Taiwan: Epic Breakfasts Build Character

Waking up the next morning, we needed, of course, to follow up with a ginormous breakfast. I've waxed poetic about the subject before, but for the record let me just state that there ain't no breakfast like a Taiwan breakfast. Period.

Take for instance, this purple sticky rice roll.




You can have a number of yummy fillers, but here we have a Chinese churro, some pickled vegetables, and dried pork floss (just trust me on that last one - it's great).

This is freshly made cao bing. They are flaky pastries with black and white toasted sesame seeds.


You can eat them with Chinese churros inside for full effect, like so.




One of my all time favorites is man tou, which are a very basic steamed bun that has a fluffy and light consistency. I love the taro ones, which are normally purple in hue and have a sweet taro paste inside.


Ahh and then there is the venerable institution that is soy milk. There is the sweet variety, which can be served hot or cold. But more amazing is savory soy milk, which comes in a variety of ways but is always piping hot. Below, it is mixed with Chinese churros (are you noticing a pattern here?) and vegetables/condiments to create an almost tofu like porridge.


And THIS. My oh my, is this good. It's like a scallion pancake but more bread-like and with toasted sesame seeds and abundant amounts of black pepper. IT IS SOOO GOOD.


While all of the above is street food, not everyone eats out for breakfast everyday. Many people might have a simple and light bowl of congee. My grandmother prefers homemade turnip cakes, which are pan fried until crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.

Mmm...turnip cakes.

Most of this food is not that easy to find stateside unless you go to somewhere like Flushing (which is essentially a microcosm of China in the middle of Queens, New York). So next time you are in Queens or watching the U.S. Open in Flushing, you could perhaps show a picture of one of these breakfast delights to some random Chinese person off the street, and they can point and guide you to breakfast nirvana. You can thank me later.

Taiwan: Night Markets Bring Bliss

At MyLu, one of our first company "policies" was officially declaring August a month of stepping back and reflecting, using space and time to reflect on lessons learned and their implications for future decisions. As such, I decided there could be no better place to reflect than in Taiwan and China -- my food mecca.

First stop: the tiny but oh so delicious island of Taiwan. I have blogged about it before, but once could never be enough for what I consider a major contender for Culinary Capital of Asia.

Last year I visited with my dad and his side of the family, and this year with my mom. For both sides, food is an unending source of delight, entertainment and obsession. It is unclear where my fatkid genes come from exactly, but likely it is due to the unique combining of both gene pools. Case in point: below is a photo of my mother as a child. She is the one in the front. Notice what she is doing that others are not.



The first thing we did when we landed was go to one of Taipei's many night markets. My wonderful Aunt Xiao Ling brought us to the best dumplings my mother and I have ever tasted. Wrapped ever so lightly in paper thin dough, these little bundles of joy exploded with delicate flavors without over-whelming the taste buds.



They had meat with either chives or cabbage. That's really all you need in a good dumpling.


Next up, stinky tofu! This house didn't deep fry their stinky tofu, and made it in more of a Shanghainese style with Thai basil and shitake mushrooms in a hot and spicy broth.


After that we had to have some dericious oh-ah-jien (egg omelets with oyster and tapioca flour) and took home some shaved ice dessert home for later.

These are different kinds of jelly. On the bottom right is grass jelly, my favorite dessert for the summer because of it's cooling properties, wonderfully herbal, bitter taste and jello-like consistency. It's actually made of real grass!

Eating all this helped us overcome our first night of jet lag by inducing severe food coma and restful sleep and dreams of doing it all over again the next day...

Fun Times with BromBom.com

This weekend, serendipitously, both Mssr. BromBom and I were hanging around in the Have. Each of us intended to spend the weekend packing for our upcoming moves. However, given the 90 million degree heat, plus our shared penchant for fun, packing was foregone to make room for more inviting activities.

We started off the weekend (which henceforth shall be referred to solely as "The Weekend of New Haven Revival") right by stopping by the Union League cafe for some cocktails and oysters. Afterwards, we ventured forth into the New Haven night to try out some of the new fresh made ice cream from the MooBella machine that I was really eager to taste. We went to Durfees on the Yale College campus and to the Yale-New Haven hospital, but sadly found them both to be closed and no MooBella's to be found.

The next day, inspired by the previous, Brom and I got up early to go to the Wooster Square farmers' market. We purchased all kinds of delectable farm fresh items and returned home to make lunch in my backyard.


Here he is dining with Cat, another NH revivalist.


For starters, I made a pesto in the VitaMix out of garlic scape from the farmers' market, basil from my "garden," shredded parm, pine nuts and walnuts. We ate it with rosemary olive bread, fresh carrots, and honey goat cheese. Soooo good.


The farmers' market also had on offer one of my absolute favorite things to eat in the summer: SQUASH BLOSSOMS! These beauties came from the Yale Farm. I stuffed some with goat cheese, others with the all-purpose Siggi's plain Icelandic yogurt, and then sauteed them with some of the garlic scape. Very easy and very derishious.


