Dear blog,
I am writing you from the mattress on Christine's floor, what she has come to call her "bed" over the past three weeks.
I'm all packed and ready to come home. In less than two hours we'll be calling a cab and heading off to the airport and I'll be back in a country where I can read the menus, ask the servers for recommendations, and totally understand what they're saying!
We spent the past three days celebrating Christine's birthday. The 18th we stuffed ourselves ridiculously silly with a salad, a french gallette and crepe, topped off with an iced rose latte. That was a pretty dumb move, because we rolled out of there at three and had birthday dinner reservations at 630, which of course we were not hungry for. The reservations were at a restaurant that specializes in tonkatsu- super deep fried Japanese pork cutlet. I got a small plate of it, and of course, it being Chrisinte's birthday and all, it was amazing.
Yesterday's lunch was all you can eat sushi with some more "ice" stuff for desert. I liked this ice dish better than the other two- it tasted like snow which made me happy and nostalgic.
Today's lunch was my last traditional Taiwanese style meal for what will probably be a very long time. There was silken tofu with thousand year old egg, those little dumplings that reminded me of potstickers, and noodles with sesame sauce.
Oh man. Time to relax and mentally prepare for the journey ahead. See you soon!!!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Taiwan Part 2: Day 1
Back in Taiwan! Christine's 23rd birthday! Yay!!!
After being in Japan for a week, it felt really good to arrive in Taipei, someplace a little more comfortable and familiar.
Surprisingly enough, there was more food for me to try here in Taiwan! We were just about to head out for breakfast/lunch when Christine's roommate announced that she had made the three of us desert and we had to eat it before we left the house. Tang Yuan- "soup circle." The outside was a flour paste with a sweetened sesame paste inside- it kinda tasted like caramel- and, of course, it was so good.
Lunch was some traditional Taiwanese fare- drunken chicken with fatty pork, noodles, rice, bittermellon with egg paste, and some sub-par garlic eggplant. Trying to eat the slippery drunken chicken, I struggled more with the big plastic chopsticks more than I have at any other point in the trip. This was embarrassing, but I got through it and managed to eat the rest of my meal without any other problems.
I had this with my first mediocre Taiwanese beverage. Christine ordered it for me without consulting me, and it kinda just tasted like grape juice with "aloe cubes."
From here we went to that cute French bakery right by Christine's house where we had picked up some food in preparation for the Japan trip and indulged in a cannale and a couple macaroons- salted caramel and macha flavored. They did not disappoint.
Dinner was "lu wei"- "stewed flavor." So, there's this huge stand with all different kinds of food- noodles, veggies, mushrooms, animal parts- you pick out everything you want, and one person takes your money and passes the food onto the next person who takes all your food out of its packaging and sorting the food in order of how long it will take to cook. It then goes onto the third person, who chops everything up into the correct sizes, who then passes it onto the final person who cooks all the food in a big vat of boiling tea. This same person then sauces the food and puts it all on a plate for you to go and eat. On our plate, there was seaweed, tofu, tofu skin, mushrooms, quail eggs, chicken hearts, chicken liver, pig's blood rice cake, udon and ramen noodles, duck's blood, tarrot gelatin, baby corn and hot dogs. My favorites were the tofu skin and the pig's blood. The tofu tasted too much like tofu, and I didn't really like the chicken liver. The chicken heart was ok if eaten in small bites.
This was washed down with a yummy drink that tasted a lot like that sweetened sesame stuff that we had for breakfast.
Then we came home and had some birthday cupcake, birthday shots, and birthday glee. Goodnight!
After being in Japan for a week, it felt really good to arrive in Taipei, someplace a little more comfortable and familiar.
Surprisingly enough, there was more food for me to try here in Taiwan! We were just about to head out for breakfast/lunch when Christine's roommate announced that she had made the three of us desert and we had to eat it before we left the house. Tang Yuan- "soup circle." The outside was a flour paste with a sweetened sesame paste inside- it kinda tasted like caramel- and, of course, it was so good.
