2771-2033

website: lacuz.com.tw Chinese only

hours: 12-3 pm, 6 pm-1 am

$$

Kid friendliness: lots of non-adjustable spicy things on the menu, but also some finger foods.

Visit reviewed: 7/16/2008



I've passed by Lacuz Thai quite a few times while sitting in a taxi around this area. Every time I passed it, I wondered what the food was like and I finally got a chance to try it out.

Even though it's all you can eat, the food is made fresh to order. This has its pros (it's served hot and adjusted to the number of people in your group) and cons (the food takes a little longer than if you could just grab it from the buffet). The menu is slightly confusing as there is more than 1 option (NT$390 for 38 dishes, NT$450 for 65 dishes and an extra NT$100 gives you another 15 Japanese barbecue dish choices.), but splurge for the 65 dishes if you want to try everything on the Thai menu.



The menu had little chili peppers denoting spiciness, lemons denoting sourness and higher number next to the chili grading the spiciness- 5 being spiciest.

I'd skip the pad thai and order the pineapple fried rice as well as the fried chicken (both of which we had second orders). Actually everything they fried (the seafood pancake, shrimp cakes) was pretty tasty and served with various dipping sauces.



Even though they size each order to portion with the number in your group, some things like the fried chicken were gone in just a few bites and you should grab the waiter to put in the order of whatever you like, so you can get it sooner than later. I don't know if it was because we were in the back room, but it was sometimes hard to wave down a waiter.

Also, ordering this way, sometimes you'd eat out of sync- for example, they wouldn't necessarily deliver the appetizers/salads first. In fact, our appetizers came after we were done eating a lot of our main dishes. If this bothers you, then you probably wouldn't be able to eat here. It seemed to be whatever the kitchen was able to make was whatever came to your table.





It was actually sort of overwhelming to figure out what to order from their extensive menu, so we stuck with our favorites. Some of the stir fried dishes were quite spicy and some were surprisingly bland.



My mom got the vegetarian set since she couldn't enjoy most of the options in the buffet, but it ended taking longer than our food. Most of the vegetables were also stir fried with little chunks of lemongrass, which ended up being quite sharp and tough to chew, so she'd laboriously pick them out of each dish. For flavor, it was good, but too tough to actually chew.



I liked also the eggplant, long green bean and curry dishes, but the seafood in the tofu dish seemed frozen/not fresh which was a turn off.

Don't forget to order dessert. The tapioca soup was sweet and a good way to mellow out the spices lingering in my mouth.



It was funny to see the long receipt at the end, since I guess they take your "order" even though you pay the flat price. All in all, NT$390 isn't a bad price for an all you can eat lunch- definitely cheaper than Spice Market. It's a modern space with private couch seating rooms in the back and good for groups.



Would I go back? If I was craving Thai, I'd probably still end up at Mei Kung first and then Thai Town, but it was fun to try it. I don't think it's an option for a quick lunch though.

Any leads on more places for good Thai food in Taipei?

revisited/taiwanese: i still strongly recommend SHIN YEH

SHIN YEH
112 Zhong Xiao E Road, Sec 4
2FL
(02) 2752-9299

website: shinyeh.com.tw

hours: 11 am-3:30pm, 5-10:30 pm

$$

Kid friendliness: high chairs and kid bowls available

Visit reviewed:
Last visit and pictures: 9/2006

It's still hard to snag a table at this very popular Taiwanese eatery, so you will usually have to call in days ahead for a reservation or patiently wait in their small lobby for a table. Why is it so popular? They offer a variety of local favorites, including and finger foods like Taiwanese spring roll or run bing and the pork "sandwich" gua bao (my two personal favorites).

The gua bao (pictured above) has slices of fatty & lean braised pork, pickled vegetables, cilantro and ground peanuts inside a steamed bun that gives it a simultaneously sweet, sour and savory bite. Done right, everything melts in your mouth and you don't mind that you're basically eating pork fat. I've also had it recently at the NY NY Food court and I have to say Shin Yeh does it much better.

The run bing is a spring roll with sprouts, vegetables and meat (sometimes egg and other things too) with a sprinkling of ground peanuts wrapped inside a thin-crepe like wrapper. Because it's not fried, it's not greasy and you can devour a few.



Almost every time we've come, we've ordered the sweet potato porridge. The last time, my mom also ordered taro porridge, but I don't like taro, so I didn't try any. If you don't feel like porridge, they also have great stir fried pumpkin vermicelli and fried rice.



To go along with the carbs, we typically get sauteed liver, kidneys, various veggies. I also started ordering the buttery steamed cod after my friends ordered it a few visits ago. I was a bit disappointed by the beef with garlic this time, as the beef was a bit tougher than usual.



If you want more than the free mochi that they offer up at the end of your meal, you should give the hot almond milk with fried chinese doughnut a try. Dip the you tiao into the milk and crunch away. Yum. A lot of people also like the almond tofu here, which is a bit chewy made with gluten flour, but I prefer old school style and not chewy.



