MY FIRST TRIP TO DORCHESTER

Our friend, Sam, is in Boston right now. He's one of those people who comes in and out of Boston, but since he's unemployed right now, he's here for the forseeable future. I know there's a large Vietnamese population in Boston, but I'm not quite sure where to go. So taking advantage of the fact that Sam was in town (he speaks Vietnamese fluently and lived there for quite some time), we asked him to take us to great Vietnamese food in Boston.

So Sam picked a restaurant in Dorchester called Pho 2000. Looking up the address in Google maps, Tom and I decided to drive locally, so I got to drive through Dorchester for the first time, which probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was still light out. (We ended up taking the 93 on the way back). Since we got there early, we got to look through the menu. Lots of stuff you'd typically see on any Vietnamese menu (pho, bun, etc.) . The surroundings were very hole in the wall. It's great cause there's parking across the street, but when we entered, Tom and I both detected the smell of garbage and the smell of incense- it wasn't the greatest way to start off. But when Sam arrived, we let him and his friend order for us. There were 7 of us at dinner, so it was a lot easier to eat family style.

We started off with this fantastic Vietnamese type coleslaw.There was coleslaw, shrimp, mint, basil, peanuts, peppers- it was salty, sweet, spicy, sour, and cool- really the perfect thing for a warm winter night and my favorite dish for the entire night.
Soon, more food started to arrive- more than could fit on our small round table. The first was a tofu dish, that you can see to the right of the picture. And in the back you can see a chicken dish. Both were quite good, but nothing truly amazing.

The special dish of the night was this fried catfish. Sam said it was really traditional and hard to find in Boston restaurants. (It's listed on one of the special menus that aren't translated into English). So you get to cut chunks of the catfish. Then you're given packets of rice paper and a bowl of really hot water. You dip the rice paper in the water to soften it, and then make your own wrap. You put in catfish, a selection of veggies, rice noodles, wrap it all up, and dip it into the sweet sauce (that contained apples among other things).

My first wrap wasn't so great. The big plate of veggies they gave us contained this strange vegetable that I'd never seen before. It's a Vietnamese vegetable that smells and tastes exactly like fish. Like stinky fish. It was surprising and I put it in my wrap without trying it first. Needless to say, it wasn't a great idea. It kinda ruined my first wrap.

My second wrap was a lot better, but this still wasn't my favorite dish of the night. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, though. And it did feed all 7 of us. The good thing about driving to Dorchester? Our entire meal cost us $13 per person. Overall, we had an enjoyable meal, though probably more for the company than the food. I'm glad I got a chance to eat more authentic foods, but I don't think I'll be driving down to Dorchester again to find it.

DIM SUM AT HEI LA MOON

Is it bad when it's only 9:30 and I already feel like having ice cream? Maybe it's because the sun's shining outside, or it's knowing that I've got a pint of Haagen dazs coffee ice cream sitting in my fridge. I'll try to hold off, at least until 10.

At any rate, I have been back for nearly 2 weeks now, and we've had a few meals out. One of the first was dim sum at Hei La Moon. Normally we go to China Pearl for dim sum, and the only time I've tried going to Hei La Moon, it was so full that we retreated to the Pearl. But I knew that there must be a reason why people would wait in line to eat at Hei La Moon (oh, and they are owned by the same people who own the Pearl), so we headed back over there on a Sunday morning. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hei La Moon, it's actually on the other side of Chinatown (the one closer to South street station). Here's a shot of the exterior.

You can recognize the place pretty quickly because there are people standing outside waiting for their numbers to be called. When we arrived, there was a small crowd, but it wasn't too bad. As I waited to be given a number, I noticed that all the numbers before us were for small group (2-4 people) and since we had a larger group, I figured we'd be getting a table faster. And I was right. After waiting outside for less than 10 minutes, out number was called and we headed inside.