Lunch was some traditional Taiwanese fare- drunken chicken with fatty pork, noodles, rice, bittermellon with egg paste, and some sub-par garlic eggplant. Trying to eat the slippery drunken chicken, I struggled more with the big plastic chopsticks more than I have at any other point in the trip. This was embarrassing, but I got through it and managed to eat the rest of my meal without any other problems.
I had this with my first mediocre Taiwanese beverage. Christine ordered it for me without consulting me, and it kinda just tasted like grape juice with "aloe cubes."
From here we went to that cute French bakery right by Christine's house where we had picked up some food in preparation for the Japan trip and indulged in a cannale and a couple macaroons- salted caramel and macha flavored. They did not disappoint.
Dinner was "lu wei"- "stewed flavor." So, there's this huge stand with all different kinds of food- noodles, veggies, mushrooms, animal parts- you pick out everything you want, and one person takes your money and passes the food onto the next person who takes all your food out of its packaging and sorting the food in order of how long it will take to cook. It then goes onto the third person, who chops everything up into the correct sizes, who then passes it onto the final person who cooks all the food in a big vat of boiling tea. This same person then sauces the food and puts it all on a plate for you to go and eat. On our plate, there was seaweed, tofu, tofu skin, mushrooms, quail eggs, chicken hearts, chicken liver, pig's blood rice cake, udon and ramen noodles, duck's blood, tarrot gelatin, baby corn and hot dogs. My favorites were the tofu skin and the pig's blood. The tofu tasted too much like tofu, and I didn't really like the chicken liver. The chicken heart was ok if eaten in small bites.
This was washed down with a yummy drink that tasted a lot like that sweetened sesame stuff that we had for breakfast.
Then we came home and had some birthday cupcake, birthday shots, and birthday glee. Goodnight!
Japan #2
Ok, so seems like I have a lot of updating to do and not a ton of time to do it, so I'll really stick to the general picture and highlights of food travels in Japan.
Point #1: Food in Japan is kinda sorta really expensive. More expensive than San Francisco expensive. And especially coming from Taiwan where we usually spend around $3 per meal, my travel mates and I were conflicted as to how to navigate the situation. This made for a lower volume of noteworthy meals, though this is not to say there were too few.
Point #2: I've had lots of good Japanese food in the USA.
Point #3: Food in Japan has a much wider variety than I had ever thought to experience in the USA.
Point #4: Food in Japan is kinda sorta really expensive.
With that said, there were still some awesome highlights.
* In Osaka, after befriending a few Australians from our hostel, we went into a place where everyone gets their own fire (grill) and you can order all the raw meat you want (of which there was huge variety, including "salted pig's penis" which we did not try) and then cook it as rare or well done as you pleased.
* I ate delicious ramen at a stand in Osaka and at the Ramen Museum in Yokahama.
* There was this cool style of restaurant called izakaya where every table had a button that you could press when you wanted your server to come over and then you would order small plates and drinks and then whenever you wanted to order more you could just press it again and they'd come over and bla bla bla and your bill only closed out when you said you wanted it to. As a server, I would be thrilled to work someplace with that kind of system!
* In Kyoto, we ate at an izakaya restaurant where I got "tea rice with raw octopus"- you get a bowl with rice and raw octopus and a cup of hot tea and you put the hot tea into the rice so the octopus can cook- it was AMAZING. And then I got chicken-plum-cheese tempura, and that was really good too. This restaurant seemed to serve more "modern" Japanese food and it was delicious. Christine got sweet potato fries with honey butter and that was also a huge hit.