Because I had been excited by the one I had the night before at Union League, I decided to make some Nicoise salads. I have gone through periods where I eat these exclusively, and they are also one of my favorite summertime treats.


Afterwards, we ventured forth and finally got to try MooBella's at the hospital. The instant fresh made ice cream idea is absolutely brilliant, but the experience unfortunately failed us on two sorta pivotal accounts:
1) my banana ice cream did not taste like banana (this made me wonder about the supposedly all natural flavoring used)
2) the machine kept malfunctioning before it spit out the ice cream.
On the plus side, the texture was creamy but light and wonderful.

All this running around and eating made us tired, so we took a little afternoon nap, and then reconvened with some other friends to go to The Place, which is one of the coolest seafood barbecue restaurants you will ever go to.


I stuffed myself with steamed clams, corn, lobster, and catfish. So much so that it was decided I had reached the golden ratio -- consumption:body weight parity. Just one indication that "The Weekend of New Haven Revival" was aptly named.

What's for Lunch?

These days I am working on starting a food company with my friend Ben, a fellow SOM '10 graduate. We're called MyLu Foods and our mission is to make healthy (but delicious) foods more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Our first product is a healthy and convenient lunch pack for kids. Something that is fun and appealing and can be taken easily on the go. Basically, we're trying to take the nutritious, fresh qualities of a homemade lunch and package it into something that kids will be excited about.

We are currently brainstorming names, packaging design, and ingredients. Please let us know if you have any suggestions by leaving a comment here, or by emailing mylufoods@gmail.com. Below are some initial homemade prototypes.

Chinatown San Fran style

I can't believe I almost forgot about this. After our morning brunch and ice cream at Henry Slocomb's, we took a walk in Golden Gate park. We saw buffalo! We decided that all that moving around and animal watching and whatnot warranted yet another meal, and meandered on over to the Richmond. There we went to this amazing Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant where this lazy susan original footage was shot.

Last Days of Frisco

I was obsessed with the farmers' markets in San Francisco. Especially the Ferry Building one because they always had squash blossoms and this AMAZING quark cheese that tasted like cheesecake, but was apparently very good for you and probiotic and stuffs.


Mmmm...squash blossoms.

For one of my last days there, I decided I wanted to eat everything that I hadn't had the chance to eat yet, or wanted just one last bite of. Greg, Alex were good sports and accompanied me throughout. I ate so much that I wasn't hungry for about three days afterwards. For me that is really quite a feat.

What we ate:

1) Porchetta Sandwich












Roli Roti's porchetta sandwiches from the Ferry Building farmers' market. It's a serious sandwich, and my favorite sandwich anywhere. They use this wonderfully crunchy and chewy sourdough bread, heap on a giant portion of freshly roasted-to-perfection sliced porchetta, lovingly layer it with crisp skin shavings, pour secret delicious sauce with the fatty fat fat juices, and make it all very healthy by topping it off with some delectably complementary green stuff (pepper cress, apparently) and sea salt. This sandwich tastes like all the goodness of the world combined in your mouth while having a dance party.

Here is Alex eating just some pork knuckle, which they also offer alone:

It's the size of his face!

There is a funny French guy who runs the whole production. When I asked him how he got the pork knuckles so damn good, he leaned over and made me promise I wouldn't tell a soul. After I promised he whispered some Frenchie-English in my ear. Unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of what he said, so I couldn't break my promise if I tried.


After the porchetta sandwiches we shuttled ourselves on over to Russian Hill for some seafood at Swan Oyster Depot, where we had some yum yum oysters and other seafoody salty squishy goodness.




Freshly smoked salmon hurrah!





Then we decided we needed to wash down the salty sea taste with some donuts. They really love donuts in California, and they're basically on every block in SF. A lot of the donuts are sold by Chinese people, which I find interesting. Anyways, the donuts were really good, but for dessert we decided to have fish tacos at Nick's Crispy Tacos, a place that Greg and Alex really like. They do some variations on the traditional fish taco with crispy shells added to the softshell.






I've loved fish tacos since I first visited California as a tween. They are definitely one of those things that are just better on the West Coast (although Josh may beg to differ since his dad has started Dorado's Tacos in Boston, which is apparently awesome)


I had my first fish tacos in SF in Sausalito. The picture doesn't do it justice, but this taco was probably the best fish taco I have ever tasted. Lightly fried and succulent fish, with fresh fresh fresh cole slaw to top.


Needless to say, after this over-the-top (even for me) day of indulgence, it was necessary to follow up with a big giant "light" brunch at Alex and Jackie's.


Alex made "Dutch Babies." Despite the twisted name, they were delicious.




With lemon quark and lots of Kerry Irish Gold butter!!!

Remember when

I lived in San Francisco? It was nice. I ate a lot a lot a lot of food. I did some fun work stuff. I was often very very cold.

I basically had three friends: Jackie, Alex, and Greg, and I hung out with them a lot. Once Matt came to visit with his brother Jeremy, and we had a big brunch with my roommates (two very cool dudes, Neil and Zach) and their friends. We had it in our backyard, where there was a very fruitful tangerine tree, fresh lavender, mint, and lots of other California goodness.


