Post 65.3: Taipei - Traditional Taiwanese, Part 3 (Taipei: Da An District / 台北: 大安區)

As the last post in a three-part series on traditional Taiwanese food, I have decided to dedicate this post to a restaurant group that is known for their traditional Taiwanese dishes. 

The Shin Yeh restaurants (欣葉) are known for preparing local fare in upscale settings.  Many of the restaurants sit on upper level floors of buildings that overlook Taipei's main thoroughfares.  Some are even set in lounge like atmosphere with dim lighting, trendy music, and novel cocktails.  This is a stark contrast to other traditional Taiwanese restaurants like Little Lin's Seafood and Sit Fun, where the fresh ingredients are laid out by the entrance in refrigerators or over ice.  According to its history, the owner of the original Shin Yeh knew that Taiwanese fare was a simple food and dedicated herself to developing it into a gourmet cuisine that could be served in banquet settings.  The food here is still whipped up in that distinct Taiwanese style of fresh ingredients and simple preparation.  And of course, the main ingredient in the dish is given the spotlight as the essential star of the show.

My family and I dined at shinyeh' table, a sister restaurant of the original Shin Yeh that targets a younger crowed.  Shinyeh' table (蔥花) occasionally names their dishes in creative ways, utilizing puns and analogies and other tongue-in-cheek methods of capturing the guests' attention.  Not all the dishes have amusing names though.  In fact, most of them are pretty standard, but the ones that do bear amusing names really do stir up a chuckle here and there.

Pork song rice (猴囝仔拌飯)
Pork song (肉鬆), also known as pork floss in some bakeries, is a staple in every Taiwanese household.  It's shredded, dried pork that acts almost as a condiment in items such as rice porridge, sandwiches, and even hot soy milk for breakfast.  The texture has been described to be similar to cotton candy, something that melts in your mouth but still provides a slight crunch on first bite.  It's a great addition to basic, steamed, white rice.  The crunch of the pork song is initially a contrast to the steamed rice, but it eventually blends in with the fluff of the rice as easily as the famous little chocolates melt in your mouth.

Wok seared rice noodles (蔥花米粉炒)
Although a rice noodle dish may seem relatively simple, there is a lengthy preparation that occurs prior to the final step of stir-frying.  Vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, celery, mushrooms and snap peas need to be cleaned and chopped... pork or chicken should be sliced into strips, and even eggs have to be scrambled.  Most of the preparation, however, is focused on the rice noodles.  The best rice noodles are said to originate in a oceanside city called Hsinchu (新竹), about one to two hours outside of Taipei.  The makers of rice noodles there hang the strands of noodles out to dry with the natural sunshine and ocean breeze of Hsinchu in the same way that laundry is hung out to dry in the yard.  It is this process that gets each rice noodle dried into individual threads, and it is that separation of the noodle that makes the best stir-fry.

Poached cuttlefish with five spice sauce (無情軟絲)

Squid served with a side of soy sauce paste and wasabi, fresh shredded ginger, and pickled radish is a dish that captures the essence of the Japanese influence on Taiwanese cuisine.  The soy sauce paste, as the name indicates, has five different spices in it, only one of which I can actually pick out... minced garlic.  It probably took more time for the chef to fan out the squid and to shred the ginger than it did for him to actually cook the sublime sea creature.  Simplicity and presentation in detail... the epitome of a Taiwanese dish.

Wok fried loofah with garlic (翻滾吧絲瓜)

Loofah, garlic, and oil... the simplicity here gets carried all the way to mom and pop shops in Agoura Hills.

Great Wall of pig intestine (半里腸城)

The title employs the Great Wall of China (chang cheng / 長城) as a homonym for walls made of intestine (chang cheng / 腸城).  Presented in a way that mimics the Great Wall across the Strait, the mustard greens and soy will protect you from the invading fears of consuming a digestive organ.

Crispy fried soft shell crab (啵棒軟殼蟹)

Deep fried soft shell crab.  Crispy basil and spicy chili.  Done deal.

Prawns stir-fried with tropical fruit (果粒纖蝦)
We all know honey walnut shrimp, but I can guarantee that these prawns dotted with pineapple, kiwi fruit, and bell pepper confetti will completely wipe honey walnut shrimp out of your mind afterward.  A mouthful of natural sweetness oozes from the pores of the slightly crispy shrimp with each bite.  It's a stir-fried version of what I'd eat everyday if I were trapped on a deserted tropical island.

One of the dishes that had an amusing name was a pork and bamboo stir-fry called Teacher I'm So Sorry (老師對不起).  I didn't understand the attempt at humor at first, but my aunt explained that back in her elementary school days the teachers would use bamboo poles to smack the rear ends of misbehaving students.  Consequently, someone must have thought of combining strips of bamboo shoots with tender slices of pork in a stir-fry dish.  It's humorous in a slightly morbid way.

