Bittenbug’s Weblog

Continuing this newfound fascination with the sushi counter, we booked seats at Sushi Hiro for Saturday lunch. We were lucky that they still had seats, so we took the 12pm opening, promising to leave within an hour. Feeling like splurging a little, I got the 16 piece sushi set for HK$250, and C had the sashimi rice for HK$120, which was a real steal. The meals come with appetizers, miso soup, fruit and coffee/tea.

The ambiance was more reminiscent of a sushi bar in Tokyo than Sushi Imamura. There are no visual impediments that blocks the customer from seeing the chef at work. Sitting down, it was eye level, which made us able to appreciate what what the sushi chefs were doing. I sat right in front of the friendly Chinese chef working exclusively on gunkan.

With the 16 piece set, I could choose what I wanted from a list. There’s the cheaper 9 piece set which is predetermined by the chef at HK$120, which makes it less flexible than Imamura, which allows the customer to choose for that price. For the set, we choose 2 pieces each of chu-toro, tuna, salmon and 深海池魚, as well as single orders of sweet prawn, mini squid, salmon roe, scallop, sea eel and a few other fish I can’t name.

It came beautifully presented (as you can see from the picture). At Imamura, I found the wasabi overpowering so I asked the friendly chef in front of me to put less. He suggested that he leave it out so I had the option of adding the amount I liked, which I much preferred.

The chu-toro was very unforgettable, easily the best piece of fish I’ve had this year. How can it be that fish melts in your mouth like butter, I can’t explain but that’s how it felt like to me. The salmon, tuna and sea eel were superior to the ones at Imamura. The 深海池魚 was good but not spectacular. There was a piece of white fish I didn’t care much about, it was too sinewy and chewy.

C’s set was really value for money especially considering the quantity. Her bento was seperated into two: the sashimi rice and a side of sashmi. Her sashimi rice came with salmon roe, uni (sea urchin) and mushrooms. She mixed it all up and tucked in, all the while saying how good it was. The side of sashimi had scallops, cutterfish, tuna, tamago and a few others. I had a few pieces, and while it wasn’t as fresh as the sushi I had, it was still good.

But there’s a huge disclaimer I must make. I know it’s probably unfair to compare sushi sets that are at different price points. These restaurants also serve much finer meals for dinner at much higher prices, so these comments do not accurately reflect their caliber. Both are known to be among the city’s best sushi joints and absolutely deserve that honor.

After dinner, we came home to cake and champagne. Yes, we know, very decadent, but it’s my birthday so screw diets.

C had ordered a cake from Zoe Cafe two days ago, and rushed to pick it up before joining me for dinner. Even with a two day headstart, most of their signature cakes were already sold out. Apparently you need to order three days in advance.

She reluctantly choose the mocha flavor, over the fudge cake that was still available. It turned out to be a good choice. It was high quality, comparable to all the high-end bakeries in the city. Naturally it was very rich and tasted suspiciously like tiramisu to my uneducated palate. To go with that, we had a half bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut.

When I had a glass before cake, I thought it was slightly tart. I was pleasantly surprised that, when taken together with the cake, the flavor profiles of both changed. The champagne smoothened out considerably while the wine cut through the cake’s richness.

It was my birthday yesterday, and I’m now on the wrong side of the quarter life. To celebrate, C booked a table at Gaia Ristorante for dinner after considering quite a few options.

We arrived just before 730pm and the restaurant was only half full. I’ve been for drinks before but always al fresco, so I’ve never seen the interior. I was pleasantly surprised by how charming, though slightly dark, the restaurant was. Unlike others in town, it felt very spacious with only round tables that are suitably distant from each other, so you can rest assured that conversations don’t carry to the next table.

We took a little time with our orders, but never felt rushed into it. The service, as others have observed, is impeccable but slightly aloof for an Italian restaurant.

We started off with the bread basket. I expected it to blow me away, but it obviously didn’t. The bread was cold and hard, certainly didn’t feel home baked. The crisps and grissini were good (and we polished that off), but the rest were disappointing. But we ate all of it mainly because the aged olive oil and balsamic vinegar were excellent. The vinegar, in particular, was dark and thick with very complex flavors.

An amuse bouche with zucchini and what I think is cheese came next. I couldn’t ask the waiter what exactly was in the dish before he whipped off. We didn’t wait long for our appetizer of grilled assorted vegetables with melted casatella cheese and aged balsamic vinegar to come.

