sybarites

We had to pack a lot of food into one day and two nights. On our first night I insisted we order from Salvatore’s Pizza. They make a plain cheese pizza to die for. We also split a mushroom and garlic pizza, a meatball hero and a salami-pepperoni hero. This was a traditional meal of Danny J and me. I used to favour the salami-pepperoni hero over the meatball, but this time was different. The meatballs are sliced and covered in cheese and sauce. The texture clearly states the sandwich is full of fat. It’s worth it.

The next day required an extra lunch to fit in all the mandatory stops. Ray’s at Scotia Square has a wide selection of Lebanese food. I hadn’t been there in three years. Nothing is fried. Everything is low fat. I always order the barbeque chicken pita. Rather than lettuce, he adds salad with tomatoes and pita croutons. The croutons add a great crunch. The oddest ingredient is roasted potatoes. He finishes it off with hummous and tahini sauce. I guess I’ve been there a lot. Ray looked and me and says, “it’s been a long time.”

Lunch two was chirashi sushi from Dharma. It wasn’t as good as I had remembered. That may have been purely because of the plating. Normally chirashi is served in a bowl with sushi rice at the bottom and assorted shashimi on top. The unique element at Dharma is barbeque eel sauce on the rice. On this occasion the rice was on one side of a plate and the fish on the other. All the fish was excellent, but it didn’t have the usual visual punch.

Steve-o-reno’s has the best coffee in Halifax. We both ordered the double short latte. It wasn’t as good as the Blue Bottle Company in San Francisco, but still very good.

Our next stop was Dio Mio for chocolate ice cream. They do have many more special flavours, but the chocolate is better than almost anywhere. It’s not too sweet. The cocoa flavour is strong. I remembered it being even more so, but the ice cream still tasted very good. I used to eat a small tub of it every week along with another of strawberry sorbet.

Dave and Karen picked up Indian takeout on our last night. Some couple with a hole in the wall sells their own frozen dishes. We had paneer, butter chicken, curry goat, curry vegetables and samosas. All were excellent. The best Indian food I’ve had at a restaurant was only marginally better.

We quickly learned how to get necessities in Taipei. Someone told us Taipei is a good city for us to transition to Asian travel. Most people speak at least a little English. Most signs are posted in English and most places have very good signs. The metro is very easy to use. They even provide a very good map of the city for free.

Food can be a little challenging. The key factor is selecting a food stand where we can communicate what we want. Some restaurants and stands have pictures, others have English menus. Some just have food on display at which to point. It’s also possible to point at meals that have been served to other people. Most food vendors seem used to selling food in this fashion.

On our first night we selected a small restaurant with pictures of noodle soup. We pointed at what we thought was chicken, but were served barbeque pork, which was better anyway. The pork and broth were very tasty. The soup also included baby bok choy, an egg and a slice of white something with a pink flower that had no flavour at first, then tasted like fish or fake crab. I suspect it was some sort of fish log. The smiling proprietor brought us some ice tea at no extra charge.

Dessert was a bit of surprise. I picked out something pink from a display case with the assumption it was soft, fluffy and creamy. I’m glad we didn’t wait until we got back to the hostel to eat it because it turned out to be frozen. The outside was covered in sticky gelatinous rice. The inside was like strawberry ice cream, but with a slightly waxy texture. We’re sure to have more pleasant surprises.

There are so many places to go in Taipei and so much food to try. We could spend a three weeks here instead of a few days.

My mother made this wonderful molasses bread for Janet and me. I couldn’t get enough. The molasses adds a lot of flavor, but doesn’t make the bread sweet. My mom said it should have risen more. Personally, I like a dense bread. It has more flavor per bite, and it feels hearty when eating it.

After covering the warm fresh bread in butter, I was hesitant to try it any other way. It would probably have toasted quite well. I didn’t want to take the risk.

I’ll need to adapt the recipe to bake it in the oven when we return next year. She made it in her bread machine.

So, this is the recipe that called for Swiss chard but for which we had to use kale because of this whole incident.   Anyway, it really doesn’t make that much of a difference as they were equally satisfactory meals.

We have been, admittedly, quite reticent in our blogging of late.  I blame the typhoid.  And the stress associated with the travel preparations, which have most recently involved a lot of website modifications (then fixes, then additions, then more modifications), thousands and thousands of painful needles in our arms, booking accommodations in our first destination and sorting out exactly what we should be doing to get a visa for China and for Russia.  Ultimately, we have made mountains out of mole hills.  I hope we can both learn to chill the fuck out on this journey.

