sushi express

I love eating sushi. Especially here, as I know I will never be able to eat sushi this good for this cheap ever again in my life. Really, it’s almost better to get it here than Japan – it may be higher quality and more authentic there, but it’s also more expensive.

We do have a terrific sushi restaurant that does great set platters for cheap. I love it and we go as often as possible, leaving full and happy. This is not that place. However, Sushi Express has sushi on a conveyor belt. MOVING SUSHI! And it’s good as well, lots of different flavours. You can also order off the menu. Each plate here costs about $1US and the selection is almost anything you want (within reason). It’s fun to see the stack of plates after a family or a very hungry couple get up to leave.

We don’t visit the express all the time, but it’s a fun alternative and there’s one close by. Sometimes you just can’t beat a conveyor.

(expensive) indonesian in kaohsiung

Indonesian is hard to find here in Kaohsiung. I’ve heard of a couple of places but have been unable to find them. We found one home-kitchen-style place in a mosque that wasn’t bad, but it was a bit of a drive out. When one place opened up on our way to work, we were understandably excited – Indonesia had had some of our favourite food in our travels of SE Asia.

It was very obvious that someone had transformed their front room into a restaurant as soon as we walked in – there was a lot of house within sight of our table. We placed our order and waited.

Satay came out first. It was a tasty, though simple, sauce and very good meat. Half a dozen skewers made for a solid appetizer.

Gado gado was by far my favourite individual dish from SE Asia. A huge plate of vegetables with a boiled egg, tofu, and lots of complex peanut sauce. This one was a little lacking – not so many veggies, no boiled egg, and the peanut sauce was the same as the satay (that was not the case in our previous experiences). It was still OK, but only OK.

The coconut chicken that came last tasted like a chicken cooked in a strong coconut curry sauce. Good meat and the sauce was OK – I like coconut a lot, so that saved this one. Maybe the problem was our expectations.

All of these made a decent meal together, but when we got the bill, it was almost twice what we had been expecting. One cannot expect international food to be cheaper than local food, but this one meal cost us more than we had spent on lunch for the entire week! I wouldn’t have even minded if the food had been something worth coming for, but it was merely mediocre. To pay the amount that we did (over $30US for the two of us, which may not sound like a lot back home, but that’s more than you’d spend for one at the entire-floor-sized buffet in the most expensive hotel in town) for a middling meal like this ticked me off a bit, especially with things like the peanut sauce being one big batch. I’m picky about details sometimes.

I would definitely not recommend this place to anyone and almost wanted to warn people coming in as we went out. I don’t have an exact address, but I will definitely tell you how to avoid it if you contact me.

The search for good Indonesian continues!

thai food – the original spicy

Some of my favourite Thai food that I’ve ever had – and that includes some of the stuff I’ve had in Thailand – is right here in Kaohsiung. A large part of that is because the restaurant I love here is run by a wonderful Thai woman who is dedicated to her food – she grows her own kaffir lime tree at her house, to give just one indication. Going to this restaurant is always a love, never a labour, as the food is just so. damn. good.

There is a giant menu of delicious food to enjoy at this place, but today I’m going to list three of our favourites. So much our favourites, in fact, that we order them almost exclusively. Every time we visit it’s just enough time to miss these beloved dishes, so we renew our contracts with them until our next visit.

We start with the shrimp cakes. Nice big fat ones (they also have thin little ones which provide more for a big group, but less satisfaction for a small twosome) with the sweet and spicy thai sauce. These disappear quickly. Always.

Next up: the pad thai. This isn’t the best pad thai I’ve ever had – that was from a couple at a cart on the side of the road in Bangkok, I can still remember it – but it satisfies nonetheless. They give the lemon, the peanuts, and the spicy mix on the sides just like in Thailand, though I miss the sugar a bit.

Lastly, the red chicken coconut curry. An absolute masterpiece down to the last drop of sauce lovingly licked off the plate. The perfect amount of spiciness every time, and I’m sure that if we ever wanted more (or less) it would not be a problem. Wonderful consistency, bits of basil and kafir lime dotting the brown and red landscape, and the coconut jumps through it all. I definitely haven’t had a better curry in Taiwan and I can only recall one as good in Thailand. Yeah, that good.

You’d be wronging yourself if you were in Kaohsiung and you didn’t visit this place. There’s more on the menu and I hope to explore it more if I ever manage to break the contract of this triad of dishes. Enjoy!

The Original Spicy
47 Fushing 2nd Rd.
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

the sea palace

Last night was our school Chinese New Year dinner. This is a tradition here, the one time that the boss is supposed to lay out for the employees. Really, it’s the equivalent of a Christmas party – good food, bonuses, the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle. Ours was held at The Sea Palace, a place, we were told by a friend, that was known as a fancy place to get drunk, eat seafood, and sing karaoke (there’s one in each of the private rooms).