Overall, the portions are on the smaller side, so you can order more dishes to share since everything on the menu is pretty good. It's basically the nice place you would take your guests to give them a taste of local cuisine or where you take your relatives for a nice dinner out. The menu is in English and Chinese with random pictures and the atmosphere is family friendly or business meeting friendly. Not so romantic, just because it's so packed and crowded with other people's conversations. For a similar menu, but younger vibe (and extensive alcoholic drinks menu), you can check out Shin Yeh Table (to be reviewed).

OTHER LOCATIONS:

Original Branch: 34-1, ShuangCheng Street
(02) 2596-3255
Hours: 11 am-1 am

NanXi Branch: 12, NanJing West Road, 8F
(02) 2523-6757
Hours: 11 am-9:30 pm

dessert/chinese: i strongly recommend LITTLE SOUTH GATE again

LITTLE SOUTH GATE
or XIAO NAN MEN
at 101 Mall
45 ShihFu Rd., B1

$

Kid friendliness: try keeping your kids away from this sweet treat! you probably have to get them their own, or at least their own spoon.

Visit reviewed:
Previously reviewed: 2/18/2006

Can you believe that before Little South Gate offered shaved ice that there wasn't really any decent place to find shaved ice in the area? That's probably why you'll usually find a line snaking around the counter of people waiting for their cold desserts in the air conditioned basement of the Taipei 101 Mall (or whatever mall you might spot this chain) before they head out to the hot weather. Of course there are other hole in the walls that you can find it cheaper (and possibly better), but this will more than satisfy your cravings while you are shopping/showing around your friends/eating lunch while fighting off people who want your seats on the weekend crowds without leaving the mall.

It's a summertime special that they've recently started offering along with their do hwa, but at higher prices (and profit?) maybe they'll keep it on permanently after all the Love Boat kids and summer tourists leave town.

Lots of options but I usually get the choose-your-own-4-toppings for NT$70 plus a big squirt of condensed milk (NT$5). My usual would be feng yuan or boba tapioca pearls, peanuts, aiyu yellow jelly, and tang yuan or rice balls. My friend got grass jelly with hers. Other toppings to choose from include red bean, green bean and assorted jellies. (But don't expect to find any mango or other fruits here!)

Figure out what you want while you are waiting in line or the servers will bristle at your slowness with all the people waiting behind you. Point at the pictures on the wall or at the stuff in the containers. A few seconds of the whirring of the ice machine and you'll get to dig in.

I would eat this every other day if I could.

Other locations include:

Breeze Mall
Foodcourt, B1
No.39, Fuxing S. Road. Sec 1

ESLITE Mall (XIN YI STORE)
Food Court, B2
11, SongGao Road
(02) 8789-3388

Breeze at Taipei Main Station
3, BeiPing W Rd, 2F
(02) 6632-8999

japanese/buffet: i recommend SHIN YEH JAPANESE BUFFET

SHIN YEH JAPANESE BUFFET
Fnac Future Center Building, 6 FL
12 Kuanchian Rd.
(02) 2371-3311

hours: 11:30am to 11:30pm
230-430 $460
$750

$$ (about NT$540 for lunch; NT$690 for dinner when I went)

Visit reviewed: 5/2007



A lot of variety and even some fresh made to order options in this Japanese buffet by uber popular Taiwanese eatery Shin Yeh. Suitable for large groups, families, or even a party of one, if you like Japanese food, you should be able to find a lot of things to satisfy your stomach.

Granted, it has been over a year since I've eaten here, but I still remember sitting at the extra long table with my grandma, cousins and relatives, each taking our turn at wandering around the hot and cold food sections. Isn't that what most of our memories are about? Not necessarily what we ate and how it tasted (unless it's an amazing meal), but who we were with and how we enjoyed spending time with each other.

My favorite part of the buffet was probably getting the made-to-order handrolls and getting an extra spoonful of bright orange masago (raw fish eggs) in my handrolls when I asked.

If you've never had masago/tobiko, the bright orange miniscule eggs are like the Pop-Rocks of sushi. As kids, we would squeeze the saltiness out of each egg or smush them between our fingers. There's a sort of crunchiness and taste of the ocean that you get when you eat it, without it being TOO salty like the larger ikura. YUM!



It's definitely a step up from Todai, (those in California and the states might be very familiar with), a popular all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet with everything from piles of seafood and rows of sushi to Americanized chicken teriyaki and stir fried noodles because it offers more authenticity and freshness at a better price.

There's a lot of options to satisfy even if you don't want to eat sashimi.



But if you like sashimi, load up your plate and grab the wasabi. Even better than having it sit out all night, you have to request (or point) to what you want, and the sushi chef will slice it up for you.



You can even grab a teapot of mushroom soup, which offers a light broth.



Of course, one of the best things about buffets is getting to sample more than one dessert. I love creme brulee with its crackable hard layer.



This of course is just a random sampling of all that was there... I was too busy eating to take a picture of everything! Writing up this post makes me want to visit there again soon. If I do, I'll let you know if it's changed or the locations are different.

Other locations:

No. 52, Chungshan North Road
(02) 2542-5858

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, A11
5 Songshou Road, 11 FL
(02) 8780-1366

Taoyuan shop:
No. 61, Chungcheng Road, 11 Floor
(03) 331-5511