My Humble House Restaurant [寒舍食譜]

Visit: April 7, 2012
Address: 台北市信義區松仁路38號2F (Le Meridien)
Number: (02) 2321-1818
Website: http://www.lemeridien-taipei.com/#/cuisine/1

YAY, finally trying the highly regarded My Humble House at Le Merdien! When I walked into the restaurant, I was so impressed by the atmosphere of the restaurant. Although the interiors were really nice and classy, the restaurant did not have that high-end oppressive atmosphere, but instead had a really friendly but classy surrounding.

Crispy Barbecued Pork (脆皮叉燒) $480 NT 

Crispy Barbecued Pork

 The crispy barbecued pork wasn't the traditional kind, but it was completely cooked to ultimate soft and tenderness. When you place the pork in your mouth, the meat practically melts on your tongue. This was definitely the best barbecued pork I've had; however I really wished that the outside was crispier and more caramelized. I know it sounds kind of weird, but the outside kind of reminds me of a creme brulee.

Pan-fried Diced Chicken with Kailan, Black Pepper and Green Onion (碧綠川椒雞) $460 NT

Pan-fried Diced Chicken with Kailan, Black Pepper and Green Onions

 Out of all the dishes, this was the most mediocre dish. The chicken wasn't particularly good and just very normal tasting. Although the chicken was very tender, the black pepper sauce was a little too food court tasting.

Black and White Wood Ear Fungus with Aged Vinegar (老陳醋黑白木耳) $150 NT

Black and White Wood Ear Fungus with Aged Vinegar

I know that this was supposed to be a Chinese dish, but it actually tasted Western. Instead of the traditional rice vinegar, it tasted more like balsamic vinegar - which I enjoyed (: I also liked how the restaurant didn't use a drop of oil... or more specifically sesame oil, so it was a lot more refreshing.

Chicken Flat Rice Roll (雞肉腸粉) $250 NT

Chicken Flat Rice Roll

I've never actually had anything other than shrimp or pork inside the rice roll, so imagine my delight when I found two new things in my rice roll - Chinese fried dough and chicken. The crispiness of the fried dough really added a crunchy delight to the usually soft and floppy roll. 


Steamed Taro Cakes (香蒸素芋糕) $150 NT

Steamed Taro Cakes

The taro cakes at My Humble House is very unconventional. I really liked how they kept the actual form of the taro and also arranged it in such a cute fashion; however the taro cake was a little too dry and bland for my liking.

Honey Glazed Barbecued Pork Puff Pastries (蜜汁叉燒酥) $150 NT

Honey Glazed Barbecued Pork Puff Pastries

 I love love love barbecued pork puff pastries, and these did not disappoint.

Herb and Mushroom Dumplings (香草素菌蒸粉粿) $150 NT

Herb and Mushroom Dumplings

 When the dish was served, I was immediately attracted to the dumplings' interesting appearance. The outside wasn't the usual dumpling skin but resembled that of a 水晶餃. However, I ended up only having a bite of the dumplings because THEY WERE FILLED WITH CILANTRO! I hate cilantro...but that's just me.

Minced Salty Fish and Chicken Fried Rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯)

Minced Salty Fish and Chicken Fried Rice

This dish wasn't on the menu, but we were craving some fried rice without the very expensive scallops in there, and the chef was kind enough to make this for us instead. The fried rice was a little bland but wasn't too bad. The best minced salty fish and chicken fried rice I've ever had is at the Chinese restaurant up on the Landis Resort on Yang Ming Shan.

Overall, I would definitely recommend My Humble House. Although you'd expect a fusion sort of Chinese from the nice atmosphere, I thought that the food was actually pretty authentic. The service was also very quick with attentive waiters and waitresses. For such a nice restaurant, the price was reasonable with yummy food. (:

Latitude 25 [北緯二十五]

Visit: April 5, 2012
Address: 台北市信義區松仁路38號1F
Number: (02) 2321-1818
Website: http://www.lemeridien-taipei.com/#/cuisine/4

 I know that this is long overdue... but I've just been a little busy recently.
The Latest Recipe and My Humble House at Le Meridien have both gotten a copious amount of media attention. However, Latitude 25 seems to always be ignored...which is why I decided to go try it.

Complimentary Bread

Complimentary Bread

 The bread was a little dry but it wasn't bad at all.

Coffee (Not sure what this was)

Coffee

Beef Steak Sandwich with Onion Compote (頂級牛排三明治) $560 NT

Beef Steak Sandwich with Onion Compote

 According to my friend, the sandwich was pretty good.

Garden Salad
I don't have a picture of my garden salad, but I really liked it. There were pieces of buffalo cheese to go with the vegetable and the olive oil was also went very well with the salad. From what I remember, the salad wasn't too expensive, but I do wish that the portion was larger.


I would definitely go back to Latitude 25 for a light meal. The atmosphere there is really laid back and the waitresses were all very attentive. Contrary to what I thought Le Meridien would charge at their cafe, the prices weren't too high either.

