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Tales from Taiwan, Part III: Bento Lunch

For lunch, I present to you... bento (便當).

Bento is a concept originated in Japan, consisting of a packed meal for one person. It's composed of the usual - rice, meat, vegetable - all in single portions, neatly packed into a box. In Taiwan, bentos are a popular lunch item. You can choose a few "side" items with a main protein.

Pictured below is the grilled pork bento. My four side items were cauliflower, slivered cucumbers, chicken hearts, and some sort of sliced bean curd. The grilled pork was really good - it was well-seasoned and tendered, and the sesame really added a great final touch. The side dishes were all very good except for the bean curd, which I found slightly odd. I think it was the fact that it came with dried anchovies - the two flavors didn't mix well together or something.

Bento 烤肉便當

Another popular lunch item that I tried was the soup dumpling (小籠包), which originated in Shanghai. They are not your typical baozi (包子, or steamed bun) - thus, the word dumpling describes them more accurately. They are, however, steamed in a bamboo basket, just like baozi, and their shape somewhat resembles baozi, so they are called "xiaolongbao" - little steamed bao. They are filled with not only the ground meat, but also soup - so that the whole bao becomes super juicy.

I'm not too big a fan of these soup dumplings in the first place, but I tried them since the Taiwanese are quite obsessed with them. I must say, out of all the soup dumplings I've tried, these are not the best.. they were not the juiciest I've had.

Soup dumplings 小籠包

The soup dumplings also came with a bowl of soup, and I chose corn chowder. Taiwanese corn chowder is not the same as American corn chowder, which adds cream to make it very thick. I like the Taiwanese style more... yum. Although from this photo, I guess it looks just like egg drop soup, haha.

Taiwanese corn chowder 玉米濃湯

Tales from Taiwan, Part II: Breakfast

O.m.g. breakfast is heaven. Or maybe it's just breakfast in Taiwan.

At school, I rarely eat breakfast due to 1) a late morning schedule and 2) a busy morning schedule. But here, due to jet lag, I've been waking up early enough to eat breakfast. Plus, I want to catch as many meals as I can. The first morning, we went out to get 蛋餅 (dan bing - Taiwanese omelet), which is very, very different from the Western omelet:

It's made with a thin Chinese crepe wrapped around a fried egg. You can get yours stuffed with a different ingredient such as tuna (canned tuna, that is), pork sung (Taiwanese pork sung is so much better than the stuff you can buy in the U.S.), corn, ham, etc. I got mine with corn. They also add some thick soy sauce (醬油膏) and sweet chili paste (甜辣醬) if you ask for it spicy - which, of course, I did. It was delicious.

蛋餅 Taiwanese omelet

Next day, we went to eat 飯糰 (rice ball), which was AMAZING. Inside was fried dough (油條), pickled radish, pork sung, marinated egg (滷蛋), and corn, seasoned with sesame. Mm... the fried dough and pork sung provided the crispiness of every bite. So delicious - I loved it.

飯糰 rice ball

Did I mention that I got real Chinese soymilk both mornings? Mm-hmm. Yup, goodness in a cup.

Third morning, we went back to the Taiwanese omelet place, but I decided to order a breakfast sandwich instead. It's quite simple, and I've made it before back at school: toast, Asian mayo (which has an addicting sweetness), fried egg, pork sung, and slivered cucumbers. But honestly, the Taiwanese pork sung makes all the difference - and makes the sandwich soo much better.

早餐三明治 Breakfast sandwich

All in all, deliciousness. Are you jealous yet? ;)

Tales from Taiwan, Part I: The Plane Ride

The plane ride was... long. The route was from RDU to ORD to NRT to TPE. Two meals on the Chicago to Tokyo flight, one meal on the Tokyo to Taiwan flight.

I didn't bother taking any photos of the airplane food provided. Needless to say it wasn't very appetizing. Watch out for the dinner roll from AA - I think it can really be used as an assault weapon. JAL was slightly better - the cold noodles with sesame sauce was actually pretty decent. However, all the entrees were so salty! I couldn't eat more than two bites of each...

The highlight of the trip was definitely the layover in Tokyo. I had originally planned to splurge on sushi and sashimi at the NRT airport, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for my wallet), I didn't land in the terminal with the sashimi place, so I ended up just getting noodles instead:

味噌拉麵 miso ramen

As you can probably tell from the name, this is miso soup with ramen. Some additional ingredients include cabbage, corn, carrots, tofu, and sliced pork. The soup was full of flavor, and the noodles' texture was perfect. As S says, they look really rubbery but have just the right amount of chewiness.

牛肉烏東 beef udon

The beef udon has a fewer ingredients than the miso ramen - only onions, thin beef slices, and scallions for garnish. The udon texture, again, is wonderful. The soup is pretty heavy in flavor - I wouldn't have finished the entire bowl. But without the heavy flavoring in the soup, I suppose the udon noodles wouldn't taste as good since they really soaked up all the aroma of the soup.

So those were the highlights of my ~30 hours of travel. Oh, and the biiiig cup of milk tea that S's parents brought me when we got picked up from the airport =D

Destination: Taiwan

I am in Taiwan! I have wanted to visit for ages now, and finally, I am here. I cannot wait share my food experiences with you guys :)

Chubby's Tacos

I am the worst blogger ever.

The past who-knows-how-many-times I have been to Chubby's Taco's, I have either forgotten to take pictures or bring my camera/ phone altogether... but finally, today, I remembered... after taking a bite out of my tamale, that is...

Anyway, Chubby's is one of my favorite Durham eateries! I was first attracted to the salsa bar (thaaaat's right folks, salsa bar) - all freshly made, all very delicious. Of course, the first time I went, I tried every single kind, but I have narrowed down a few favorites: Bandido's Salsa, Chile de Arbol, and the Habanero. The habanero is honestly one of the best spicy sauces that I have ever had, by the way - and that's speaking for all the Asian spicy foods that I've eaten...

The amazing salsa bar at Chubby's.

I usually order a taco and make it a meal, which comes with rice and beans (black or refried) and a bag of corn chips. However, recently I have discovered that their tamales are quite good, so pictured here is my meal from today, tamale with spicy chicken tinga:

I have also ordered the smothered tamale, which is the same thing but with chili, shredded lettuce, and tomato on top. I think I prefer the regular tamale, to be honest...

Tamale, refried beans, rice.

But of course, if it is your first time here, you must try the tacos. I really like the carnitas or spicy carne asada. My friends also highly recommend the fish tacos - the chipotle cream sauce does look very delicious.

If you haven't made your way down to 9th street yet for taco and salsa, you are definitely missing out. You'll get a great meal at an unbelievable price. And you'll probably see me there, sampling another flavor of salsa... (yes, I am easily entertained).

Restaurant: Chubby's Taco's

Price: $5-10