There were no pictures, as I thought of that too late. We had to wait forever for the food and I was hungry. I’ll still share the menu (with commentary):

• Watermelon Juice and Coconut Milk – these were the beverages. Yum. I drank a lot of coconut milk.
• Sashimi – Mmmm. Not enough of this. Served on a big fancy metal boat-like plate on lots of ice.
• Shrimp – Done the Taiwanese way – head still on.
• Soup with Gills? – A thick, viscous broth with mushrooms and a part of a fish a friend told us is very expensive to put in soups. She thought it was the fin, but it looked like the gills. It was alright, but nothing to write home about (just on a blog).
• Fried Shrimp – These resembled corn dogs – lots of breading around some shrimp. Served with lettuce to act as a bun and some funky-tasting mustard and ketchup.
• Boiled (?) Fish – They do fish in a kind of way here that’s terrific – I believe it’s boiled. The whole fish is served (the eldest at the table gets the privilege of the eyes…) and people just carve hunks off of it. It’s delicious and it disappeared really quickly. This is a very common dish at group functions.
• Honey Pork Strips – the only non-fish dish. Tasty.
• Baked Cream with Crab and Cabbage – A lumpy white sauce on top of cabbage and crab at the bottom. I enjoyed it, Chris was so-so on it.
• Scallop and Mushroom and Ginseng soup – Loved the scallops, but the rest of the soup didn’t do anything for me. Ginseng makes appearances in a lot of dishes here, and I haven’t liked it yet. It’s a bitter taste that I just don’t go in for.
• Crab & Noodles – A big pot of noodles with crab came next. It was all parts of the crab. I got some of the main body, which is supposedly revered, but it didn’t have any meat except for a few scraps of brain. The noodles were good, though.
• Rice in a Banana leaf – There was also some kind of sweet paste in it. The wrapped-rice snack is very popular around Dragon Boat Festival and I like those, but I kind of picked at this one. It was OK, I was also quite full by this point. I don’t know what the sweet paste was made from, but the rice was quite sticky and had peanuts and small pieces of shrimp in it.
• Fruit & Flan – Typical desserts. Watermelon and honeydew melon.

And that was the night. Instead of cash bonuses, everyone had their name drawn for something. I got a rose-scented bath set from Evelyn and Crabtree and Chris won one of the big prizes, a purse from Louis Vuitton. I believe it is authentic – quite the bonus! They made her sing a karaoke song to earn it.

As a side note, we were discussing the fact that, at least for our pallettes, the more expensive and special something is touted to be here in Taiwan, the less actually enjoyable it generally is. I’ve had some terrific night market or road-side restaurant food here for cheap, but generally, the really expensive stuff, while good, has been far from the best of what I’ve eaten. It’s like shark fin soup: highly treasured, tastes like nothing. This night was kind of like that: some tasty dishes (though the ones we enjoyed the most we’ve had before for presumably less), but overall something that probably cost much more than the enjoyment we got out of it. We were in the minority, though – I think the group as a whole enjoyed it. And hey, free food.

heart attack

This dish is ordered by asking for “niu pai mian” – beef steak noodles. We have christened it with the name “heart attack”. Why? Well, it starts with noodles flash-fried with mushroom gravy. A thin steak (other meats are available) is cooked up and an egg fried. The noodles are plopped on a searing hot plate (heated in the fire) with a little gravy, then the egg, then the beef. A little more gravy is added, plus a black pepper gravy if you like. It’s served to you still sizzling and here’s the secret: a little A-1 sauce unlocks the magic. It’s still good without, but it’s amazing with. They have it on the table sometimes, but we bring our own now on the off-chance there is none – it does happen and it’s a tragedy.

You also get egg drop corn soup and all the tea you can drink. Pretty slick! Not too high on the vegetable count, though. Oh, and other meats available include pork, goat, chicken, and other cuts of beef. There may be even more, but I don’t know the Chinese.

I’ll detail one location here, but there are quite a few of these around town, you just have to know what they look like. This is our favourite.

Heart Attack
Yihua Road, east of Dachang, beside the Familymart on the south side of the road (outdoor sidewalk seating)
60-100NT per platter
Open 4pm – late, I think around midnight.

ramen, but not from a package

Ramen is known as a Japanese dish, but it’s actually Chinese in origin. These origins, however, are murky at best, and the Japanese have strongly developed this industry, so let’s just say that they’re all Japanese all the time.

In our first days here, some friends met us at a tiny little ramen place close to their apartment (and close to ours now). There were about ten different choices of ramen broths – miso, tomato, kimchi, spicy, and curry, to name a few. There are also a number of small side dishes and a few rice meals that can have popcorn chicken, curry, pork chop, or fish. These come with a couple of tiny shiao wan (literally, small dishes) of vegetables and some soup. Hot tea is complimentary.