Kitchen12 [十二廚自助餐]

Visit: April 5, 2012
Address: 台北市中正區忠孝東路一段12號
Number: (02) 2321-1818
Website: http://www.sheraton-taipei.com/r_kitchen.htm

When I found the restaurant inside Sheraton, I was so turned off. There was a crowd of people lining up to enter the restaurant for afternoon tea...the entire scene reminded me of a marketplace.

The food

 
The food overall was pretty disappointing. None of the desserts were that great, and the hot salty meals were pretty average as well. Although the overall food was okay, I think the part that I disliked the most was Kitchen 12's atmosphere. The tables were placed way too closely together, and the waitress kept bothering us about the check even though we had just sat down.

I would not recommend Kitchen12 for its afternoon tea. There are much better places around Taipei at $540 NT per person for a  nice afternoon tea date.

Homemade - Cheesecake

Date: April 1, 2012

Ingredients:

Ingredients

Crust	Filling
180 g Salted Butter	250 g Light Cream Cheese
2 cups Dry Oatmeal	1 tablespoon Cake Flour
1 1/2 cups Cake Flour	1/2 teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 teaspoon Baking Powder	90 g Sour Cream
1/2 cup Soft Brown Sugar	50 g Sugar
	1 Large Egg
	1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

To create the crust: 

Crust Mixture

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease the pan with butter
2. Sift flour and baking powder in a large bowl, then add sugar and oats.
3. Mix the butter evenly into the mixture
4. Pack the crumble mixture into the pan
5. Bake for 15 minutes

To create the filling;

Cheesecake Mixture

6. Preheat the oven to 200°C
7.  Beat the cream cheese on medium speed until creamy.
8. Add sugar, flour and salt and beat on low speed. Make sure it is thoroughly mixed
9. Mix in vanilla and  lemon juice
10. Whisk in the egg and stir in the soured cream until smooth
11. Pour the mixture over the baked crust mixture

To bake:

baking...

12. Bake for 10 minutes
13. Reduce the temperature to 90°C and bake for an additional 25 minutes

It's eating time...

final product

The cheesecake filling was extremely light and airy with a very firm and crumbly crust. I couldn't wait to eat this right when I finished baking it, but if you can bear to wait...it tastes best refrigerated.

Recipes adapted from
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2869/new-york-cheesecake
&  
Simply Delicious Slices published by Murdoch Books Pty Limited

Taiwan's First Fried Chicken [台灣第一家鹽酥雞]

Visit: April 5, 2012
Address: 台北市中山區北安路530號
Number: (02)2532-1591

I've only actually been here twice, but ever since I discovered the beauty in their fried chicken butt, this has been my favorite fried chicken store.

The Selection

Fried Chicken Butt $30 NT & Fried Chicken Heart $30 NT

Fried Chicken Butt and Fried Chicken Heart

Compared to the previous times that I've been here, the chicken butt was so disappointing. Instead of melting in your mouth like it used to, the fried chicken butt was a little cold. The chicken heart on the other hand, was my first. Although the texture was rather normal, I felt like I could taste the flavor that animal organs usually have...or maybe I was imagining things?

Fried Chicken Skin $30 NT & Fried Chicken $30 NT

Fried Chicken Skin and Fried Chicken

The fried chicken was once again not warm enough for my liking. It feels like has already been sitting out for a while. The chicken skin though was yummy, even though again, I would've liked it warmer. What I love most about eating fried chicken, is the fried basil. I just love how crisp it is!

Although my visit this time wasn't as awesome as I thought it'd be, I still recommend this fried chicken store. If you go there and it's up to its usual standards, you'll want to go back for more!

Country Cake [鄉村乳酪蛋糕]

Visit: April 2, 2012
Address: 台北市士林區德行東路222號
Number: (02)2836-3553
Website: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/country-cake222/

Despite a Hai Nan Chicken Rice dinner, no one was satisfied. So after meandering through De Xing East road, circling 85C and other cafes, we finally settled Country Cake.

Cake Display

Cake Display

Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake (巧克力慕斯) $45 NT, Heavy Cheesecake (重乳酪) $60 NT, Blueberry Cheesecake (藍莓蛋糕) $45 NT, Chocolate Cheesecake (巧克力乳酪) $40 NT

From Left: Heavy Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Cheesecake, Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake

Out of the three, I actually enjoyed all of them a lot except for the chocolate mousse cake. I really liked how even the chocolate cheesecake was really rich and creamy.

I would definitely recommend Country Cake's cheesecake. So yummy~

Labaz [辣霸子]

Visit: April 1, 2012
Address: 台北市士林區中山北路5段439號
Number: (02)2881-1188

The only other time I've spicy mala hotpot was at  辣中間 (la zhong jian), which according to my friend was bad. So as a dedicated spicy eaters, we ended up trying a new hotpot restaurant, Labaz.