* On the train on my way to Tokyo I thought I was getting a package of normal salmon sushi, but then when I opened the box each sushi piece was wrapped in a leaf! And all the writing on the box was in Japanese so I had no idea how I was supposed to eat it, if I was supposed to unwrap it and eat it or not! I unwrapped the first one which was impossible to do using only chopsticks, which I took as a sign that I, in fact, was supposed to eat the leaf. It tasted super good, as if it was meant to be eaten that way, so I ate the rest of the sushi this way. I showed it to Kirtana and a friend of her's and they had never seen anything like it before. They read the package and it turned out that this leaf was a persimmon leaf! Which only strengthens my theory that persimmons = the perfect fruit.
* At Starbucks I had a macha tea latte. It was green and pretty and yummy and filled with antioxidants which made me think I was being healthy.
* In Yokahama I also tried Korean food at a Korean/Vietnamese/Indian restaurant, and in Tokyo I went to a ridiculously expensive but very cute and good smelling French bakery.
* The only other noteworthy food Christine and I tried was horse sashimi. For some reason it reminded me of fruit juice, but Christine described it as a mix of raw tuna and steak.
Anyway, aside from the food Japan was a very interesting experience. I've never felt so much explicit pressure to follow such specific conduct, which I had a hard time dealing with. However, the country was beautiful, and we met a ton of extremely warm, kind people at each step of the journey. I'm not sure if I would rush back for any other reason other than to visit Kirtana, but I am very glad that I went and got to see this country I've heard so much about my whole life.
Point #1: Food in Japan is kinda sorta really expensive. More expensive than San Francisco expensive. And especially coming from Taiwan where we usually spend around $3 per meal, my travel mates and I were conflicted as to how to navigate the situation. This made for a lower volume of noteworthy meals, though this is not to say there were too few.
Point #2: I've had lots of good Japanese food in the USA.
Point #3: Food in Japan has a much wider variety than I had ever thought to experience in the USA.
Point #4: Food in Japan is kinda sorta really expensive.
With that said, there were still some awesome highlights.
* In Osaka, after befriending a few Australians from our hostel, we went into a place where everyone gets their own fire (grill) and you can order all the raw meat you want (of which there was huge variety, including "salted pig's penis" which we did not try) and then cook it as rare or well done as you pleased.
* I ate delicious ramen at a stand in Osaka and at the Ramen Museum in Yokahama.
* There was this cool style of restaurant called izakaya where every table had a button that you could press when you wanted your server to come over and then you would order small plates and drinks and then whenever you wanted to order more you could just press it again and they'd come over and bla bla bla and your bill only closed out when you said you wanted it to. As a server, I would be thrilled to work someplace with that kind of system!
* In Kyoto, we ate at an izakaya restaurant where I got "tea rice with raw octopus"- you get a bowl with rice and raw octopus and a cup of hot tea and you put the hot tea into the rice so the octopus can cook- it was AMAZING. And then I got chicken-plum-cheese tempura, and that was really good too. This restaurant seemed to serve more "modern" Japanese food and it was delicious. Christine got sweet potato fries with honey butter and that was also a huge hit.
* On the train on my way to Tokyo I thought I was getting a package of normal salmon sushi, but then when I opened the box each sushi piece was wrapped in a leaf! And all the writing on the box was in Japanese so I had no idea how I was supposed to eat it, if I was supposed to unwrap it and eat it or not! I unwrapped the first one which was impossible to do using only chopsticks, which I took as a sign that I, in fact, was supposed to eat the leaf. It tasted super good, as if it was meant to be eaten that way, so I ate the rest of the sushi this way. I showed it to Kirtana and a friend of her's and they had never seen anything like it before. They read the package and it turned out that this leaf was a persimmon leaf! Which only strengthens my theory that persimmons = the perfect fruit.
* At Starbucks I had a macha tea latte. It was green and pretty and yummy and filled with antioxidants which made me think I was being healthy.
* In Yokahama I also tried Korean food at a Korean/Vietnamese/Indian restaurant, and in Tokyo I went to a ridiculously expensive but very cute and good smelling French bakery.
* The only other noteworthy food Christine and I tried was horse sashimi. For some reason it reminded me of fruit juice, but Christine described it as a mix of raw tuna and steak.
