Tastes of Taiwan

December 12th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

I just realized that I’ve been in Taipei more than three months and haven’t written a single review of what I’ve eaten here. However, most of my meals out in Taipei have been working lunches with our client, so I never had the opportunity to fully review and critique every aspect of the dining experience like I would if I were going to review the place. Nonetheless, I have not forgone a true food adventure. Our client, a Taiwanese with a taste for adventure, promised us at the beginning of the project that he would take us to a different restaurant for lunch every day. Despite the wide range of food options near the office, this was nonetheless a tall order for a three-month project. But he was true to his word. And now I’ve been asked to rank the top five places we’ve visited during these three months, and we will re-visit each place once on our last week in Taipei.

Most memorable client lunches:

  1. Potstickers at Ma Shan Tang (麻膳堂)

  2. Japanese restaurant where I had a dish of silken tofu, thin pork slices, onions, and mildly spicy sauce in a small saucepan

  3. Soon dubu, Korean tofu stew, at DuBu House

  4. Ding Tai Fung

  5. Japanese tonkatsu place

Another memorable meal I had was at a Japanese restaurant with a (relatively expensive) prix fixe five-course menu, but it did not make the top 5 because it’s too expensive to visit again.

Excluding client lunches, I’ve also had some very memorable food in Taipei night markets, in Jiufen, and elsewhere:

  • Taiwanese breakfast of peanut-soy milk, fried dough fritters, fried dough fritters and omelette wrapped in glutinous rice

  • Jiufen: oolong tea, yu yuan and deep fried squid



  • Raohe night market: a Taiwanese crepe with shaved peanut candy and three kinds of ice cream, 大腸包小腸 (a Taiwanese “hot dog” with a glutinous rice bun), 胡椒餅 (a baked bun with meat and scallion filling), 雪花冰 (shaved ice with condensed milk), fried quail eggs, and Taiwanese okonomiyaki
  • Oolong milk ice tea
  • Dong Qu Fen Yuan (东区粉圆)

  • Maokong: stir-fried mountain grass, tea-infused fried rice, sweet potato fries
  • Fancy Japanese food in places I never learned the name of






Taiwan is truly one of the most livable places I’ve been to and a food paradise. I would love to move here someday!

Best of Bangkok

July 25th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

In 2012, I spent more than three months working in Bangkok. I was lucky enough to be working with a team who wanted to discover the best of Bangkok as much as I did. Near the beginning of the project, we had a list of some of the best restaurants and bars in Bangkok, and by the end of the project, we had gone to every single one of them at least once, often more than once.

So now I’ll pass on my discoveries.

Best upscale Thai: Bo.Lan


Runner-up upscale Thai: Nahm


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Eating preferences

March 27th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

My preference for certain cuisines is most obviously measured by how often I would want to eat them:

3 times a day, every day – Chinese1, Korean
Once a day – Thai
Twice a week – Japanese, Indonesian, Malaysian
Once a week – Singaporean
Twice a month – Italian
Once a month – French2
Six times a year – American fast food, Vietnamese
Once a year – Spanish, Indian, Greek

Note: This is based on an ideal scenario, i.e. living in a location where all of these foods (in their authentic forms) are readily available. There is no such place, although given my heavy slant towards Asian food, living somewhere in Asia would be good enough.

  1. Primarily Shanghai/Jiangsu region. For other Chinese cuisines, like Canton, Northern Chinese, Sichuan food, etc. I would probably eat no more than 3 times a week. [↩]
  2. More due to the price of quality French food; if it were cheaper, I’d probably have it twice a month. [↩]

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