Labaz is an all-you-can-eat hotpot location and it splits all of its pots so you can have two different types of soup. They offer four types: the Classic Mala Hotpot, Kimchi Hotpot, Sour Cabbage Hotpot, and Class Hotpot. On this particular day, I went for the Mala Hotpot and one that I've never had - the Sour Cabbage Hotpot.

The Hotpot

Left : Sour Cabbage Hotpot, Right: Mala Hotpot

food

food

 What I enjoyed most at Labaz were the duck blood blocks and the beef tendons. The beef tendons taste amazing when you throw them into the mala hotpot. The tendons were chewy but not rubbery, and with the flavoring from the mala hotpot, they were just yummy. I recommend that you throw the veggies, fish/meat balls into the sour cabbage pot, and the meat and other blander items into the mala side of the hotpot.

I'm so glad that I decided to get off my lazy butt and go enjoy an afternoon of mala hotpot that day. Although I was extremely turned off by the fact that the utensils were all disposable, the food and service were both awesome. For a price of $399 NT, Labaz is somewhere that those who appreciate chili should try out.

Homemade - Fried Oreos

Date: March 30, 2012

Ingredients:
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 egg
1 cup Water
2 tablespoon Oil
6 Oreos

Step One:
 Whisk the flour, baking soda, egg and water together to make batter

Step Two:
Coat the Oreos in batter

Step Three:
Pour the oil in frying pan and heat with the highest setting for 2-3 minutes

Step Four: 

Step four: frying the oreos

Fry the oreo's!

Step Five:

Step five: fry until golden

Fry until golden then retrieve

Step Six:

Step six: eat

 Enjoy the soft cookie and melted insides...yum~

Homemade - Pizza

Date: March 30, 2012

Ingredients:
Pizza Dough
Tomato Sauce
Mushrooms
Onions
Ham
Peperoni
Feta Cheese

Preheat the oven at 250 C for 45 minutes

Step One:

tomato sauce on pizza

Spread tomato sauce generously over the pizza dough.

Step Two:

decorate the pizza

  Decorate the pizza with and in whatever your heart desires...make sure you start with a layer of cheese, and end with another layer of cheese...

naked pizza

...or you can even have a naked (cheeseless) pizza...

artistic pizza

 ...or you can try to be artistic.... 

happy pizza

 ....or relive your childish days with a smiley pizza....

normal pizza

...then there's also the option of being boring...

Step Three:

Baking the Pizza

Bake the pizza for about 25 minutes at 250 C. Make sure to guard the pizza though, because each oven differs a bit from another.

Step Four:

the awesome pizzas

 Finally, done! Enjoy~

After tasting our pizza's, I've got to say that food is always better homemade. I loved how it was still sizzling hot as I bit into the pizza and how my pizza was exploding with cheese and tomato sauce. Next time, I think I'm going to try making my own pizza dough (:

Street Food at Lane 737 [內湖737巷]

Visit: March 29, 2012
Address: 台北市內湖區內湖路一段737巷

So my mom and I caught wind of a yummy pig blood cake stall in Neihu, and being the fatty I am, I convinced my parents to take me there. Just a word of warning, I made up the English names myself.

Pig Blood Cake [豬血糕]

Pig Blood Cake Stall in Lane 737

When we finally found the stall, there was already a large mob in front of it, not lining up for the pig blood cake itself, but lining up for a numbered ticket for the pig blood cake. As we were standing in the crowd, a man suddenly hands us a ticket and said that he no longer wants to wait even though his number was only 10 after the current one. Well, I can't believe our luck because that stranger saved us about half an hour of waiting. Thank you mysterious stranger.

Pig Blood Cake

 Ta da! The long awaited pig blood cake. The cake itself was a courser than usual which I suspect is because they probably made the cake themselves. However, I didn't really think that the pig blood cake tasted any better than the others at nightmarkets.

Grilled Fried Chicken [碳烤香雞排]

Grilled Fried Chicken Stall

 The stall was next to the pig blood cake stall, and is apparently one of the more well-known ones.

Grilled Fried Chicken

Although I didn't come all the way to Neihu for the chicken, I was much more impressed with the chicken than the pig blood cake. The chicken was crazily tender and by grilling it after frying, it was also tastier than just simply fried chicken.


Egg Cake [雞蛋仔]

Egg Cake Stall

 The egg cake is arguably my favorite Chinese street food, so it's only understandable that I was immediately drawn to the stall.

Making the egg cake...

Instead of the traditional Taiwanese cakes where the egg cakes are actually egg shaped, these somewhat resembled waffles.

Egg Cake

After the cake was taken out of the mold, it was then folded while it was still warm so that it can be easily folded into a bag. The egg cake was SO GOOD! It's the best I've ever had. The outside was really crispy while the inside was airy and still moist and warm. It enhanced everything I loved about traditional egg cakes.

I would definitely visit Lane 737 at NeiHu again. Although this wasn't exactly a nightmarket, there was a huge selection of good food. While I was there, I also had the pleasure of tasting and falling in love with pig liver in sesame oil soup (麻油豬肝) both of which I usually dislike. Lane 737 is a must visit in my book of food. :)