Taiwan Day 8: Din Tai Fung Sets Itself Apart from Others, Part 1 / 鼎泰豐特色真的不一樣, 第一集 (Taipei: Da An District / 台北市: 大安區)

I am a loyal Din Tai Fung fan.  I truly believe that this world famous dumpling house not only makes a higher quality, more delicately prepared xiaolongbao, but they create classic Chinese specialties that set themselves apart from their competitors.  I have been to the Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) locations in America close to 200 times, and I have eaten at the flagship locations in Taipei on every visit to Taiwan.  The food and service have been so consistent that of these hundreds of times, I have never once said that one visit was better or worse than the other.  Here are some of the things that DTF really does differently.  (See the post from my previous visit here.)

First, the restaurant uses bamboo steamers at the locations in Taiwan and the rest of Asia.  This apparently does not meet the regulations in the United States because there is a chance of developing mold on the wood, thereby resulting in unsanitary conditions for the prized dumpling.  Also, the liner used in Taiwan is a reusable silk sheet rather than the disposable sheet of parchment paper that is dotted with holes.  The combination of the silk and the bamboo allow for a more even distribution of steam heat in the container.  With the parchment paper and steel containers used elsewhere, the steam is funnels through the predestined paths that the holes provide in streams that may not cook the dumplings as evenly as it could be.

Next, they offer black truffle juicy pork dumplings (松露小籠包) on the menu at certain locations.  This, in comparison to the dumpling house that places edible gold on top of their juicy pork dumplings, is actually an affordable luxury that patrons look forward to for an indulgent meal.  The truffles are not simply ground into flecks and blended with the meat, an entire slice is placed atop the round of pork before wrapping into 18 delicate folds.

The ever popular hot and sour soup (酸辣湯) is a world of difference here at Din Tai Fung.  The restaurant focuses on creating truly delicate flavors, so the soup here is neither spicy nor sour.  It is a very mild blend of quality tofu, bean sprouts, wood ear fungus, and get this... slivers of congealed duck blood.  I have not yet come across any other hot and sour soup with duck blood so stealthily concealed within the ribbons of egg drop.  The hint of sweet and tangy black vinegar that adorns the top of the soup eases the diner into the taste of this classic dish rather than slapping the heat and acidity right into the taste buds.

The shrimp fried rice (蝦仁蛋炒飯) is one of the best takes on traditional Chinese fried rice in the world.  I can easily count the ingredients used on one of my hands.  There is nothing more than scrambled egg and green onion that have been wok tossed feverishly over and over again with the grains of white rice until each ingredient has been rightfully separated from each other.  Did you notice that the grains of rice are still white? Din Tai Fung has successfully made a tasteful fried rice without using any of that black tarnish that we call soy sauce.  Not a single drop.  Amazing.

There are many more dishes that are easily distinguished and worth exploring... the potstickers happen to be one of them.  Luckily for me, the potstickers that come served with flaps of pork essence grilled to a thin crisp are coming to the Glendale branch at The Americana in California soon.  You can bet there will be a post on just that.  Until then, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐)

台北市大安區信義路二段194號 

No. 194, Xinyi Rd., Section 2, Da An District, Taipei City

MRT: Dongmen Station, exit no. 5 /捷運東門站, 5號出口

ML - 20130707

132. Tokyo - Fried Rice in a Pouch from a Japanese 7-Eleven (Tokyo: Shibuya-ku, Harajuku / 東京都: 渋谷区, 原宿)

While strolling down Takeshita Street in Harajuku District, Ken and I stopped by a 7-Eleven to take a look around.  Although I'm pretty fond of Taiwanese 7-Elevens because of the unique products sold there, Japanese 7-Elevens have some pretty interesting stuff too.  On top of the Kit Kats in passion fruit and salt & caramel flavors, we found fried rice in a pouch!