The dish came together perfectly. There were several varieties on the plate, but what stood out for me were the tomatoes and pumpkin. The cheese was slightly melted on the grill, with clear char marks, which made it chewy and imbued just the right amount of smokiness. A very well composed dish with very complementary flavors.

Our mains came together after about 15 minutes. We ordered the homemade pappardelle tossed in sangiovese marinated rabbit stew-style ragout and lamb chops with assorted peppercorns and mint caramel. Let’s start with the pasta first. I loved how al dente the homemade pasta was (added points for making it pappardelle, a personal favorite). There weren’t globs of sauce that detracted from the pasta. The rabbit, however, was tough and so slightly disappointing.

We asked for the lamb chops to be medium rare and that’s exactly what we got. Charred beautifully on the outside, it was still pink on the inside. It was clearly high quality lamb, with none of the “lamby” (for lack of a better word) flavor. I took my first bite; it was juicy and meaty, with a little crunch from char and just the right proportion of fat. C, a self-styled lamb chop expect, declared it one of the best she had ever had. If one criticism, it was that the chop was too salty, especially when paired with the heavy sauce.

That was solved by dipping into the mint caramel. It had just the right balance of sweet and savory. I suspect, on its own, either would have been overpowering. As testament to how much I loved the chops, I bit from the bone to reach the parts I couldn’t cut. In full view of the dining room. I doubt I won points for etiquette, but damn, I sure showed them love.

We could have, and should have, stopped there. But we were enticed into dessert. Because C had already bought a cake (see next post), we settled for something light: reinette apple tartellete, crispy pastry and mascarpone gelato. It wasn’t what I had expected, like apples slices soaked in liqueur, but it came off well when paired with the crispy pastry. The mascarpone gelato was good, though a little too sweet for me.

The total bill came to about HK$900 for two, which was expensive but definitely worth it. This isn’t a weekend pick but I won’t hesitate to come back again on a special occasion.

*The pictures are unfortunately underexposed because of the dark surroundings.

Yesterday afternoon C and I did our weekly shopping at Wellcome and saw some steaks at the meat counter. We haven’t done steak for a while (we’ve been eating a lot of ribs and salmon recently), and so we picked out a pack of two sirloins from New Zealand. Granted it wasn’t the freshest but it was reasonably priced for a Saturday night dinner.

Towards dinner time, I panicked, not exactly sure how I should cook them. Normally, I sear steaks in a hot pan and throw them into the oven, but the last few times they were overly tough, so I decided on just pan frying. Actually, that inspiration only came to me as I was surfing the net for recipes, after stumbling on Gordon Ramsay’s recipe here. I love the guy, for all his brashness and devil-may-care persona. I still believe it’s all an act, but he’s always entertaining. C doesn’t like him though, haha.

I had initially salted the steaks for about 15 minutes before reading Ramsay’s recipe, where he calls for seasoning just before cooking. A piece of advice I’ve followed is to salt liberally to draw out the water from steaks, which is supposed to make poorer cuts more tender. Ramsay’s advice probably works best for nice slabs, but HK$60 sirloins don’t fall into that category.

I pretty much followed the recipe to a tee. Two minutes on each side, foamed with some butter at the last minute. It came out medium rare, which I like. C seemed to enjoy the meat. The first piece, I thought, was better. Tender with fewer of the sinewy veins and so less fighting with the meat. The second piece was the opposite, unfortunately, lots of veins right down the middle, and so slightly tougher to chew.

We paired it with a cabbage salad, which was inspired by what we’ve had Tonkichi before, and now a regular part of our diet. I also had homemade garlic bread, which will still need some refining. I baked a few cloves of garlic in the oven for about 30 minutes, 5 minutes shy of what’s probably needed to make it mushy. So the cloves still kept their shape. I mashed them as much as I could and spread it on cuts from a mini baguette.

I wasn’t happy with it, so this morning I tried something else. Being all kiasu, I decided to bake the garlic for 40 minutes instead, haha, and they came out mushy (as expected) and slightly burnt. I had softened butter before hand and mashed the garlic into that. I transferred that into cellophane wrap and tossed it into the fridge for about 10 minutes and tada, home made garlic butter. That was much better on toast, and I reckon I’ll use it on salmon and steak in the future.

壽司處今村 Sushi Imamura has been on our to-eat list for a long time. Friday night I suggested to C that be Saturday lunch. We made a reservation and got seats at the counter. That wouldn’t have been my choice a few weeks ago, but I’m a recent convert to the sushi bar. There is something pretty fascinating about sushi chefs at work. Granted the chefs at Sushi Imamura were a little more collegiate than others I’ve seen (laughing and joking with each other instead of the silent heads down chefs I’ve seen), but I liked the close interactions.

