Taiwan Day 10: Jin Chun Fa Beef Restaurant / 金春發牛肉店 (Taipei: Datong District / 台北市: 大同區)

Ever since my cousin first recommended Jin Chun Fa (金春發牛肉店) to me, it has been one of my absolute favorite places to eat in all of Taiwan.  It is a restaurant that specializes in beef dishes, and it proudly advertises that it has been in operation for over 100 years.  There are over 40 dishes that feature all parts of the cattle.  Dishes range from the safe and traditional like beef satay, curried beef, and beef and potato stir-fry... to more adventuresome plates of tendon, tongue, stomach, brain, heart, and penis.  Here are some of the items that I order whenever I visit.

One dish I dream about at night is this curry beef chow mein (炒咖哩牛肉麵), an absolute must order dish at this restaurant.  The spice from the curry, although apparent, does not take away from the strong point of this dish, which is the sliced beef.  It is sliced thin, which makes it tender and almost elastic in texture.  The noodles are my favorite because they are saucy, slippery, and slurpable, the way that a traditional Taiwanese chow mein is cooked.  It is neither greasy nor spicy... a surprise to most who try it.

Most bone marrow lovers prefer theirs oven roasted and served with toasted bread, but this stir-fried dragon bone marrow (炒龍骨髓) is what I crave.  It has been wok tossed with tomatoes into a savory and saucy dish that tastes like a soy sauce infused marinara.  All that marrow gravy goes great over rice or noodles.  Mmmm... and although I am not sure why it is called dragon bone marrow, I am sure that after having this dish you will change your mind about how you want your bone marrow prepared.

You know me... I need my vegetables.  What better way to get your greens in than by combining it with beef? This sauteed water spinach (炒空心菜) is flavored with garlic, red chili, and a blend of curry powder different from the one used in the chow mein.  The hallowed vegetable stems are crunchy and are a nice contrast to its leaves.  The beef, by the way, is just as soft and tender as the the leafy spinach. 

Another favorite at the restaurant include the stir-fried vinegar beef (炒醋肉), cooked with strands of ginger that blend into a sweet and sour sauce.  The satay beef (沙茶牛肉) using traditional Taiwanese barbecue sauce is an authentic dish that is worth a try as well.  All of these dishes, by the way, would pair well with a bowl of steamed white rice, but they taste even better chased down with ice cold beer.  Taiwanese beer is light and has lots of tingly effervescence, enhance the very flavorful beef dishes, many of which have lots of spice and seasoning, even further.

Anthony Bourdain featured this place on his episode of The Layover in Taipei, but I'm happy to say that I have been eating here years before he had ever dropped in.  He tries the beef noodle soup, but I think the stir-fried dishes definitely steal the show here.

Until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Jin Chun Fa Beef Restaurant (金春發牛肉店)
台北市大同區天水路20號
No. 20, Tianshui Rd., Datong District, Taipei City

ML - 20130709

Post 82.1: Yaki Udon - Mr. Lee Brought Fresh Udon from Japan, Part 1

Ken's dad recently returned from Japan and brought with him some fresh udon from a local noodle shop in Tokyo... and I was fortunate enough to be around when Ken wanted someone to cook them.  Who, me? Me cook udon? Fresh udon? Well, who am I to say no to this request? I love noodles! Especially Asian style noodles... and it's been a long time since I've cooking anything special.  Lucky me.

Besides submerged in soup broth, one of my favorite ways to have udon is stir-fried or yaki style.  Yaki udon is a stir-fried noodle dish.  Some may even say that it's the Japanese variation of Chinese chow mein.  Instead of the commonly used thinner, Chinese yellow egg noodles, though, yaki udon uses the thicker, more doughy udon noodles.  It makes for a very luxurious tasting dish... one that allows the eater to swivel the silky texture of the noodle around the plate or in the mouth for complete enjoyment.

The first thing I did was to make sure I had a good amount of mushrooms to work with.  Since I was cooking with Japanese noodles, I decided to go with a duo of Japanese mushrooms, a well known Shiitake and the more honored honshimeiji mushrooms.  I soaked the Shiitake mushrooms in a cold water bath, and cut the bottoms off the honshimeijis to give them a proper cleaning.

The next step to make julienne some vegetables.  Carrots, celery and spring onions made for a very colorful trio of vegetables that added vibrant color and freshness to the stir-fried udon.  When stir-frying, the spring onions get added at the bookends of the cooking process.  It is added first when the oil first coats the wok to infuse some of the onion flavor in the cooking lubricant, and it is added again at the end of the cooking process as a garnish.

When eating yaki udon, I've usually had it prepared with thinly sliced beef from the fattier areas of the cow.  It get prepared with white or brown onions that are caramelized to give the udon the rich taste that we so desire.  I haven't quite mastered that method of cooking noodles, so I sliced up some pork instead.  I used the hind leg meat of the pork, and marinated it with just a bit of soy, ponzu, sesame oil, and rice wine.

While stir-frying all the ingredients together, I made sure to season the dish every step of the way.  First, the vegetables... next, the meat... and finally, the noodles.  I topped it off with sesame seeds and the freshly sliced spring onion (green onion).  I can't say it was the most traditional of Japanese noodle dishes, but I definitely did my best with it.  Thank you Ken and Mr. Lee for allowing me to do some justice to those fresh Japanese noodles.  Itadakimasu!