The ambiance is nice (the TV is in the family’s apartment, not in the restaurant) with an eclectic mix of music always playing and it’s never packed, at least when we go. It does seem popular, however, and often has other people when we’re there. It’s a small place – only six tables – but then again, so are most Taiwanese restaurants, especially the treasures.

Japanese Ramen place (look for the sign on the east side that says Japan in Chinese)
on Chiouchang Road (Jiangong Road after it crosses Benguan Road)
Meals: 80NT (half-sized ramen) – 130NT.
Open lunch and dinner hours (11-2, 5-9, I believe)

the soul of new york

Two food stops were on my list when we hit New York. The first was one that I’d indulged in before – the notorious pastrami on rye with a pickle on the side, the well-known specialty of the mythical New York Jewish deli. I’d had it the last time we were in New York and was hankering for another. I’ve also had Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches in Montreal (at Schwartz’s, no less) and I do have to say, pastrami on rye may be good, but it’s no Schwartz’s. However, that is a little apple and orange talk, so let’s just concentrate what we’re eating – big, tasty sandwiches.

These were tasty, though not the best I’ve had. We researched recommendations and came up with 2nd Avenue Deli. The coleslaw was delicious, there were two kinds of pickles (and about a dozen of them total), and spicy mustard to accompany it all. We walked out stuff to the gills and happy to have had our New York pastrami.

The other food which blew me away was soul food. Being from Canada, I’d never tried this soul food thing. I was missing out. It’s about as far away from healthy as gasoline is from potable water, but man is it good. Our first experience was with Amy Ruth’s in Harlem, just down the street from our good friends, JB and PJ. They brought us here and I just about died. You sit down and cornbread appears in front of you. Boom. Sweet cornbread, hot, with butter waiting to be spread on it. And that’s just for when you’re deciding what to really eat.

Most dishes come with side dishes. Christine got fried chicken with macaroni and cheese and collard greens, JB got three side dishes – corn, mac and cheese, and collard greens, and PJ got…oh man, I don’t remember, though I remember her getting fried okra, because I ate some. I think collard greens were on her plate as well. They are good, those greens.

My order was chicken and waffles with gravy. You might not think that those two things go well together – I had never put them in juxtaposition before. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat one without thinking of the other again. And the gravy! And syrup! It all just mixes together to create this heavenly salty-sweet-waffly combination that made me moan with each bite. I didn’t want to finish and as soon as I was finished, I was dreaming about having it again. It was that good.

We tried Sylvia’s about a week later, which is also within walking distance of our friends’ place. It was good, but I have to say, Amy Ruth’s outdistanced Sylvia’s quite easily. In the end, however, I was just happy to engage in soul food eatin’ again. Even writing about it now, having just eaten some wonderful fajitas, I’m almost aching for chicken and waffles.

Soul food: Even atheists love it.

empanadas galore

Yes, it’s time for the continuing story of the Great Empanada Search. Back in Buenos Aires, we hit three new empanada places of note, each noteworthy in their noteworthiness for the notes they sang in our empanada hearts (a.k.a. stomachs).

First up was a little chain joint called Cumen-Cumen that was luckily right by our house. Almost two dozen flavours threatened to overwhelm us, necessitating numerous trips back to sample them all. Of course, they had the typical choices, but some really out-there ones were also included: cheese, plum, and bacon; cheese, sausage, and a kind of hot pepper that wasn’t hot; cheese, mustard, and meat (couldn’t taste the mustard, unfortunately); an empanada with matabre (a filled, rolled cut of cow); the list goes on. Great place, as can be evidenced by the number of times we visited. Probably the best chain I’ve visited.

Next up were Bolivian empanadas at La Peceña (pictured). A simple menu (pizza, salad (which they didn’t have), beer and wine, stews, and empanadas), we went for a couple of the stews and a slew of empanadas. The long ones are called amarreños and are the same, just differently-shaped.

Since there was a group, we got almost every kind available – tuna, humita (corn in a whitish egg sauce), spicy beef, spicy chicken, puka-kupa (spicy cabbage), verdura (vegetable), and al-to-ke (basil, tomato, cheese). The dough was hardier than we were used to – it seemed to be made from a corn flour rather than light, fluffy wheat flour. These were empanadas to be contented with! Everything was wonderfully saucy – a big plus in all of our reviews. In fact, it seemed like the al-to-ke was made with mostly tomato sauce with hunks of tomato, a welcome reprieve from the Argentine ones we had gotten used to eating where you have to search for a spot of red.