I walked in knowing exactly what I wanted, courtesy of openrice readers, which is the HK$130 sushi set, for 10 pieces of self-chosen sushi. C hesitated for a bit and eventually went for tuna rice. Both sets came with miso soup and a few appetizers. I liked C’s salad of shred cabbage and potatoes, very nice as an opener. But the focus was on the mains.

I had 8 pieces of nigiri and 2 gunkan. The most memorable for the tuna belly and two other fish that I cannot name but truly enjoyed. The sea eel was also memorable, it was slightly grilled I think and dapped with sauce. I had some issue with the wasabi, I thought the chefs were slightly heavy handed. I’m not a big fan of wasabi and I like them in small doses. I am far from being a sushi connoisseur but it was a bummer to waste least one piece of fish because I could only taste the wasabi and nothing else.

C’s minced tuna on rice, HK$130, was very very filling. It came bento-style and C finished it off, and then said, with a rather satisfied smile, that it was great. Even better than Doraya according to her. I took several scoops and it was very good, the right mix of rice to fish, which had what seemed the right amount of vinegar in it. I couldn’t stop swiping spoonfuls.

The desert was lemon ice-cream, which we substituted for red bean and sesame for an additional HK$5. The red bean was ok, the sesame better. We read from openrice that they don’t allow phototaking, so C only managed to steal a few shots from her camera phone.

Because we didn’t have any breakfast, I wasn’t feeling full yet. We had read in the latest issue of 饮食男女 that Famous Amos is back, and I was so excited. It’s located across the street so we walked over. It is a nice little shop with two tables which offered quick relief from the heat outside. But cookies wise, I was quite underwhelmed by the offerings, to be honest. They are flat instead of full, like the ones in Singapore, and even the signature “free smells” were that obvious. We still bought 100grams of the butterscotch, my favorite, but as expected it was disappointing. The cookies lacked the crunch (because of its size I reckon), the bits of butterscotch and nuts were too small to make an impact, and the cookie batter lacked salt. I walked out bummed.

Our last day in Taiwan. It felt a little sad to leave after a few days, especially since I’ve become comfortable and familiar with the city again. Bummer. Our flight was around 2pm, so our time left was limited. Because we couldn’t get seats the day before, we decided to go early. Breakfast starts at 7am but we wanted the tea selection, which was available only after 10am. We got there at exactly 10am, and after a 15 min wait, we got a table deep inside the Melange Cafe.

The cafe was packed at that time, and mostly young women who look like they should be at work, but aren’t. Something like the Sex and the City bunch, usually four women huddled over a small round table, eating waffles and drinking tea. The atmosphere had that whole urban chic vibe  with young, hip and good looking wait staff. Speaking of the waffles, they’re the best I’ve ever had. The pictures don’t lie…the waffles may be thick, but they’re fluffy and just the right balance between sweet and savory. And so sinful with the heap of ripe strawberries with cream. C nearly fainted in happiness (but she’s always that way, feed her dessert and she’ll be happy), and has declared that the best meal she’s had all trip.

Another notable mention is the fruit tea, which is very popular drink in Taiwan. As far as I know, it’s english tea with orange juice and huge chunks of cut fruit. Sounds easy to make but after having it at so many places, Melange Cafe easily has the best pot. I can’t describe why, but it really is. C had milk tea, which she liked, and the three of us shared a club sandwich as well. It was nice, but not spectacular. People come for the waffles.

After that, we had to leave for the airport, more than an hour’s drive away. Compared to the large and efficient airports we’re familiar with in Singapore and Hong Kong, the airport at Taipei is clearly lacking. For starters, the food options are very limited. We were saved by Burger King. Although we were full, we couldn’t pass up checking out good ole BK, especially since HK’s version…sucks. No BBQ Bacon, no Mushroom Swiss, no Rendang burger (though this is understandable, I can be reasonable too).

Organisation at BK is really messed up. They followed the US system, where you could pick up your own burger and drink, then pay at the counter. The problem is that the most popular burgers were often missing, and people waited around or shouted out their orders impatiently. The staff were clearly overwhelmed and a line formed. It took me 15 minutes to get back to the seat.

Not before I asked for additional BBQ sauce for the onion rings. That seemed like a chore for them. I was told to first pay at the cashier, which I did, and went back to the food counter to ask for it, only to be told I needed to get a container from the cashier again, which was essentially the plastic cap for soft drinks. It means they are not used to entertaining requests for extra BBQ sauce, how odd. The BBQ Bacon burger was unimpressive, the onion rings were ok, and coke was flat. Enuff said.