And this segues nicely into a suggestion to check out the RTW Travel section of our site/blog.  I have had to learn how to use HTML, it’s been that crazy.

Unrelated to food at all, I learned a new word today:  invidious.   It means to provoke envy or ill will.  I shall use it in a sentence:  “It would seem that, to some people, my descriptions of our travel plans is rather invidious.”    Those people are anxiously awaiting the day they will win the lottery.

Presently, I am 30. My birthday recently passed. Resistance was futile.

Despite my mild dismay at having entered my fourth decade, I had a most excellent celebration. Actually, there were several installments of the birthday celebration but this entry documents only the first: my birthday dinner at Blue Water Café.

After New Year’s Day, we flew to Vancouver to eat. There are other things we did while there – walk around Stanley Park and Canada Place,

… window shop along Robson, coffee at innumerable and ubiquitous Starbucks – but the primary reason for the expedition was to eat good food. Therefore, I can’t not mention at least one other meal we had while there that, though unrelated to things birthday, was excellent.

I tried a few years ago to get into Bin 941, a tapas “parlour” on Davie, but it’s such a wee, little boîte that I was never able to get in the door, much less a table. Of course, that only increases the desire to go: it must be great if it is always so crowded. So this time, our plan to meet Marc’s friend Eva there in the early evening met with success.

We didn’t get a table but at least we got in the door and were able to grab three seats at the bar. Between us, we shared: Cinnamon chili rubbed Texas Flank Steak – maple syrup chipotle glaze, black pepper pommes frites, East West Crab Cakes – burnt orange chipotle sauce, charred baby bok choy, cucumber salsa, tobiko, Hand cut Yukon gold mountain pepper pommes frites and Mussels steamed with Garlic butter – roma tomato, herbs, white wine. Sadly, I can’t recall the wine I had but I think it might have been the Catena Zapata, a Malbec from Argentina. Regardless, it was all divine and well worth sitting at the bar next to the door.

After dinner, Eva drove us to one of her favourite dessert bars, True Confections on West Broadway. For 10 o’clock on the first Tuesday after New Year’s, it was surprisingly busy. Though they are known for their cakes, I couldn’t resist having a piece of what turned out to be a killer Three Berry Pie.

But I digress. The actual birthday was celebrated at Blue Water Café in Yaletown. Marc picked out this place from several places short-listed on a restaurant site on the Interweb. We planned to go early in the evening so as to take advantage of their prix fixe menu, which would’ve been 3 courses for about $35.00. However, after arriving and reviewing the menu and (huge) wine list, everything looked way too good to miss. “Screw it, we’ll order what we want”.

And WHAT A MEAL: we started with a couple of glasses of Champagne accompanied by two sweet Kusshi and two Deep Bay Chef’s Creek fresh raw oysters. Then, for me, an appetizer of Duck Prosciutto on an Organic Beet and frisée salad with truffle-sherry vinaigrette, and for Marc, Baked Galliano Island Swimming Scallops with tomato-lemon fondue, capers and parsley. For an entrée, I had BC Sablefish baked in sake & miso, topped with bonito flakes and served on octopus ravioli with xeres and Okanagan cherry sauce, and Marc had the Seared Ostrich. Between us, we had a bottle of white from Spain and Marc had to test a couple of glasses of red before deciding on a glass to go with his meal. Finally, we shared three cheeses for dessert- chèvre noir, some Clos de St. Ambrose from Québec, and some Fourme D’Ambert, a mild blue from France.

All in all, it was an outstanding meal– exactly the present I wanted. I can’t imagine a better way to have spent my birthday with my favourite partner in gluttony.

The Blue Bottle Company made the best coffee I have ever had. We were heading toward Haight and looking for a coffee when we saw a sign on the sidewalk beside an alley. We go down to find a little hole in the wall coffee shop with a metal shop in the back

I order a macchiato, and Janet gets a cappucino. When he asks me whether it was to stay or go, I had to look around because there didn’t seem to be any place to sit down. There were a couple of old wooden chairs on the sidewalk and a micro bar to stand around, which I had overlooked. 20 minutes later, I’m walking down the street in a daze, repeating “Wow, that was good coffee.” We went back two more times. On one occassion I saw a woman’s cafe au lait with a fern leaf pattern across the top. Absolutely incredible.

Upon my return, I discovered that their coffee is listed in the top ten things to eat in San Francisco. Apparently they have a 24 hour limit between between roasting and brewing. After 24 hours they give the beans to charity.