To wash it all down, I purchased a coffee from McDonald's down the street for 100 yen (about 1 USD).  Who would have questioned that it was full of beans? One can only hope that the beans refer to coffee beans and nothing else.

Being so fascinated with a single serving size of fried rice in a round, plastic pouch led me to buy another one.  This one was a Korean style kimchi fried rice from a Family Mart.  Even though it's been chilling in the fridge case, it is a great to calm any sudden minor cravings or to hold your stomach while waiting for a much anticipated meal... like our next meal at Maisen for some famous tonkatsu.  So until then, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20130626

Post 65.1: Taipei - Traditional Taiwanese, Part 1 (Taipei: Da An District / 台北: 大安區)

Taiwanese food is a simple food.

Whereas many Chinese stir-fried dishes employ the yin and yang concept of relative equality (meat and vegetables in balanced importance), Taiwanese cooking does not.  Instead, Taiwanese cooking utilizes one star ingredient and complements it with a subservient sidekick of seasoning, spice, or some form of dipping sauce.

Think of it this way: Chinese cooking is like an ice cream sundae.  The ice cream, bananas, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and even the cherry on top share equal roles within the sundae.  Take one ingredient away, whether it's the ice cream or the cherry, and the harmonious balance of ingredients is greatly disrupted.

Taiwanese cooking, on the other hand, is more like frozen yogurt with sprinkles.  The sprinkles, while important, plays a supporting role to the frozen yogurt.  Take it away, and... well, you still got yogurt.

Here's a look at some of the Taiwanese dishes that I had... along with just a... wait for it... simple explanation.



Star ingredient: Clams (海瓜子炒九層塔)
Side seasoning, spice or sauce: garlic and basil
Cooking method: Stir-fried

There's something about the combination of garlic and basil that makes anything taste good.  From Italian pasta to Taiwanese seafood, the fragrant basil and biting garlic form a flavor that simply can't be beat.

Star ingredient: Shrimp (燙鮮蝦)
Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: soy sauce and wasabi
Method of cooking: Blanched

If it weren't for the shrimp being barely boiled, these sea creatures would be considered sashimi.  Halfway between shrimp cocktail and Japanese prawn sashimi, dabbing cooked shrimp in the soy and wasabi combination gives tribute to the olden days of Japanese colonial rule.  This is simply the way seafood was meant to be eaten.

Star ingredient: Pig's feet (紅燒豬腳)
Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, garlic, ginger
Method of cooking: Braised

Let's face it.  The pig's foot isn't the most appealing body part for first timers.  But if the same animal can bring joy to people with its bacon, pancetta, and sausage, how can the foot hurt at all? Its fattiness is the most flavorful part.  It's part salty (soy), part sweet (sugar), part spicy (garlic and ginger), and all around tender (rice wine)... this is a great way to experience a traditional Taiwanese birthday food.

Star ingredient: Oysters (蚵仔酥)
Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Salt, white pepper powder, basil
Method of cooking: Deep fried

Think popcorn chicken.  Okay, now sub the chicken with fresh oysters.  And then add a forest of deep fried basil and a sahara of salt and pepper that you can dip each oyster oval into.  That's a formula for heavenly indulgence... if not a heart attack in the making.

Star ingredient: Beef (烤牛肉)

Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Black pepper sauce with raw onions

Method of cooking: Grilled

This house specialty is highly recommended by the chef's wife.  Funny, because she runs a restaurant that specializes in seafood.  The chef sears the beef to perfection on the outside while heating the inside to a degree that is just barely passed rare.  The beef is truly tender and flavorful.  If you get a little squeamish about rare meat, there's a bed of raw onions under the loins to help kill off the potential rawness.  Really.

Star ingredient: Frog's legs (鹽酥田雞)

Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Salt and pepper

Method of cooking: Deep fried

I had my first experience with frog's legs with these little bites.  If the Colonel cooked this up in one of his famous extra crispy batches, it'd just be extremely firm, lean chicken.  Roll them around in the salt and pepper powder, and you would just think that it tastes just like a moist version of chicken breast.  Seriously, even the name in Mandarin means, "chicken of the field."

