Fun With Your Food

I prefer to eat my way through new cultures and places.  Perhaps it’s my indie side that drives me to seek out the smallest, unheard of, hole-in-the wall place to eat when I travel.  I deserve a virtual high five for this one. My favorite spot in Taipei has no sign in English and is off one of the most crowded busy train stops. 

Here are the directions I used to find this vegetarian oasis. Lonely Planet Xiangyi Vegetarian Heaven 

It’s a vegetarian buffet!  There were so many choices, it was a little overwhelming (in a great way).   Besides it being vegetarian, my favorite part was the ease for me, as a foreigner who didn’t speak any of the native language, to order.  I knew anything I chose wouldn’t have any meat.  Paying wasn’t confusing either, they charge you a flat rate based on the weight of your food.

 I visited this restaurant twice and loaded up my plate each time.  Dumplings, taro cake, sushi… the food was fantastic

Next favorite part of Taipei wasn’t a specific place to eat but more of a style of places that were EVERYWHERE. 

  Fresh BAKERIES!  I ate at different bakeries everyday and had a different pastry each time. The varieties of pastry reminded me of Paris but there definitely was a Taipei twist to some of the items.  I saw treats that used Taro, corn and ever a soy milk/sesame pastry! (yes I tried all 3 of those)

 Finally, fried STINKY TOFU.

  The line to get this native treat was about 15 people deep but it was well worth the wait.  The chef were used to having a crowd and put on quite an impressive show while we waited for a fresh batch.  

Like most cart food, stinky tofu is served in a plastic bag. 

Find a place to squat, or preferably sit, and chow down.  Stinky tofu has a very distinct flavor/odor but I enjoyed it.  You should note that I now am no longer offended by the smell of Durian either so my senses may be a lil different from yours.

I’m already planning what city I’m going to eat my way through next. It will have to be within the US so my top three picks are: Chicago, NYC or Portland. Hopefully I’ll see one of those this fall/winter.

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I’m baaaccckkk!

I tried posting while I was on vacation but for some reason had problems logging in. You’ll be happy to hear my week overseas was FAN-TASIC.  Jet lag has taken over my evenings.   I think I fell asleep at about 430 am last night. 

There are about 300 pics from my trip and I wish I could post all of them!  I will be doing a review of my fav foods from my trip.  For now you can admire my mini gallery of Taipei and Teddy

Enjoy the preview post, see you tonight for foodie faves of Taipei!

Teddy

It’s only a an hour before I’m in the air on my way to Taipei.  This week has been exhausting. Now I’ll have a 20 hour flight with nothing to do but sleep, read and perhaps catch a movie.

I leave you with a new cookie!

I’m taking these on the plane with me as treat (in case the food is completely unbearable).  The cookie base is from 101 Cookbooks and can be found here.

The only adjustments I made were adding less salt, using a mixture of maple syrup and agave (I ran out of maple) and I added a peanut butter cup- or 3- on top as soon as I pulled them out of the oven.

Hopefully I can blog once or twice while traveling.  Wish me luck on my trip!

Teddy

Taipei is only 3 days away!  That means it’s clean-out-the-fridge time.  I’m using everything I’ve got to make new meals.  Sweet and savory is the flavor that I wanted with this dish.  I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

1/2 cup Israeli couscous (cooked)

1 tablespoon oil (I used walnut)

1/2 cup blanched almonds- chopped

1/2 cup cherries- chopped

1 scallion, green onion or chive

1 tablespoon ume vinegar

Combine all ingredients into a bowl and leave in the fridge for a few hours. The longer you let it sit, the more the flavors come out.

Teddy

When I lived in California I was always close to a little Saigon or some other GREAT food area. One of my favorite dishes to order is a big bowl of noodles in tons of light broth and veggies. The whole meal comes with a bowl of sprouts and lettuce and other uncooked veggies on the side to add in as you please.

I wasn’t feeling noodles tonight but already had some brown rice coated in toasted sesame oil so I used that instead. I sauteed onions, summer squash, cilantro and some tomatoes for about 5 mins on medium heat. Then began to add the liquid ingredients to make a broth.  The broth is water, white miso and very little hot sauce.

Let it cool down  and chomp away!

Teddy





Hello 4th of July long weekend!


Who doesn’t need this weekend to relax?  After the wedding and a long week I need rest time before heading off to TAIPEI next week.  My boss was nice enough to let us leave early today- to be fair I stayed late every night this week to get everything done early. I was super happy to be home in time to make a lovely lunch though.



Question do you eat brown rice or white rice?


I usually eat brown but with the heat, I’ve been wanting plain white rice.  It satisfies me and doesn’t fill me up too much. Plus it cooks up so easy in my rice maker haha.


My black beans have cumin, coriander, green onion, garlic, carrots and cilantro in them.  I added 1/2 an avocado (cubed) as a topper and then chowed down! Next time I’ll try and make a lettuce wrap with the left over filling.


Happy almost 4th everyone!


Teddy