squid soup

One of the most iconic Taiwanese dish that is often overlooked by visitors and even locals is the squid soup (魷魚羹).  I am guilty of this negligence as well, since I have not seek out this dish during my last three trips back home, and it was one of my favorite thing to eat growing up.  During my latest trip there last week, I needed to rectified that error in judgement.  At a family dinner, one of my aunts happened to brought up that this squid soup place down the lane from my childhood home is still around and being run by the same family (for ~30 years !), but moved around the corner from its original location (it used to be on lane 210, section 3 of Roosevelt Rd. in Taipei, now it is on section 3, Tingzhou St., the shop is called 耕莘魷魚羹).  Clearly I had to go.

The Taiwanese squid soup is a soup made from a light seafood based stock (like a dashi) and thickened with corn or sweet potato starch.  The squid is typically this big, thick and brownish kind often sold dried and soaked in water before cooking.  You sometimes find julienne bamboo shoots, napa cabbage and daiko radish in the soup.  The soup is topped with fresh basil leafs and sha cha sauce (or satay sauce, 沙茶醬).  At this place, they also give you a small dish of a very unique dipping sauce that is kinda like satay sauce, but slightly tart and also a little bit sweet and fruity.

This bowl is not only a thing of beauty, it also tasted just like I remembered (it is fantastic, nostalgia or not).  This is a cliche, but many childhood memories rushed back to my head as I ate this.  At NTD 65 a bowl (it was NTD35 30 years ago ...  yes, I am getting old), it is a bargain not only by the standard of north American food, but also quite a deal locally.  Prices of squid, I was told, has gone up quite a bit recently here, and many shops have become stingy with it, you would be lucky to find 5 pieces in a bowl of soup.  While I was too busy eating to count, the serving here is definitely generous, as it has always been.
 

 

The same smiling and very polite lady still runs the shop, with the help of her son.  One other thing worth mentioning is that not only the soup is excellent, the shop is also very very clean, which is not always the case for these type of casual eateries or stalls.  While she didn't recognize me, she knows of my family and the building that we use to live in when I mentioned it to her.  I am really happy that I got a chance to visit and eat at this place, I will definitely be back here whenever I can.  

Taipei layover

I had to be in Singapore last week for work.  With the EVA Air flight from YYZ to TPE that landed on Saturday morning, I had a choice to stop in Taipei for 24 hours or go straight to SIN, it was an easy choice to make.  The idea here was to eat, and see the family, in no particular order.

The first thing my wife wanted to eat after being away for 3.5 months and 15 hours trapped in a giant metal tube with wings was a traditional taiwanese breakfast: hot soy milk, taiwanese pancake with egg (蛋餅), and stuffed glutinous rice ball (飯糰).  I was too busy eating so don't have any pictorial evidence of this.

A couple of hours later, we went to my favorite breakfast/lunch spot in the entire city.  I have posted about this place before, a noodle / fish ball soup place next to my old high school.  Busy as ever on a chilly saturday morning, a meal here never disappoints.   If we ever move back to Taipei, I would look into moving into the neighborhood so I can eat breakfast here all the time, although I have a feeling I can't afford the apartments around here. 

  

Sometimes it is fun to be a tourist in a city you (sort of) know.  So after lunch we went to a famous shop selling a Taiwanese specialty pastry.  This very nicely appointed space which is always mobbed sells this pineapple filled pastry (鳳梨酥) that can be found at a lot of places in Taiwan, but theirs is supposed to be one of the best.  This operation is a bit unusual, everyone who walks into the door is welcome to sit at a table, and a nice cup of tea and one of these pastry is brought to each person, free of charge.  It seems that most folks who came here usually purchase at least one box of it to take home, freeloading is not the norm.  Clearly the business model works because the place has been around for a while and is now a tourist destination (we were told by our uber driver, and a couple of camera toting Japanese girls sat next to us at the shop).

   

After the tea and pastry (I wanted to be a freeloader, but my wife bought two boxes ...), we walked around a neighborhood near the smaller Taipei city airport (TSA).  There were a few nice boutiques selling Japanese made clothing, furniture etc, but what was interesting was that a few piece of empty plots were converted into urban vegetable gardens.  Each person who registered gets what look like a 12' x 4' piece of land to grow vegetable and flower.  Most of the urban farmers we saw tending to their miniature farms were older folks.  I think it is not only a great way to find a good use for unused public land, but it is also good for some retired folks to get outdoors and exercise a bit.  A interesting tidbit from this urban farm was that there were a lot of CDs hanging on hooks over the vegetables, my best guess is that they were there to scare away birds or bugs. 

(My wife and her friend Sophie ate waffles at a near by coffee shop while I did some work on the laptop)

 

On to spicy hotpot dinner with the family, again too busy eating and catching up so no pictures.  Then ~4 hours of zzz later it was off to the airport again.  I can't think of a more pleasant and fun layover than this.  

 

  

my favorite breakfast

I may have posted about this in the past, forgive if I did (not that anyone is paying attention).

During my two years of high school in Taipei (I finished high school in Vancouver WA), I ate breakfast most school day mornings at a road side noodle stand next to my school.  They had two things on the menu, 'dry' noodles (means noodles not in soup) seasoned with fish sauce, and fish balls in broth.  The noodles are fresh, cooked just right, with a bit of scallion on top.  I usually put in a bit of dark rice vinegar and chili sauce available on the tables.  The fish balls are 福州魚丸, the kind that has ground pork stuffed in the middle.  These are by far the best fish balls I have ever had.  You can get a poached egg in the soup, and of course that is what you want to opt for (this was 20 years ago, well before people started adding soft eggs in / on everything).

I visited the place on this recent trip back to Taipei, the operation is still run by the same nice couple.  But instead of just a cart with couple of road side tables, it is now a small shop, with a few tables inside and a few tables on the covered sidewalk.  They also have a few helpers now.  The noodles and the fish balls were exactly the same as I remembered.  I never knew the exact hours of the place, because in the past it was always already bustling by the time I showed up for school at around 7:00 am.  And they used to shut it after noodles they made for the day were sold out, usually before lunch time.  I think they now stay open for lunch, but for me, it will always be the best breakfast I can ask for.   

long-awaited return

I visited family in Taipei during Chinese New Year, it has been 8 years since the last time I was here. Lots have changed, including the nicer looking airport (its arrival hall pictured above).  What hasn't changed is that you can find great things to eat at almost every corner. The much expanded MRT makes traversing the city to sample the many eats worth traveling for much easier.  Taipei may lack star attractions in terms of chefs and the Michelin variety, but it is easily one of the best food city in the world due to the abundance of awesome ingredients and its historical background that resulted in a mix of culinary influences from different regions of China and other Asian countries.  I look forward to return to it again very soon.