Star ingredient: Fresh spinach (炒菠菜)

Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Garlic

Method of cooking: Stir-fried

Everyone needs their greens, right? The best way to have Popeye's favorite is stir-fried with just a few cloves of crushed garlic.  The natural water from the leaves mixed with the garlic infused oil from the wok makes a simply awesome sauce.

Star ingredient: Rice and eggs (蛋炒飯)

Side seasoning, spice, or sauce: Green onions

Method of cooking: Wok fried

Still hungry? There's always fried rice.  But this, once again, is as simple as it gets.  No meat, no other veggies... just rice, scrambled eggs, and finely chopped green onions.  It's wok fried with pork fat and soy in such a high heat that the grains of rice separate into individual grains and eventually melt into the fatty soy sauce.  So good.

Chances are you won't be hungry, though, because chances are that you will be chasing each bite with a sip of Taiwan Beer.  The simple brew is so popular with Taiwanese dishes that Little Lin's Seafood Shop even has a PYT to help serve and pour it for each table.  The pretty young thing could be considered poor young thing; she works the entire night in stilettos.

Not shown are the steamed whole fish, stir-fried rice noodles, and stir-fried Taiwanese cabbage.  Other Taiwanese food and travel blogs such as Angie's Blog, Gygy, and Deep Blue No. 5 all have pictures from their experience.

Although the experience with Taiwanese food always starts off simple with perhaps just a few dishes, it winds up with a multiplex of various meats and seafood and even a few veggies here and there.  Similarly, this post evolved from a simple explanation to a multitude of paragraphs.  Chiah pa! Until some more simple food, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Little Lin's Seafood Shop (小林海產店)

台北市 大安區 / Taipei City, Da An District

光復南路 574之1號 / Guangfu South Road, No. 574-1

大門口在延吉街 / Entrance is on Yanji St.

ML - 20110902

Post 39.1: International Potluck

I work in a section of the office that has people from all different ethnic backgrounds... from Afghan to American to Pakistani to Polish.  We used this to our advantage by holding an international potluck at work.  Here are some of the dishes that my co-workers brought to the potluck... along with the five words they would use to describe food from their culture.

Sambosas and chutney
Afghanistan

No typo there.  Sambosas are from Afghanistan, and samosas are from India.  Difference? Other than the extra letter, Indian samosas are pyramid-shaped and primarily filled with potatoes, while Afghan sambosas are flatter and are filled with seasoned ground beef.  

The ground beef filling is folded over with wonton wrappers and then fried in a wok... a wok? That doesn't seem very Afghan! The wok is used by Afghan-Americans... but what if you're Afghan in Afghanistan? You make your own wrappers with flour and water, and grab a deep kettle to fry these fantastic fried finger foods up.  Clear out the space in your stomach for Afghan sambosas.  They're ridiculously addicting.

Sambosa filling: ground beef, cabbage, onions, peas, carrots
Spices: ground coriander seed, cumin, paprika, garlic, garlic powder, salt, pepper
Chutney blend: cilantro, murch (Afghan chili) or jalapeño, apple cider vinegar, avocado

Marya's 5 words to describe Afghan food: Persian style cooking, Indian spices

Pork fried rice
Cambodia

Bai cha, or fried rice in Cambodian, is surprisingly similar to Chinese style fried rice.  But the rice that Cambodians use is different.  While the best Chinese fried rice is made with day-old, long grain rice, my co-worker informed me that Cambodians use a mixture of new rice and old rice.  Many claim Cambodian rice is a higher quality version of the rice from Thailand or Vietnam.  I can't tell the difference just yet, but hey, at least I know it's good.