Some of the other amusing names are listed below.  These will require a knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and perhaps a familiarity with the Before & After category on Wheel of Fortune to fully extract the humor:

• 歐麥咖哩麻辣燙 - a spicy curry seafood hot pot roughly translated to Oh My G--rry Spicy Hot Pot.  Fill in the blanks with either 'od' or 'cu,' and the idea reveals itself. 
• 心肝寶貝 - Precious Liver; a liver dish using liver as a pun for honey, precious, or baby as a term of endearment.  In English it implies that the liver is precious because it's an essential organ to the body.  Well, yeah...
• 白鱈公主 - Snow White Codfish; steamed codfish that uses the character for codfish (xue / 鱈) as a homonym for the snow in Snow White (xue / 雪).
• 虎咬豬 - Tiger Bites the Pig, a pork belly pacman bun (gua bao); the bun supposedly symbolizes the tiger's mouth, and the pig (pork belly) is trapped within its jaws.
• Q呆呆杏仁豆腐 - Dummy Almond Jelly (also known as almond tofu), a dessert that implies that the jello is so dumb that it just sits in the bowl idly.
• 這個那個西米露 - tapioca dessert that had the name slightly altered from Ziga Zaga (zig zag with an Asian accent) to zhege nage, which means this one and that one, implying that there are plenty of tapioca balls in the dessert.
• 等超久蔥花小麻糬 - Waited So Long House Mochi, titled so because the patrons truly wait for a lengthy period of time for the kitchen staff to prepare the hand-made Taiwanese rice cakes to order.

Hopefully this series of posts help everyone gain a better understanding of what traditional Taiwanese cuisine is all about.  It's rare to find this kind of truly authentic Taiwanese food Stateside, so perhaps this will encourage foodies around the world to take a trip to Taiwan for a culinary inspired trip.  Until next time, let's get S.O.F.A.T.

shinyeh' table (蔥花)

台北市 大安區/ Taipei City, Da An District

忠孝東路 4段 201號 2樓/ Zhongxiao East Road, Section 4, No. 201, 2nd floor

How I get there:

MRT: Zhongxiao Dunhua Station (捷運忠孝敦化站)

exit no. 2; entrance is across the front door of Starbucks

ML - 20110903

Post 62: Taipei - We Love Beef Noodle Soup / 我們愛牛肉麵 (Taipei: Da An District / 台北: 大安區)

Okay, tell me.  Who doesn't love beef noodle soup?

Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese, locals and tourists, whoever has discovered this savory soup noodle has fallen in love with it.  It doesn't matter if other cultures have variations of this dish (think Vietnamese pho); even they have the occasional craving for soupy noodles swimming in beef juice.  Even our friend Diana, whose eating habits borderline vegetarianism, will have beef noodle soup.  Meat on the side, please. 

There are thousands of beef noodle soup restaurants in Taiwan, many of which claim to have made the champion of all beef noodle soups.  It's no wonder that many of these shops are concentrated around Yong Kang Street (永康街), a main tourist area in Taipei with hundreds of visitors from Japan and Hong Kong, many of whom come specifically to visit world-famous Din Tai Fung dumpling house... and to get a taste of Taiwan's beefy national dish.

So Yong Kang St. is where Diana and I took Rina, our special guest from Seoul, who indeed fell in love with beef noodle soup (and gua bao, among other Taiwanese specialties).  We sat down at Lao Zhang Beef Noodle Shop (老張牛肉麵), the 2006 champion of the annual Taipei beef noodle soup competition.  Lao Zhang (also known as Old Chang's) specializes in Szechwan flavors, which means they use plenty of chili pepper, garlic, and Szechwan peppercorn, a spice that effectively tingles your throat with a numbing spiciness.

While Rina slurped up the soy and tomato infused soup and while Diana enjoyed her meatless version (think clam chowder without the clams), I took delight in Old Chang's cucumber and green bean appetizers, both of which are peppered with red chili.  But what I really enjoyed from Old Chang's was the famous spicy steamed pig intestine (粉蒸肥腸).  Yup, you heard me... pig intestine.

The spicy steamed pig's intestine is a fen zheng (粉蒸) dish, which roughly translates to a dish that is powder steamed.  The powder it refers to is a type of rice powder, a sort of rice or grain that resembles couscous.  The grains of rice look like they have been broken in half by a crushing, grounding, or pounding process.  Added to the the rice powder are usually spices such as star anise, five spice powder, pepper, and sometimes cumin or cinnamon.  Wash the imagery of intestine coils out of your brain, and fill them with thoughts of tofu skin with sticky rice covered in garlic, chili, pepper, star anise, and the ever fragrant Szechwan peppercorn.  You will think it's amazing-delicious. 

Even Rina, who may have been slightly averse to internal organs prior to tasting this dish, tried it... and liked it.  When I showed oolong-milktea pictures from my trip, he made some hunger-induced oooh and ahhh noises.  What he ooohed and ahhed over was the version of the fen zheng dish made with pork spare ribs (粉蒸排骨)... equally as delicious as the intestines and perhaps just a tad less gut-wrenching.  Oh, and did I mention that there's a layer of soft and fluffy sweet potato at the bottom of the bamboo steamer soaking up all the spicy flavors and fatty oils that have dripped from down from the pork? Oooh, hell yeah.

But back to beef noodle soup.  Before I could even finish the bamboo steamer of pork, Rina and Diana had already demolished their bowls of noodles.  Tender beef? Gone.  Chewy noodles? Gone.  Spicy soup? All gone.  Although the fen zheng pig intestines were good, it was clear that the star of the show was still the beef noodle soup.

If you can stomach it, I'd suggest heading to Taoyuan Street (桃園街) to try another famous beef noodle soup institution (one of oolong-milktea's favorites).  There are tons of beef noodle stores, stalls, and restaurants in Taipei... including one owned by a Persian man married to a Taiwanese lady.  You're sure to find one that you love.  Until then, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Lao Zhang Beef Noodle Shop (老張牛肉麵)

台北市 大安區 / Taipei City, Da An District

愛國東路 105號 / Ai Guo East Road, No. 105

麗水街口 / Intersection of Li Shiu Street

ML - 20110911