Anyway, aside from the food Japan was a very interesting experience. I've never felt so much explicit pressure to follow such specific conduct, which I had a hard time dealing with. However, the country was beautiful, and we met a ton of extremely warm, kind people at each step of the journey. I'm not sure if I would rush back for any other reason other than to visit Kirtana, but I am very glad that I went and got to see this country I've heard so much about my whole life.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Hi Guys!
Hi guys! Long time no see!
I'm am currently writing you from my spiffy hotel room in Yokahama, birth-city of the late Opa Dieter. I'm staying here with Kirtana for a night before changing my resting spot to the extremely close Tokyo. While Kirtana showers I'll give a quick update on all the delicious Japanese food I've been eating since I got here last Wednesday.
First stop: Hiroshima
Dinner: Okonomiyaki. After a near disaster where I left my Japanese Rail Pass (equivalent to Japan's Eurail pass) and passport on the train and was almost forced to "come back tomorrow morning" to sort it out due to a significant language barrier, we checked into our hostel in Hiroshima and asked our angelic hostess where we should grab dinner. She informed us that okonomiyaki, a noodle, veggies, meat and egg dish, is a must have while in Hiroshima, and recommended a nearby restaurant to try it. We did, and it was (relatively) cheap and delicious, and by the time we got back to the hostel the men at the train station had called to say they had found my lost items and I could pick them up at the Hiroshima train station anytime after 6am tomorrow.
The next day's breakfast was a bento box from a kiosk at the train station. It's so cool to be here and see the difference in the food culture! Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of it but I remember it included rice with some seaweed wrapped around it and a variety of pickled vegetables.
We grabbed lunch after visiting the main tourist sights, all concentrated around the Peace Park. After a tearful visit to the Peace Memorial Museum I got an AMAZING lunch. I wish I remembered what it was called, because I want to find it in the United States. There were cold ramen noodles with this amazing spicy meat/peanut sauce, with an egg and seaweed and bean sprouts on top and then you stir it all together and eat it and it makes your life complete/cheers you up after witnessing extensive documentation of one of the darkest moments in contemporary human history.
Ok my Koala Bear and I are about to grab dinner but I'll write more later!!
I'm am currently writing you from my spiffy hotel room in Yokahama, birth-city of the late Opa Dieter. I'm staying here with Kirtana for a night before changing my resting spot to the extremely close Tokyo. While Kirtana showers I'll give a quick update on all the delicious Japanese food I've been eating since I got here last Wednesday.
First stop: Hiroshima
Dinner: Okonomiyaki. After a near disaster where I left my Japanese Rail Pass (equivalent to Japan's Eurail pass) and passport on the train and was almost forced to "come back tomorrow morning" to sort it out due to a significant language barrier, we checked into our hostel in Hiroshima and asked our angelic hostess where we should grab dinner. She informed us that okonomiyaki, a noodle, veggies, meat and egg dish, is a must have while in Hiroshima, and recommended a nearby restaurant to try it. We did, and it was (relatively) cheap and delicious, and by the time we got back to the hostel the men at the train station had called to say they had found my lost items and I could pick them up at the Hiroshima train station anytime after 6am tomorrow.
The next day's breakfast was a bento box from a kiosk at the train station. It's so cool to be here and see the difference in the food culture! Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of it but I remember it included rice with some seaweed wrapped around it and a variety of pickled vegetables.
We grabbed lunch after visiting the main tourist sights, all concentrated around the Peace Park. After a tearful visit to the Peace Memorial Museum I got an AMAZING lunch. I wish I remembered what it was called, because I want to find it in the United States. There were cold ramen noodles with this amazing spicy meat/peanut sauce, with an egg and seaweed and bean sprouts on top and then you stir it all together and eat it and it makes your life complete/cheers you up after witnessing extensive documentation of one of the darkest moments in contemporary human history.