The spicy empanadas all had kick to them. In fact, the chicken eater had to stop once or twice to avoid being overspiced. Maybe she’s been eating Argentine food too long? Lastly, the puka-kupa, while sounding weird (spicy cabbage? Where are we, Korea?) was both spicy (living up to its promise) and tasty. I really enjoyed it a lot. We also tried the stews, which were good but not the best I’ve ever tried. The chicken was pretty good, however. The whole experience was definitely worth the trip way out. In fact, we did try going again, but they were closed for vacation. ¡Qué triste!

Lastly, on our friends’ last night, we elected to try La Cupertina, said by Layne to be her favourite empanadas in the city. Being empanadas tucumanas, I can see why. The dough killed me – it was so light and thin. I’ve never seen dough in the city like this (neither has she). Unfortunately, I was feeling under the weather and just got one down – the Tucumán classic, carne a cuchillo (cut meat, rather than ground beef), though it was very tasty. By the way everyone else at the table scarfed their empanadas down, it seemed like they enjoyed their choices as well, a mixture of humita, chicken, beef, and cheese & onion. Another place that is definitely worth a taste on your own Empanada Trail.

And so we’re off to Corrientes to try out empanadas their, then up in Paraguay. Our first international empanadas! Wish us tasting luck…

Cumen Cumen (there’s one on Córdoba around 3000 or so)
La Paceña, Echeverria 2570, 4788-2282
La Cupertina, Cabrera 5296, 4777-3711

another great saltshaker meal

Just wanted to give another shout-out to my favourite chef in the city, Saltshaker Dan (as I call him in my head). We went there with friends a couple of weeks ago and had a fabulous vegetarian meal. Their first time, our third, everyone left sated and very, very happy (three of us had to have a post-supermeal cigarette. Yours truly was the holdout). You can read about the entire meal on Dan’s site. Chris fell in love with the pickled watermelon (there’s hope for her in pickling heaven yet!), while I loved the yuca souffle (and, well, everything). We’ll be back for one last theme before we leave the continent in May.

other latin american food

Just because we’ve been in Argentina for all this time doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy food from the rest of the continent!

This photo is a a very typical Colombian meal – beans, rice, fried plantains, egg, meat – that we enjoyed at Antojito with close friends, including two who had never tried Colombian before. Five of us chowed down on a selection of plates suggested by the owner: this dish, another plate of varied foods like this (sorry, can’t remember what there was on it), a guiso (stew) called sancochomade from a bunch of root vegetables, corn, meat, and some other delicious things, with appetizers of a kind of bread called arepa made from corn with cheese in the middle and home-made pig skins, made from real pig skin! In fact, when one examined it closer, one could still see hair not quite fully scraped away from the skin. Good eatin’, though. We also sampled (and will sample again in the future) aguadiente, which is similar to caña – cane sugar liquor.

Antojito is a family owned joint, it seems – dad is owner and head waiter and greeter, son is a waiter, mom is the chef. As we were finishing up, one of our group joked that she’d kill for the recipe of the guiso. The waiter told us to hold on a minute and brought his mother out to tell us. Not only did she give us a basic run-down of what to do, she wrote it down so that we could have it after we left. Obviously she didn’t give us every last thing (her description was full of, “Oh, just toss some of this in,”), but it’s a place to start! I’ll post it when I get it (the list was taken by another member).

There is another Colombian place nearby called La Aromatica, which I’ll provide the info for, but it was closed the entire month we were here in Buenos Aires this time. Too bad – it’s a tiny little intimate place with great food and nice people. Hopefully it opens back up soon – maybe they’re just enjoying summer vacation.

Lastly, we are also staying in the Peruvian area (very close to where we were living before), and though we visited this area often (Peruvian food is probably my favourite that I’ve tried down here so far), I’ve never written about it. No pictures, but I’ll describe some of our favourite dishes briefly from one of our favourite restaurants, Carlitos. Chris’ favourite by far is called ahí de gallina, shredded chicken in a yellow pepper sauce common in Peru, while I often had cabrito (goat), which was hit or miss – sometimes it came falling off the bone, sometimes it took a little chewing. It always came with delicious beans, though.

We’ve sampled a few other dishes from there as well – chifa, for one, which is Chinese-Peruvian (mostly Chinese, but good Chinese), considered part of Peru since Chinese labourers settled there over a century ago. We’ve also tried the ceviche – raw fish ‘cooked’ in lime juice with hot peppers and onions – and some other fish dishes (Peruvians love their seafood).

Of course, more about these dishes will come as we hit the countries, it’s just great to be able to get ourselves excited about them beforehand and enjoy them without having to leave the city.

Antojito, Córdoba 3883, 4867-6312
La Aromatica, Bulnes 873, 4866- 2300
Carlitos, Corrientes 3070, 4867-2531 / 4861-6440