And just for fun I made a kimchi fried rice with soft boiled egg on top.  More details on that to come another day.  But for now... happy eating! Did I mention that there were two packages of fresh udon? Heh, heh, heh... more udon on the way! Until then, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

This post features photography by Ken Lee.

ML - 20120316

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 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 56: Islamic Chinese for Uncle Ma (OC: Anaheim)

When I mentioned that there was Muslim Chinese people and hence, Muslim Chinese food, many of my co-workers responded that they never knew such people or cuisine existed.  So I decided to do a little research by browsing online and asking various family members about this unique group of individuals that happen to make delicious noodles and flatbread.

The Muslim Chinese are descendants of Arab and Persian Silk Road travelers.  Athough they have intermarried into the local Han Chinese population through many generations, they retain their religious beliefs such as the consumption of Halal meat and the restriction of pork from their diet.  Chinese Muslims are considered Hui people, which are one of the 50+ officially recognized ethnic minorities in China.  There is also a sizable ethnic Hui population in Taiwan as well.  In China, a large portion of Hui or Muslim Chinese are surnamed Ma (馬), meaning horse.  However, the root of the last name Ma supposedly originated from the Muslim name Muhammad.  It's no wonder that so many of the Islamic Chinese restaurants in Southern California are named Ma.

I dropped by Mas' Islamic Chinese Restaurant to grab some Muslim Chinese food, specifically the beef noodles and the sesame flatbread as a way to remember my Uncle Joe.  My Uncle Joe happens to be surnamed Ma and also happens to have parents who are Hui Chinese.  In fact, they even have a Koran that has been translated into Chinese characters.  But that all might just be coincidental...

Thin sesame flatbread (芝麻大薄餅)

listed on the menu as thin sesame bread with green onion

The sesame flatbread is what I came here for.  And let me warn you... the flatbread is no joke.  It's a platter of sixteen slices of sesame sweetness that will make your eyes open wide and your jaw drop completely open.  It's larger than an XL pizza pie, and it's something that even a family of four will have trouble finishing due to its sheer size.  The flatbread has a texture that is a cross between the firmness of a leftover French baguette and a spongey Ethiopian injera.  The look of it is also a combination of sorts... it reminds me of the delicate nature of an Indian naan but with the girth of a rustic Australian damper (bush bread).  When a co-worker took his first bite of this bread, he exclaimed, "it tastes like sesame."  No kidding.  There seems to be more sesame on this plane of bread than there are grains of sand on the beach.  But it's the sesame and the chopped green onions inside that form the base for flavor.  And it's the bread itself that forms an awesome foundation for whatever sauce or soup it gets eaten with.  Hint: it tastes great with the next item we ordered.



Green onion, ginger, and garlic stir-fried lamb (蔥爆羊肉)
listed on the menu simply as lamb with green onions

The absence of pork from the Islamic diet leaves a gaping void for a Muslim Chinese restaurant to fill.  And although Mas' seems to have filled that void with fish and seafood, it's lamb that seems to be the underacknowledged champion protein.  Each of the lamb dishes on the menu has been prepared with strong and flavorful ingredients (pickled cabbage, Chinese style barbeque sauce, chili peppers, etc.) to minimize the gamey taste that lamb naturally has.  The dish that we ordered was no different.  Upon first whiff the gamey taste dominates all other smells.  But one bite into the lamb, and the pungent garlic, spicy ginger, and hearty green onion immediately knock out that gamey flavor.  It's almost like Taiwanese stinky tofu... the smell is horrible, but one bite and you would think someone took Febreeze to the air.  Well... okay, maybe not so much.

Beef stir-fried with hand-sheared chow mein (牛肉炒刀削麵)

listed on the menu as beef dough sliced chow mein

Noodles! Oh, noodles and pasta are my weakness... especially freshly prepared noodles.  This "dough sliced" chow mein refers to the way that the noodle is prepared.  Rather than making hand-pulled noodles (think ramen or spaghetti), the chef takes a blade to a big ball of fresh dough and shears the noodles off one ribbon at a time (think machete).  For a less violent image, think about that Tillamook commercial that shows the block of sharp cheddar getting sliced one perfect perpendicular plane at a time.  But think a lot faster... and less perpendicular... and also imagen a vat of boiling water at the other end of the figurative machete plank.  After a quick boil and an even quicker stir-fry with bountiful slices of beef, bean sprouts, green onion stalks and scrambled egg, the result is a chewier, more elastic version of the typical Cantonese beef chow fun.

Beware though, there was a significant layer of leftover oil on my plate.  If you are an avid gym-goer, then by all means, help yourself to another slice of flatbread to swivel around and soak up the fatty juices leftover by the lamb.  But if it's tough for you to hit the gym (if you have absolutely no discipline like me), then maybe taking a swig of that hot tea (to wash away the oil) is a better idea.

I have yet to learn more about the Muslim Chinese dishes or even about the people and their history, but sesame flatbread is a good start to further exploration.  I hope future culinary curiousity reveals more surprises about a people or world culture previously unknown to you.  To new discoveries and to my Uncle Joe... until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20110725