Ok my Koala Bear and I are about to grab dinner but I'll write more later!!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
quickhellofromjapan!!
justwantedtoupdaterealquicktosayi'mgreat,safe,injapan,andeatinglotsofgoodfood.imusingajapanesekeyboardrightnowandthespacbarisinareallyannoyingplacesoi'mjustnotgonnauseitfornow.butwannasaythankstoallmyadoringfans,thatiloveyouandwillpostagainverysoon!!probablyeithertomorroworoncei'mbackintaiwan.
lovelovelovelovelove
Emma
lovelovelovelovelove
Emma
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Day 7
Today started like any other day with cereal.
After my quick exercise (gotta do something to at least slightly offset the ridiculous amounts of food I'm consuming) I met Christine so we could be off for lunch. We got a little lost on the way but took a (slightly creepy) cab ride to our destination. I was thrilled to try another one of Christine's all time favorite drinks here. This one was milk&boba drink where the tapioca had been cooked in black raw sugar, making it extremely sweet. It is added to whole milk and the only thing flavoring it is this ridiculously caramely sweet tapioca. It was so sweet and so good.
Lunch was another taste of typical Taiwanese food, at an amazing hole in the wall close to the most prestigious university in the country. We had a pork-bun-sandwich thing; lean pork, fatty pork, cilantro, pickled something and peanut powder wrapped in a delicious bun. This was followed by two soups- one was broth with pig intestine, and the other broth with chunks of pork and corn. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little squeamish about trying the pork intestine, but it was actually surprisingly delicious.
On our way home we stopped at an adorable French bakery and picked up a few loaves for the following days voyage to Japan. After powering through an intense blog entry Christine and I devoured one of them with some Gouda cheese, and then I crashed.
On our way to dinner via Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall I picked up a gourmet iced latte at the closest 7-11. We were then off to another hole-in-the-wall classic, the main course being those burn in your mouth dumplings I had heard so much about; Xiao Long Bao- small basket dumplings. We got the classic pork filled ones which reminded me a lot of potstickers or wontons. Then there was beef with cucumber and scallions wrapped in a pancake, cabbage, and a sesame seed tortilla stuffed with red bean for desert. Two thumbs up to all of it.
Then there was a margarita at the salsa club, and now we're back home, snacking as we pack and pull an all nighter before a long day of travel.
Lunch was another taste of typical Taiwanese food, at an amazing hole in the wall close to the most prestigious university in the country. We had a pork-bun-sandwich thing; lean pork, fatty pork, cilantro, pickled something and peanut powder wrapped in a delicious bun. This was followed by two soups- one was broth with pig intestine, and the other broth with chunks of pork and corn. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little squeamish about trying the pork intestine, but it was actually surprisingly delicious.
On our way home we stopped at an adorable French bakery and picked up a few loaves for the following days voyage to Japan. After powering through an intense blog entry Christine and I devoured one of them with some Gouda cheese, and then I crashed.
On our way to dinner via Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall I picked up a gourmet iced latte at the closest 7-11. We were then off to another hole-in-the-wall classic, the main course being those burn in your mouth dumplings I had heard so much about; Xiao Long Bao- small basket dumplings. We got the classic pork filled ones which reminded me a lot of potstickers or wontons. Then there was beef with cucumber and scallions wrapped in a pancake, cabbage, and a sesame seed tortilla stuffed with red bean for desert. Two thumbs up to all of it.
Then there was a margarita at the salsa club, and now we're back home, snacking as we pack and pull an all nighter before a long day of travel.
Day 6
Today was a day of Taiwanese "comida cotidiana."
For lunch we went to this little Thai chicken place in the night market closest to Christine's house/school, a spot where she "goes with [her] friends after class all the time." It came in a "bian dang," a "Taiwanese bento box" with the main course being chicken, with sauce, broccoli, noodles, a bittermelonesque thing (but it wasn't bitter, yay!) and all the white rice you can eat. Of course we couldn't have a meal unaccompanied by a drink, so we got milk tea with that grass jelly stuff we had had for post lunch desert the day before. Nothing too thrilling or special, but it was nice to go someplace cheap and typical, someplace where I'd probably eat at often if I was gonna be around for longer.