We cleared customs after that. I felt a little dissapointed that our vacation was over. I’ll leave you with some parting shots of our Taipei flat.

This was the day we ate our way throughout Taipei. At the risk of making people laugh, I’ll admit that I actually planned out every meal, planned our destinations by where we were going to eat. Ha. We started off the day walking to a 大排档 (dai pai dong) near our flat at serves great 大肠米线 (intestine noodles). It’s not famous but it’s brilliant, plenty of intestines in a broth that’s just the right balance of watery and stickiness. Ma took us to the nearby market where she seemed to be greeted by shop-owners that actually KNEW her. That’s what you have for being a see lai.

As dad was back in Singapore for a work trip, Uncle Calvin was free to bring us around. So even after our large breakfast, we didn’t have very much time between that and our second (or third as well, depending on how you see it) meal. We wanted to have 小笼包 (xiao long bao) for lunch but didn’t bet on being able to get a seat at Dingtaifung. We got lucky, arriving at Yongkang St slightly after 11am, and while the place was buzzing with activity, we didn’t have to wait at all.

No surprises there, Dingtaifung was as good as I remembered. Perhaps it’s not a local’s first choice, but it was very good from a foreigner’s perspective. We had a tray of xiaolongbao and chicken soup, which is not a lot for three to share. That’s because we wanted to keep space for 冰魔(Ice Monster). I wanted mango but it was out of season, so we settled for strawberry instead. Ohh, it was so good. Heaps of ripe strawberries over a mountain of ice, drizzled with condensed milk. It was so bad for my then non-existent diet.

It was off to shopping after that. C wanted to go to 诚品 (Eslite) in town. I’ve never been to the newest Eslite and it was massive. It seemed to have everything going for it: an inexhaustible throve of books, upmarket trendy shops, silly knickknacks that no one should spend money on…except for people. Granted it was a weekday, but still, the crowd was a little too thin for comfort. C and I each bought a book and after that we set off to (why not) eat again.

Mom suggested Melange Cafe, probably one of the city’s most popular cafes, located in a small alley in Zhongshan. We were there at 3pm and it was completely packed and there was a long line. What a bummer. After some thinking, we decided to come back the following morning before our flight to try out the waffles and tea. Mom had raved about it so much I had to try it.

So our next best choice was beef noodles at the Sheraton hotel cafe. It’s one of those places Dad loves to bring guests and apparently all my cousins and in-laws who have been loved it (even those who don’t like beef, apparently). C loved it and so did I. This was among the best of beef noodles I’ve had. Beef was tender (not a bit chewy), noodles were good and broth was hearty, what’s not to like. Mom didn’t want a set so C and I had a set each and we polished it off. By the time we were done, it was completely gone.

But my stomach was gone by then, I couldn’t stuff anything anymore, so we went home and watched TV till later in the evening. Since it was our last in Taiwan, C and I wanted to try Taiwan’s Mos Burger at least once. We caught a short ride to 天母 (Tianmu) and shared a basic set. It was, umm, how should I say…average? Much better than Hong Kong’s but lacking Singapore’s. It’s odd to say that, seeing that it’s supposed to be the same thing, but it tasted different. The patty seemed looser and the fries were kinda hard and not crispy as I’m used to. I used to love fries from Mos, so I know the difference.

On a side note, C and I walked around Tianmu one day and we popped into dunkin donuts. C has never seen it before (Boston donuts perhaps weren’t quite popular in HK), but I had grown up with those mini donuts. Just for nostalgia’s sake, we bough half a dozen. Sigh, but it really wasn’t quite as nice as I remembered them to be…

Day 5 in Taipei was long and fruitful, we were out from morning till evening. After breakfast at 永和豆浆 (Yonghe Dou Jiang), Uncle Calvin drove us out of Taipei. Our first stop was 野柳 (Yeh Liu) where we got to see aged corals. There was a huge gale when we got there, I kid you not, as we were walking by the coast the wind kept blowing sand into our eyes. We saw the extremely lifelike 女王头 (Queen’s head), which looked like a Nefertiti head. That itself was worth the time here.

Uncle Calvin drove us to 金山 (Jinshan) where we had duck. I came with the rest of my family on my last trip, but because there were 4 of us, we could sample a few dishes. But this time, with just C and I, we only ordered a plate of duck. It was nice, though a little too chewy. I liked eating it with the ginger shreds, but I could tell C didn’t quite enjoy it.