Stir-fry ingredients: Chinese sausage, eggs, corn, peas, carrots, garlic, soy sauce

Holly's 5 words to describe Cambodian/Khmer food: simple in a complicated way

Chicken qorma with matar pulao
Pakistan

Mmmmm... now this is some good stuff.  Spicy food always makes me happy.  Although I was ensured that the heat on the qorma was toned down just for us non-Pakistani, non-Indian folk, it was spicy enough for some perspiration to form on my forehead... but not too much.

Vegetable oil was used instead of ghee (clarified butter) in the qorma... oil is healthier, and it doesn't congeal when it cools off the way ghee does.  The pulao, another word for pilaf, was a tasty way to soak up all the gravy from the qorma.  I liked the added touch of the peas (matar) to the rice.

Qorma ingredients: yogurt, fried onions, coriander, powdered cumin, peppercorn
Pulao ingredients: Basmati rice, peas, fried onions, cumin seed

Zeeshan's 5 words to describe Pakistani food: Just use the Wikipedia words
Wikipedia's 5 words to describe Pakistani food: refined blend of various cuisines

Pancit bihon
Phillippines

Ah... Taiwanese stir-fried rice noodles? 米粉? That's what I thought when I first noticed the rice noodles.  Not only are the Taiwanese and Filipino rice noodles similar in appearance, the name is similar as well... bifen in Taiwanese and bihon in Tagalog.  But the big difference, at least for me, was not just the choice of meat (Taiwanese generally use pork to make rice noodles) but the last minute squeeze of lemon right before eating.  Usually, calamansi is used for its more sour flavor (as compared to the typical American lemon)... it adds a burst of flavor that's unseen to the naked eye. 

The burst of flavor, especially the sour taste, is something that Filipinos like, and I understand why.  The squeeze of lemon at the end is like icing on the cake... it makes something already good that much better.  With this eye-opening experience with bihon, I think slices of lemon will forever accompany my bifen.

Main ingredients: bihon rice noodles, cabbage, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, scallions, lemon

Peter and Lisa's 5 words to describe Filipino food: porky, vinegary, Spanish-Asian fusion

Cabbage rolls stuffed with beef
Ireland, Poland

Oooooh... how interesting.  Traditionally, cabbage rolls were a way to consume leftover food in old Eastern Europe.  It's something I've never had before, so I was quite intrigued to discover what was inside.  As I broke the cabbage leaves apart, I was surprised to discover not just beef within but grains of fluffy white rice as well.    The stuffing can be any kind of meat mixed with grains, eggs, vegetables and even the leftover bits of cabbage too small to wrap around the filling.  Covered in tomato sauce and cooked for 45 minutes in either an oven or over the stove, the cabbage rolls stuffed with beef makes a very hearty meal.  Meat, veggies and carbs are rolled into one... literally.  All that's missing now is beer.

Stuffing ingredients: ground beef, white rice, onions, tomato sauce, salt, pepper

Christina's 5 words to describe Irish food: meat and fat and beer

Texas BBQ beef
USA

Phil's in San Diego and Lucille's in the LA area both make great barbeque, but Jon's wife Tammy barbequed up the best batch of beef today.  The meat was sweet and tangy and ever-so-tender.  I didn't even need the rolls to enjoy the shredded deliciousness.  Meat and sauce is as simple as it gets.  It may be the reason why Jon describes American food as basic... just grown on a farm.

BBQ ingredients: beef and sauce

Jon's 5 words to describe American food: heavy, filling, basic, farm food

Not featured: 
Antipasto salad (Italy) and Three cup chicken lettuce wraps (Taiwan)

ML - 20101117/20101028

Post 35: Finishing a Very Korean September with Gamjatang (LA: Koreatown)

Tick... pop... crack.  

As I continued to chew I wondered what was making the firecracker sensation in my mouth...