We were directed to the downstairs dining room, and I immediately noticed that Hei La Moon is a lot newer, cleaner and more organized than the Pearl. The other thing I noticed is that there were a lot more large parties of non-Asians eating at Hei La Moon that at the Pearl. Tom and I were there early, so we ordered first. We got an order of egg rolls and an order of fried shrimp rolls, which were both pretty good. When the group arrived, we ordered more. Like the fried shrimp and the fried calamari. At the Pearl, they would have these out on hot stations, which you'd visit and pick up yourself, but at Hei La Moon, they're pushed around on the carts. Again, these were pretty good, though a little colder than I would've liked. And here's a final shot of some other items.
Overall, I thought the food at Hei La Moon was really good- better than what you'd get at Chau Chow or Empress Garden. And much cleaner and a nicer atmosphere. I'd put it on par quality wise with the Pearl, but the Pearl does have greater selection of food. There really weren't many desserts at the Hei La Moon, and I ended up going to a local bakery for a sesame ball afterwards. It'd be a great place to take out of town guests, or for people who have never been to dim sum before, so I certainly suggest that you try it out if you haven't been before.

TAIWAN: LAST DAY

Well, it was our last day in Taiwan (at least of me and Cathy- my parents are still there). For breakfast, by the time we'd gotten up, my aunts were already busy frying up the different cakes that we had purchased the previous day. Here's a pictures of it:The also laid out a bunch of foods like that stuff we'd been eating all week: soy milk, fried dough, guava, etc. It was all really yummy, and I already miss just going outside to pick up breakfast every morning.
After breakfast, we had some errands to run, but we were happy to fit in a last lunch with my little cousins. (ok, they're not little. The youngest one is 15 and the oldest one is at college at Wisconsin. But since I remember being there when they were born, they're still little to me). Anyway, they still had to be vegetarians, so my aunt picked a restaurant near her house called Vege. It was a more modern looking restaurant, and more Western, in that things weren't served family style, so we each got to order what we wanted and it was also at attempt at more Western inspired foods- they had things like pasta and pizza.

We each started off with a small salad:
And I followed up with a corn soup, which was quite good.
Here's my veggie pasta with linguini. It really wasn't Italian in any way- more like a stir fried noddle dish, the pasta was just too overcooked, but the flavor was pretty good.
And I finished with ice cream.
The service at the restaurant was pretty appalling, though. The restaurant was packed, but they were quite well staffed, so they should've been able to handle the crowd. The entrees and appetizers were very poorly timed and some in our party had finished their entrees and were onto dessert before others had gotten their entrees. We had to ask a waitress like 3 times when one my cousin's lunch went missing, but they never got it together, and we just had them take it off the bill.

After lunch, we wanted to do some last minute shopping, so we decided to hit the neighborhood around my grandmother's house. My grandma's house is located in a part of Taiwan called Ximen. It's where all the teenagers hang out- it's packed with movie theatres, shops, cheap food, food vendors and shopping. On Sundays, it's so crowded that they shut down some of the streets because there are so many pedestrians.

Here are some pics of the food vendors we walked by:

Someone selling fried foods like chicken and onion rings:A vendor selling freshly made mochi. I got 9 of these for $1 and they were great. Yummy, fresh and totally tasty. I wish I had some now. Someone selling a variety of Japanese rice bean cakes (thought they come in all different flavors, not just red bean).
We headed over to a candy store where Cathy pick up gifts for friends. They had silly stuff, like chocolate condoms, nipples, etc. And more traditional candies. The bins lined the walls of the store and the place was packed. I thought of buying Tom this marzipan donut, but decided he probably wouldn't finish it.
After the candy shop, we went to a store that was stocked with everything- like an enormous 4 story drug store. I picked up Tom some Lays that came in flavors like baked chicken and seaweed sushi. It was probably his favorite thing that I got him the whole trip.

Afterwards, we rushed home to finish packing and get ready for dinner. We were invited over to my aunt's house (a second cousin) for a big banquet dinner celebrating her husband's parents' birthdays. It meant that their entire family was there, so there were nearly 30 adults and 10 kids running around. It was a fancy catered dinner, so it was almost like being in a restaurant. We had servers and everything.