I made it up to her by asking Uncle Calvin to bring us to the little coast side cafe. It was pretty well patronized for a weekday afternoon, especially so hidden away from the city. C as usual had coffee, and I took a mango smoothie. The drinks are nothing to shout about, but the view, the view is perfect. We kicked back and just chatted while enjoying the perfect weather. The other table had a puppy who entertained us as well.

We relaxed for a bit, and got back into the car for the next destination, 九份 (Jiufen). Wow, think of this place like the Taiwanese equivalent of Stanley market. It was teeming with tourists, every turn we bumped into Singaporean and Hong Kongers. That aside, we really enjoyed 九份. Haha, this was the place where we ate the most. It seemed every couple of steps there would be a snack we really wanted to try, and we indulged. Fishballs, peanut candy, potato chip sticks, yam ball desserts, fruit tea. I can’t remember it all, but it was a lot.

That was our last stop for the day and we made our way back to Taipei. After resting for a while, we decided to head down to town for dinner at 欣叶 (Shinyeh), again one of my favorite places. It’s the place you go when you want to bring guests for Taiwanese food I’ve heard. Perhaps not the best nor the most authentic, but definitely good and affordable fare in nice surroundings.

We went for a cold starter of sauteed mushrooms in XO sauce. I couldn’t really see this as a traditional Taiwanese dish (seemed more cantonese to me) but who cares. It was good. We also ordered 三杯鸡 and Caipo egg to go with the sweet potato porridge. Everything was pretty good, especially the egg omelet. The braised chicken was more average, a little too salty for me. Mom also ordered us a gua bao to share. I love the gua bao here. In one bite, we had all that fatty pork goodness, crunch of salted vegetable and sweet peanut. I nearly died and went to heaven!

On Monday, dad arranged for Uncle Calvin to drive us down to Sun Moon Lake. Since the entire journey would take about five hours, we stopped at Taichung en route to the lake and had lunch. Uncle Calvin dropped us at a famous place for fishballs, which were very “spongy”. He said to leave space for dessert next door. That was great advice, we shared a bowl of cold tofu dessert with peanuts. It’s quite different from the Hong Kong style tofu (I can’t really describe why…), but I loved the soft peanuts in syrup. Duofu has branches in Taipei as well, but this was apparently where it originates from.

Uncle Calvin picked us up, and in two hours we were at Fenisia, where dad had booked us a room to enjoy. And boy, it was a beautiful hotel, with an in-room hot spring tub and unrivaled view of the lake.

We settled into the large room and rested for a while, and then got a complimentary ride to town. Dad had insisted we go on the cruise around the lake and that’s what we did. We thought it would be a half an hour thing, but it ended up being nearly 2 hours with 4 stops at different lake attractions. Truth be told, none of the stops were too memorable, but we did enjoy just being on the water and relaxing.

It was near dinner time when we caught a ride back to the hotel. We caught a gorgeous sunset from our window that I must share.

Dinner is part of the hotel package, and we had a choice between Chinese and Western. My dad strongly recommended the Chinese option, saying it’s like the meal we had at Xiyan. Hmm, after the dinner, I can only say…far far off. It’s nowhere near what Xiyan served on the 2 times we went.

I guess the food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. It was certainly filling, I counted about 7 dishes. The appetizers were cold (even those supposed to be hot!), which didn’t bode well for the rest of the meal. C liked the curry bun that followed, which I thought was too oily. The pumpkin soup with sharks fin was ok, too much in fact, neither of us finished the bowl.

We had two entrees, lamb (which was too fat, but juicy enough. it also had a funny smell) and fish, which was…ummm…interesting. It was a whole fish that had been simmered in some gravy. The bones were edible, but I couldn’t get into it. I liked the beancurd skin dish most, because it was light and wasn’t too heavy on the flavors. I was too stuffed by then to eat more than a spoonful of the steamed rice. I couldn’t help comparing it to the rice we had at 八王子. Incomparable.

We went back to our room too tired to walk, but since we only had a night at the hotel, we had to go to the 裸汤, or naked hotsprings, at the basement. I was obviously slightly apprehensive about exposing myself, but psyched myself into it, haha. The hotel was either pretty empty on a weekday, or other guests were equally shy, because C and I got the whole pool to ourselves for 30 minutes. It was very refreshing to soak in the hot water. I’m not quite sure how real the supposed medicinal properties are, but it did draw out the exhaustion. We left for our room, and fell asleep pretty quickly.