M: "What are those?"
K: "Sesame seeds."
M: "No man, they're black.  I think those are poppy seeds."
G: "Dude, my co-worker failed a drug test 'cuz she had a poppy seed bagel..."
M: "No way... that's an insignificant..."
K: "I'm telling you... they're sesame seeds"
A: "Wait.  What's wrong with poppy seeds?"
M: "Opium."
J: "What?"

The ticking, popping, and cracking black seeds were actually ground and toasted sesame seeds.  Grinding them up and toasting the seeds cause them to look round and black, allowing them to mask as poppy seeds.  They were floating around happily amongst white sesame seeds and bright green sesame seed (perilla) leaves in a deep red soup brewed from the bones of the pig's spine.  In addition to the tender, still-on-the-bone pork, the many variations of sesame seed, chunks of starchy potato were lodged at the bottom of the steel hot pot.  Hmmmm... so this is gamjatang (감자탕).

Kimmy, my token Korean friend from high school, volunteered to be our Korean food hostess for the weekend.  We call her Kimmy (her real name is Grace Kim) to highlight her Korean-ness.  Forget the fact that we have a million friends named Grace... it's her Korean-ness that allows us to call her Kimmy.  But I digress.  Kimmy, our Korean cuisine hostess extraordinaire, led us to Gam Ja Gol in Koreatown where she was about to show us some true blood Korean food... the non-BBQ, non-tofu, non-soju type of true blood Korean food.

Kimmy introduced us gamjatang, a savory stew made with the bones of a pig's spine, the earthy potatoes, and an abundance of enticing and somewhat exotic leaves of the sesame seed.  The soup was deep red.  Deep, deep red.  But it wasn't insanely spicy.  Just enough to cause droplets of perspiration to form on foreheads around the table.

In between bites of the soft pork, slurps of the savory stew, and glances at the banchan spread, I looked up every so often to ask Kimmy a question or two about the Korean food that we were having.  Gamjatang, translated literally, means potato (gamja) soup (tang), but Kimmy warned, "it's not really about the potato..."

Apparently not.  It was all about the soft and tender meat... it was about the savory and addicting soup... it was all about the fragrance of the perilla leaves... it was all about the way the gamjatang was poured into my bowl with heart, soul, and pride in the Korean culture.  It was about the complete destruction of a pig's spine... the bones looked as if they were leftover from a Velociraptor's meal.  And it was all about the second course of the meal...

As we the gamjatang slowly dwindled to its last remaining drops, the server arrived to wisp away the steel hot pot... only to refill it with white rice, chopped kimchi, and an assortment of ingredients.  I followed the sounds of the sizzle and crackle to the corner of the restaurant where it was cooking.  And as I peered into the popping pot, the server exclaimed from behind me, "chao fan!"

Bewildered, I spun around.  The supposedly Korean server used Mandarin to tell me that it was fried rice.  I didn't quite know just what to say.... or even what language to respond in.  So I just sat back down at the table, which is when Kimmy informed me, "she," pointing at the server, "told me that you looked Chinese."

I found out later that she was ethnically Korean but was born in northeastern China, so she learned to speak Mandarin growing up.  I guess that's where she learned to tell non-Koreans apart from ethnic Koreans.

But does that mean I like fried rice? Well, I sure as hell enjoyed this one.  In the little time it took to cook the fried rice, the grains of white rice had absorbed the remaining gamjatang... it was bursting with spicy and savory flavors... only a hint of which came from kimchi.  I was absolutely stuffed, and there was not a single section of spine left for us to pick at.  But I kept wanting more.  

The gamjatang rice was almost a drug.  If I had to take this drug every 8 hours for a course of 2 weeks (with food), I wouldn't have any problem with it.  In fact, I wouldn't have a problem with gamjatang or the fried rice being an intravenous drug.  Mmmm... this stuff is good.  Shoot it straight into my veins.

The gamjatang was an awesome Korean food experience.  What made it even better was that I learned and tried something I never knew existed.  Kamsamhapnida, Kimmy.  Solid meal.

Until another true blood experience, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 201000926/20101006