Taipei = Good Eating

If I'm going to talk about food in Taipei, and why would anyone talk about anything else, then I have to begin with dumplings. Above are the best dumplings in the world. No kidding fools. I die a little inside knowing I can't get them anywhere else but bloody Taipei, hogging all the dumpling action. You know how in the 'west' when you order dumplings you get either "steamed" or "fried", and if you choose "fried" they are deep fried completely, within an inch of their tender lives ?! Well, here's the news: in Taipei, they are steamed and then just fried on two sides. Maybe if you enlarge the picture and look closely you can tell - you probably don't want to do that though, or you might pass out from envy, and hanger.

At a Japanese place in the student area I had - a fried mix thing which ruled my life: lots of cabbage, gravy-ish sauce, cheese and an egg in the hot pot, served with rice. Weird fact: both Koreans and Germans are geniuses with cabbage (and apparently the Japanese). Maybe they had a secret meeting centuries ago...

Umm, this photo above is sub-standard ('cos I'm usually so Magnum), but I had to include it because that meal was my personal favourite. What I love about the Taiwanese (apart from their hot bods) is their total inclusion of vegetables and they devotion to making them really sing. In my country (New Zealand) many housewives spend their lives boiling vegetables into a soggy mess and wondering why their kids don't like it. In Taiwan, people cover their vegetables with delicious spices, throw in some chopped and roasted peanuts, and try to fight their kids off. Literally, this was happening at the table beside us.

Ooh and then I had a whitey breakfast of salmon eggs benedict at the most fabulous western-style cafe in Taipei - Grandma Nitti's. I was actually at the place across the road, but it's run by the same people, has more space and you don't have to wait forever to be seated. Bonus.

Below, Samuel's face when I had my eggs benedict and he didn't.