There were no food experiences to report on for most of the afternoon, although our ticket to the 91st floor of Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world, came with a complimentary beer float which after (not) much deliberation we decided to not take up, and I came across some interesting looking cookbooks at the bookstore that we rummaged through while waiting to go up the fastest elevator in the world.
For our (first) dinner we got beef noodle soup- one of Taiwan's most traditional dishes. Before sitting down we got to pick up little appetizer plates- we got eggplant and tofu noodles. Once again I was hella hungry so I scarfed that down and waited as patiently as possible for the majestic noodles to find their way to me. And they did. And (surprise surprise) they were amazing. The beef was melt-in-your-mouth tender, with lots of fat which makes everything so good. The tomato broth was delicious, and the noodles were noodles, complimenting the rest of the soup perfectly.
Our next destination was the Shi Lin market, Taipei's biggest night market. However, we had just eaten and were quite full, so to kill time we went to the public hot springs for some relaxation and digestion before our next conquest.
And conquer we did.
1) Strawberry covered in molasses. Sold on the same stand as that tomato and plum molasses stuff I tried my first night here and didn't like. This was much, much better. I don't think I'd have it again, maybe I'm not a huge fan of molasses, but the strawberries were ripe and juicy and delicious.
2) Deep fried scallion pancake. Super garlicy scallion pancake with an egg on top. Good, a little oily, but I do love my garlic... :)
3) Quing Cao Cha- an herbal iced tea. Super refreshing and very simple compared to all the boba/milk tea/grass jelly I've been drinking!
4) Pancake balls- Yes, Christine unintentionally tricked me into eating pancakes. They t. weren't your traditional pancake shape which was deceiving, but probably from the exact same batter. They were ok- tasted like pancakes- I didn't have more than a couple.
5) Rice balls- Christine and I decided to try something new when we saw this mysterious lady with a hat on using cool little contraptions to turn ingredients into food. Christine tried to order from her in the traditional oral way when another patron came to our rescue, pointing out that the woman was deaf. It was a nice ordering without words, especially in the middle of the hustle and bustle of this night market. We got two different flavors of rice balls- peanut and sesame. I liked the sesame one better but probably wouldn't get either of them again.
6) Fried squid- This was just a sample. Since in Spain I was such a huge fan of octopus, I figured squid would probably be equally delicious! This sample was ok, but I was full enough that I didn't feel compelled to eat an entire order of it.
7) Sausage and rice- The rice was encased the way sausages are and presented alongside a small sausage, with the idea being you take a bite of both of them at the same time. I'm not sure how they seasoned the sausage, but it kinda tasted as if it had been soaked in that tea stuff that flavors so much of Taiwan's cuisine. I didn't care for it too much, but the rice was delicious and I gobbled that right up.
8) Tomatoes and plum- One of Christine's favorite snacks here is tomatoes and plum. What they do is they get little tomatoes and mix it in with little pieces of plum and put a little plum powder on top. This is probably where people got the idea to put it all on a stick and cover it in molasses. I was pretty excited for this unpleasant experience to be redeemed in a way, but I guess I just prefer my tomatoes salty over sweet.
9) Peanut ice: It's hard to explain this without showing the picture (will upload soon, promise!) My guess is they freeze a block of ice that's mixed with peanut sauce and a little cream and then they shave it off to make this really awesome looking & tasting desert.
Ok so I realize that the review of all this food coupled with the fact that it was hard to avoid the smell of stinky tofu makes it sound like the night market was not a great experience, but that's just not true! The night market was so cool, so exciting, so much more to try! I didn't find much that I loved, but I barely made a dent in all this place had to offer, and it was just so cool to be in that environment that it was definitely a positive experience.
