Food Journey #16 --Kan Pai Yakiniku Restaurant (乾杯燒肉店)

First of all, my apologies that I am still blogging about my trip to Taipei as I finally have the time to retrieve below photos of a truly great venue which you must ALL visit when you are in Taipei. Note this posting is not all about the quality of food, but more on the overall vibe, atmosphere of the restaurant. Yakiniku (焼き肉 or 焼肉), means "grilled meat", is a Japanese term which, in its broadest sense, refers to grilled meat dishes. In a yakiniku restaurant in Japan, diners order several types of prepared raw ingredients (either individually or as a set) which are brought to the table. The ingredients are cooked by the diners on a grill built into the table throughout the duration of the meal, several pieces at a time. The most common sauce is made of Japanese Soy Saucemixed with sake, mirrin, sugar, garlic and sesame and sometimes yakiniku is eaten seasoned only with salt. This was my 2nd visit to Kan Pai located conveniently in Dunhua South Road in the heart of Taipei and please book a table prior your visit as the waiting list is normally 1 month long. It is simply a restaurant whereby guys & girls all gathering around to drink beer & eat grilled meat -- what a perfect combination for sure. I wouldnt go into any details of signature dishes as tastes & flavour do not really matter when you are downing your beers with sake-bomb! The restaurant itself is extremely noisy, full of drunkards and is now becoming a tourist hotspot for some authentic Taiwanese dining. Highlight of the evening will be at 8pm whereby staff of the restaurant will go around each table to select couples of whom will have to "snog" or "french-kiss" in front of the whole restaurant for 10 secs. Not difficult for sure after a few beverages and each group of contestant's table will recieve a plate of free Korean Beef and free pints on the house! Resolution of the photo is not very good as below but the restaurant is decorated with polaroids of couples doing it! Another highlight at 8pm is that everybody in the restaurant will have to stand up and do a Kan Pai (meaning CHEERS) and the beers will be automatically refilled by this good looking fella as below. He (His name is Ah Shun) will come around to each table with a backpack, like a portable beer barrel and refills with all your beers with a pipe. Now, that is COOL! Overall experience of the restaurant is that it is a very fun place, not your usual place to hang out but if you want something to kick start a good night, Kan Pai is the place for you 100%. Absolutely love that place! Happy Eating!!! Ciao Geoff

If you want more details on Kan Pai, please visit http://www.kanpai.com.tw/main2.html

Address: No 17, Lane 236, Dunhua S Road, Section 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段 236 巷 17 號)

Tel No: 02-2776-3460

Food Quality (5* the highest): ****

Price for lunch (5$ = very expensive): $$$

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Food Journey #11 - Food in Taipei

Taipei snacks are definitely delicious but, in general, the food in Taipei is bloody marvellous! Just look at all the photos which I took on this trip. No idea where to start the review but considering I was in Taipei for 3 days only,

check out my recommended places in Taipei for this!

Wing Kong Beef Noodle 永康牛肉麵

Was highly recommended to visit this small noodle shop near Gold Mountain Road (金山街) and it is infamous for its Beef. You name any part of the cow, they will serve it in this shop.

For starters, we ordered the Soy Sauce mix with Beef Tendon and it was very delicious. The texture of the beef tendon is very chewy and the pairing with the soy sauce was perfect. Since the highlight of this restaurant is beef therefore we tried out the Stewed Beef & Tendon Noodles (Spicy) and regular Beef Noodles with Plain Broth. The beef was so delicious that I ended up eating most of the beef in both sets of noodles. However, slight disapointment was the noodles and it just wasnt exciting.

If you are a carnivore especially towards beef, highly recommended to visit this place but otherside, nothing else very much stands out in this restaurant. My additional advice is that do not order Spicy Red Oil Won Ton (紅油炒手) from this place as I couldnt taste a single flavour of spicyness and my mouth was littered with Peanut Butter sauce which was revolting. For a small noodle shop, spending around HKD300 for 4 people is considered to be extremely expensive!!

Food Quality (5* the highest): *** Price for lunch (5$ = very expensive): $$$$$

Tripod King (鼎王麻辣鍋)

If you like spicy Sze Chuan Spicy Hot Pot, this is the talk of the town. Unlike Din Tai Fung (see review below), it tooks us 5 weeks to reserve a table and that we had to have dinner at 1730pm just for this. Checked it out to see what the fuss was about and I can see why it requires such advance booking.

Our hot pot broth was medium spiced but it was very flavourful, not "too"spicy and it was littered with fresh To-Fu and (if you are not an internal organ fan, please turn away) congelated Pig's Blood. What was special was that it was an unlimited refill on the broth, tofu and congelated Pig's Blood throughout dinner and it was very filling indeed.

*The Beef & Lamb was very flavourful but too bad, they do not serve the local beef from Hong Kong (本地肥牛) or else it would have been more special.

*The selection of Meat & Fish Balls (Pork, Prawn, Squid, Beef) was very delicious indeed and much much better than the ones you can get in Hot Pot places in Hong Kong.

*The Crab roe with crab meat appeared in a small bamboo cone and that was also a treat for the evening. Not only did the crab meat tasted actually like crab but the crab roe inside the crab meat was also very tasty indeed.