Matt, Greg and Jackie


It was all West Coast sun and fun times and whatnot.


I basically got to have fresh cut favorite flowers for almost all of the summer!!


We had these avocados. Man. oh. Man.


And these tomatoes.


But the star of the show to me was definitely these slow-cooked eggs that Alex made. He and I both prefer our scrambled eggs cooked very slowly, but he goes to a whole other level. His Eggs are almost soup-like, and they are AMAZING. Seriously, you've never had anything like it.

There's No Food Like Home

Once upon a time (last month), my mother and Aunt #5 ventured to Gaoshong, the town in Taiwan where they grew up. There was some kind of seafood that was in season there, and they wanted to eat it. But more importantly they both had this decades-old craving for a special noodle - sa ca (a Taiwanese special sauce) rice noodles, to be precise - that their whole family had loved dearly when they were growing up there. They took a train from Taipei to the town, only to find their beloved childhood restaurant still in tact, but under construction. Seeing the despair on their fallen faces, a nearby witness of this tragedy informed them that the restaurant had another branch, but on the other side of town. The two of them immediately hopped in a taxi and scurried on over to said other branch, only to discover that they had just stopped serving for lunch. Desperate, they explained how they had come by train from Taipei, and before that they had flown all the way from New York -- ALL FOR THESE NOODLES, GODAMNIT! They begged and begged, and promised to eat the sa ca rice noodles only and nothing else. Pitying these poor fools, the restaurant indulged their request, and bestowed upon them two heaping bowls of noodles, making them the two happiest (grown-up) fat kids in all of Taiwan. And then they lived happily ever after.

The moral of this story is nothing will ever quite compare with the food you grew up eating. It will always have a special place in your heart, and it will always be the most delicious food you can imagine, especially when you move one gazillion miles away.

Last week I made a short trip to Taiwan and was able to confirm this phenomenon by the pure volume of food I consumed in the just 3.5 days I was there. Though I wasn't technically born there, I spent a significant part of my childhood in Taiwan and consider it home. Whenever I go back, my relatives always say I have "returned."

Of course, then, being from Taiwan makes it easy to crave desirously your childhood gastronomy -- the country is a food lover's promised land. If you visit, you will leave with the conclusion that it is the most food-obsessed place on earth. You would be correct.

Allow me now to share with you a little piece of my childhood:

First of all let me just explain my causal theory. There are no farmers' markets in Taiwan as far as I can tell. More accurately, all markets are essentially farmers' markets. All the food is fresh and largely unprocessed/preserved.






favorite breakfast food

Like a thin version of scallion pancake wrapped around an omelet. I actually got a modern version with bacon wrapped inside. Best. breakfast. ever.

beef noodle soup

Oh heavenly delight -- ordered "half beef, half tendon." Beef so tender it simply melts in your mouth, but the tendon is the real treat. Kind of like bone marrow, but more gelatinous and chewy.

loves of my life

Everyone already knows how much I love soup dumplings, but this takes love to a whole new level. Do you see the orange hue? That's crab roe (or, literally, crab yellow. a delicacy for us Chinese), so much of it you can see it through the skin. You will be a lucky son of a gun if you ever find that stateside (or anywhere else for that matter. Taiwan has arguably the best soup dumplings in the world, despite their origination in Shanghai)...

mah jong noodles

Sweet sweet mah jong noodles. Their simplicity is what makes them glorious -- just noodles coated with a sesame paste-soy sauce mixture, but this Taiwanese staple is one of my favorites. I made some tonight and threw in tomato and basil for experiment's sake. Modern day Marco Polo I am.

endangered pork buns

I'm pretty sure my brother Hans Tang actually cried tears of joy when he saw these. He used to eat FIFTY of these little water seared buns (think soup dumplings but pan steamed like potstickers) EVERY morning as a child. They are now endangered for some reason and have all gotten much larger. But cousin Arthur loves Hans Tang very much and brought him these special from one of the night markets.


oh-ah-jien

Although no one in my family speaks Taiwanese, we all know these words very well. Also native to Taiwan's night markets, they are gooey, oyster filled omelets, unlike any omelet you've ever had. And better, much much better.

stinky tofu!!

Yet another species of street food, it looks about as appetizing as it smells, but it tastes INCREDIBLE. Words can't do this mystery justice, so I'll stop trying.

food psychic

You also won't find scallion pancakes this light, fluffy, and flaky anywhere near the U.S. A minute after I bought mine, I randomly ran into Hans Tang on the street. He freaked out because he had just been saying how much he wanted those same pancakes, but he had just eaten lunch (bad excuse). He promptly took a few big bites out of mine. See, it's really not my fault -- my love for food is genetically programmed into my DNA, down to the types of street food I crave.


crushed ice desserts

This immediately makes me salivate. Fresh mango and taro with grass jelly and little glutinous balls over crushed ice. Party in my mouth, baby.

Funky Fresh Fruits:
something in the apple family


guava


passion fruit


dragon fruit


To be continued...