As we watched Glee, I broke out the seaweed popcorn I had been so eager to try, and I'm happy to report it surpassed expectations. It was a lot like hurricane popcorn, with some sweetness added. Very dangerous. Do not plan on bringing any home, because I will eat it all in one sitting, and that is bad.
PS: When I get home, it's back to healthy eating. I swear.
For lunch we went to this little Thai chicken place in the night market closest to Christine's house/school, a spot where she "goes with [her] friends after class all the time." It came in a "bian dang," a "Taiwanese bento box" with the main course being chicken, with sauce, broccoli, noodles, a bittermelonesque thing (but it wasn't bitter, yay!) and all the white rice you can eat. Of course we couldn't have a meal unaccompanied by a drink, so we got milk tea with that grass jelly stuff we had had for post lunch desert the day before. Nothing too thrilling or special, but it was nice to go someplace cheap and typical, someplace where I'd probably eat at often if I was gonna be around for longer.
There were no food experiences to report on for most of the afternoon, although our ticket to the 91st floor of Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world, came with a complimentary beer float which after (not) much deliberation we decided to not take up, and I came across some interesting looking cookbooks at the bookstore that we rummaged through while waiting to go up the fastest elevator in the world.
Our next destination was the Shi Lin market, Taipei's biggest night market. However, we had just eaten and were quite full, so to kill time we went to the public hot springs for some relaxation and digestion before our next conquest.
And conquer we did.
 |
| Rice Ball Lady |
2) Deep fried scallion pancake. Super garlicy scallion pancake with an egg on top. Good, a little oily, but I do love my garlic... :)
3) Quing Cao Cha- an herbal iced tea. Super refreshing and very simple compared to all the boba/milk tea/grass jelly I've been drinking!
4) Pancake balls- Yes, Christine unintentionally tricked me into eating pancakes. They t. weren't your traditional pancake shape which was deceiving, but probably from the exact same batter. They were ok- tasted like pancakes- I didn't have more than a couple.
5) Rice balls- Christine and I decided to try something new when we saw this mysterious lady with a hat on using cool little contraptions to turn ingredients into food. Christine tried to order from her in the traditional oral way when another patron came to our rescue, pointing out that the woman was deaf. It was a nice ordering without words, especially in the middle of the hustle and bustle of this night market. We got two different flavors of rice balls- peanut and sesame. I liked the sesame one better but probably wouldn't get either of them again.
6) Fried squid- This was just a sample. Since in Spain I was such a huge fan of octopus, I figured squid would probably be equally delicious! This sample was ok, but I was full enough that I didn't feel compelled to eat an entire order of it.
7) Sausage and rice- The rice was encased the way sausages are and presented alongside a small sausage, with the idea being you take a bite of both of them at the same time. I'm not sure how they seasoned the sausage, but it kinda tasted as if it had been soaked in that tea stuff that flavors so much of Taiwan's cuisine. I didn't care for it too much, but the rice was delicious and I gobbled that right up.
8) Tomatoes and plum- One of Christine's favorite snacks here is tomatoes and plum. What they do is they get little tomatoes and mix it in with little pieces of plum and put a little plum powder on top. This is probably where people got the idea to put it all on a stick and cover it in molasses. I was pretty excited for this unpleasant experience to be redeemed in a way, but I guess I just prefer my tomatoes salty over sweet.
9) Peanut ice: It's hard to explain this without showing the picture (will upload soon, promise!) My guess is they freeze a block of ice that's mixed with peanut sauce and a little cream and then they shave it off to make this really awesome looking & tasting desert.
As we watched Glee, I broke out the seaweed popcorn I had been so eager to try, and I'm happy to report it surpassed expectations. It was a lot like hurricane popcorn, with some sweetness added. Very dangerous. Do not plan on bringing any home, because I will eat it all in one sitting, and that is bad.
PS: When I get home, it's back to healthy eating. I swear.
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