Overall, extremely pleasant dining experience in Tripod King and can see why it was worth the wait. Downside is that their tea kettle is extremely heavy to be lifted to pour tea. Also, you will also begin to notice that the number of beers which one consumes during this dinner is uncountable. Highly recommended venue in Taipei!

Food Quality (5* the highest): ****

Price for lunch (5$ = very expensive): $$$

Din Tai Fung on Chung Xsiao East Road (鼎泰豐)

Quite possibly Taiwan's signature restaurant, so famous that it has signages inside the subway station point out the direction of this particular restaurant. Tourist hotspot and required 3 weeks in advance for this table booking. Very famous for their dumplings, Chinese Buns, Chinese Noodles and dumplings. My personal favourite dish in Din Tai Fung is their Drunken Chicken (醉雞), texture of the chicken tastes like an organic chicken and very sweet tender + much much better than the chicken you can find in Hong Kong. The Spicy Red Oil Won Ton (紅油炒手) is also a definite treat.

Do try out this place but my advice is to book in advance!

Food Quality (5* the highest): **** Price for lunch (5$ = very expensive): $$

Check out on my next posting soon on the savoury desserts & bakery in Taipei!!!!

Geoff

Food Journey #10 -- Snacks in Taipei

Exhausting trip to Taipei from Sat - Mon whereby it was a total 3 days of non-stop work, food & partying with old friends. Been to Taipei on many occasions but this time with a main purpose to cover interesting reviews on my unique food adventure. Looking through my camera, I have taken so many photos solely on food therefore stay tune with my blog as I will be reviewing various items starting from today. We will dedicate today's posting on snacks in Taipei!

Street Snacks in Taipei:

Geez, this is not even 1/10 of the photos which I have taken and I have choosen below food to feature about as they are absolutely delicious!

1) Pancake Wrap with Mochi & Green Tea -- You can purchase this from the food court in Mitsuokushi (星光三越) near New York New York in Shun Yi District

2) When you are in Taipei, the "drink" to quench your thirst in 35 degree of heat is Taiwan's infamous bubble tea. For some odd reason, it tastes a lot better than the ones in Hong Kong, much more authentic and the bubbles in the tea are extremely chewy. Only go to Ti Yen Tea House for this (天仁)

3) Deep Friend Prawn Balls in Qiu Fen (九份), very tasty and pairs very well with sweet & sour sauce. Maybe I was extremely hungry on the day which made it even more delicious!

4) God knows how many types of sausauges there are in Taipei on the streets, but the regular pork sausauges, pork sausauges with fish roe (飛魚子) and black squid ink sausauges I thought were very interesting. Very different to your usual American BBQ or English Pork Sausauges and especially the black squid ink sausauge with its unusual colour.

5) **Grilled Jumbo Mushroom (雞脾菇) with smoked paprika in Qiu Fen (九份) for me is the best street food one get possibly eat. How often do you eat street food that is healthy but yet so tasty and juicy!!! My highest recommendation for the trip to Taipei!

6) Shaved Caramalised Peanut Chunks with Vanilla Ice-Cream Pan-cake -- I only took 2 bites of this and when you have eaten & tried out various food items during this short trip, there is literally no room for more food. Very sweet but the caramelised peanut chunks are very tasty.

Overall, I highly recommend to go try out the Grilled Jumbo Mushroom as it is one of the best snacks I have possibly have had in this region. Snacks in Taiwan are an absolute treat and I strongly recommend you all to visit the nightmarkets to try out the local snacks.

Next blog posting will be related to truly delectable meals in Taipei and stay tune!

Part 1 -- Taiwanese Bubble Tea (珍珠奶茶)

Round 1:: One More Cup in Causeway Bay 再來一 杯 Have been to this location a few times and it is conveniently located in the heart of Causeway Bay behind Sogo, often with a long queue of people waiting for their summer's favourite beverage (aside from beer) -- Taiwanese Bubble Tea (珍珠奶茶). Today, my conquest was to review this place so we ordered the following: Regular flavoured Taiwanese Bubble Tea ($10) Previous experiences tells me that it is very sweet so do order low-sugar with A LOT OF BUBBLES (珍珠) with no extra charges unlike other location. If you do not know what the bubbles are, they are very chewy winegum like texture which is sunk at the bottom of the cup and is tasteless but somewhat goes very well with a drink to have something to chew on. Overall flavour and taste is very good, your perfect drink during the summer and remember, it is only $10!! Chocolate flavoured Bubble Tea ($17) This is a new flavour as I wanted something more Un-Original -- felt like a crossover between Starbucks and Taiwanese Bubble Tea. If you are calorie conscious, please DO NOT order this as it is very sweet yet very tasty. Somehow, I know the staff quite well so the bubble portion was very generous. Kudos to their staff on this. It is very chocolatey for sure and very filling, could well have contained the equivalent calories for a dinner. Again, at $10, your good drink to get during summer Downside is that standing in the middle of Causeway Bay (very crowded area of Hong Kong just like anywhere else in Hong Kong) waiting for this drink is not the best thing to do in summer and at peak times, quite possibly Hong Kong's slowest service! Have no idea how they can make money at $10 a drink!! Address: No. 518, Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay (銅鑼灣謝斐道518號) Quality (5* = the highest quality): *** Price (5$ = very expensive): $