Once again, this was a dinner with a printed menu and lots of courses. I didn't eat everything I was served (I skipped the shark fin soup, roasted pork and sea cucumber/abalone courses). Everything was really great, and it was nice filling meal to have before we got on the plane. Here's what we had:

Chicken with scallions:
Fresh pancake filled with green beans:
A wonderful roasted duck, served in a pancake. This duck just reaffirmed how much better duck is in Taiwan than in the states.Some type of lobster related creature- roasted with chilies and other spicesFresh buns (one fried, one steamed- the fried ones are my favorite)And would you be surprised to see our very own shaved ice bar (once again). Here are the toppings.
As they were serving the last fruit course, Cathy and I had to leave for the airport. It'd been a great trip. And stuffed full, we headed back to the states. Here's a parting picture for you- they have a Hello Kitty themed gate in the international terminal, so of course we had to visit, buy candy and take pics. (Hey, I needed change for the water vending machines).

TAIWAN DAY 6: ANOTHER DAY OF EATING AND A ROADTRIP

Our sixth day in Taiwan was a Saturday, so a number of us decided to take a road trip (10 of us in all). But we started off the day with some of that favorite breakfast Taiwanese food- soy bean milk, fried dough, sesame pockets, etc. My aunt wanted to take us to a place that was reputed to have a really good breakfast, so we drove less than 10 minutes to an obscure second floor space off a small street. One wouldn't suspect that there'd be a breakfast place here, but once you got to the top of the stairs, you saw the line.
Apparently this place is really well known for it's different types of freshly made sesame pockets. Here they are, in a little case. This really was one of those places that only locals are gonna know about, so I was happy to be there with my cousins. The line wasn't exactly moving quickly, so my mom, knowing how I enjoy photographing food, took me over to the area where a lot of foods were being prepared, so I took some videos for you.

Here's someone making the sesame pockets

Here they are being pulled out of an oven. It's like a tandoori oven- the sesame pockets were stuck to the side of the walls of the oven and the heat source was a fire at the bottom of the oven.

And here's fried dough being fried in a large vat of oil...yummy.

Finally, here's our breakfast
I can't say that the soymilk or the fried dough was any better than ones that we'd had before, but those sesame pockets with green onions really were very good.

On our way out of the restaurant, we saw a man with a cart rolling down the street (he was literally pushing it down the street). And my aunts saw that he had lots of different type of cakes, so they stopped to buy some.
This is one of the things I really like about Taiwan. It's a modern city (that has way too much traffic), but you'll still have these traditional type of carts that are so low tech and non-modern. I liked the guy working the cart, because he made his own stuff and was very proud of it all. My aunts ended up buying several types of cake- turnip, taro and scallion.Then it was a quick stop at a traditional market, we needed to pick up some fruit for the house. I'd never been to a market like this, but it's not that different from any other market in the world- various stalls all selling different foods.

I really liked this one vendor, selling these ducks in a box. When I took the pic, he tried to speak English with me (ahhhh, I'm such a tourist)My aunts bought fruit- since Taiwan's a tropical country, there's a huge variety year round.And while they were busy with that, I took a pic of a meat vendor. If you look at the upper right hand corner of the pic, yes, you'll notice some pig snouts, cause those are pig faces.After breakfast, we returned home and prepared for our roadtrip. My cousins wanted to take us to a seaside down called Yilan, on the northern coast of Taiwan (about an hour and a half from Taipei). I slept most of the way there, and when I awoke, we were looking for the place where we'd be having lunch.

It ended up being this large building near the ocean, with a view of two small islands called Turtle Island. It was a major tourist destination and the parking lot was full of tour buses. When we entered, we found a large space with a seafood market on the first floor, filled with different stalls. On the second floor, there were restaurants- meaning different stalls that were preparing fresh seafood. Each place had the fresh seafood out for display. Most of it was really fresh, though there were bins of non-native stuff (like salmon) which you could tell was frozen.
We headed for the largest restaurant in the back, where we quickly found seats at a big round table. Once again, my aunts did the ordering. Here are three of them snacking on guavas before our lunch arrived.And then the food started coming. In the front you'll see a stirfried clam dish. There's a seaweed salad in the middle, and I think that's squid on the right.
I enjoyed this dish of fried fishies, served with salt and pepper mix on the side.But my favorite dish of all were these shrimp- simply steamed.A lot of times when you eat shrimp, it just doesn't taste like real shrimp- especially that farmed stuff. But these shrimp were delicious- sweet, simply prepared and full of shrimpy flavor.

After lunch we headed downstairs to look at the seafood market. Lots of the stall had baskets of various dried seafoodsAs my aunts and parents bought and sampled stuff (the vendors were big into sampling) I wandered off to take more pics. I dared Cathy to try different stuff, so I could take a video of it and get it up on the Travel Channel, but she refused.

I found a vendor selling lots of fresh, live seafoodand here's Cathy taking a pic with some gigantic fish. You really can't tell how bit they are from the picture, but they were huge.On our way out, my mom bought some local guavas from one of the vendors.After lunch, we spent an hour lost on the backroads trying to find our next destination- a Taiwanese cultural heritage site. After multiple stops for directions, I was ready to give up and head back to Taipei, but we finally found our way. It was kinda like a mini theme park of Taiwanese heritage. It was kinda fun (had it not been so freaking hot, humid, rainy and packed with people).

Apart from the wood carving exhibit that I really enjoyed, my favorite part of the park was this display of mochiand TA DA! Mochi on a stick (everything tastes better on a stick!)You get 5 mochis for a dollar and I got: red bean, green tea, sesame, chocolate and peanut. They weren't the best mochi I'd ever had, though I did like the peanut, but it was on a stick!!! Ahhh, that might've been one of my favorite parts of my entire trip.

After walking around more and sampling more stuff (I'm telling you, Taiwanese people are way into sampling!) we finally headed back to Taipei. My parents had to go to a dinner party (but we kids refused to go) and instead, we had dinner with my aunts at a dim sum restaurant.

I'm not sure of the exact name of the place- something like 24 hour Hong Kong dim sum, but it's a chain. I saw two of them while in Taipei. It's your typical dim sum place (but for dinner) and it was packed with people. Luckily, someone cancelled their reservation and we got a table in a private room.

I really liked this kiwi-apple drink that we started off with. It was cooling, sweet and delicious.And I also liked this helpful little picture menuOf course my aunt did the ordering, and I didn't feel like taking a ton of pics- you guys know what dim sum looks like, but I wanted to highlight two particularly good dishes.

First was the duckI don't know if they have some special type of duck in Taiwan or what, but man, they have some of the best duck that I've had-EVER. The duck was just so much meatier and with less fat, and the flavor was far more intense and duck like. I really loved it.

And then this dish of rice noodles wrapped around fried dough. (it's the one on the left, the one on the right is your typical rice noodles with shrimp) For some reason, the fried dough was extra extra crispy, and the contrast with the soft rice noodle was excellent. Another dish I truly enjoyed. After another quick trip to the Shihlin Night market, it was finally time to go home and rest. Our tummies were stuffed, with yet another full day of eating.

TAIWAN: DAY 5
Our fifth day in Taiwan was a lot more low key than the previous days. We didn't even leave the house until after lunch and spent the day up at a burial site outside of the city. By the time we came back to Taipei, we had a couple of hours before dinner, so one of my aunts insisted on taking us to have foot massages (and really, would you refuse that?)

Afterwards, we once again met up with a bunch of cousins (this time there were 18 of us) for dinner at a private club. It was a dinner buffet, which had stuff not all that different from that you'd find at a Chinese/Japanese dinner buffet in the states.

We started off with hot items like various fried tempura:
steamed dumblings
and some hot entrees:
Here's my first plate.If you notice the little teapot in the background, it's actually a pot of Japanese seafood soup. It's one of my favorite things, but you really can't find it in the states, so I had 2 during dinner.

Once again there were freshly made handrolls and this time you could actually pic what you wanted in it.These were quite good:
And here's my second plate (I do have some veggies)
And finally, my favorite favorite part of the buffet...all you can eat Haagen Dazs ice cream (and yes, they had coffee, my favorite)As my little cousin stated, it's Haagen Dazs, how can you not eat it? Overall, it wasn't the best buffet I'd ever been to, but I did get to stuff myself and once again, it was great to spend some time with family.