吃飯了嗎？

味万 - 心齋橋本店

We only had half a day in Osaka before our flight home in the late afternoon, and most of that time was reserved for shopping. The shopping arcades of Shinsaibashi, filled with real-life household shops, was more our speed, compared to the exclusive boutiques that line Mido-suji avenue the next street over. Even better, the main Akachan Honpo shop is right at the head of the shopping street, where we could get our fill of made-in-Japan baby-stuff in one stop.

All that didn't leave much time for lunch. No time for leisurely multi-course menus here. On the other hand, I was hoping for an authentic Japanese-style meal for our last one in-country, rather than settle for some chain fast-food. While the wife went through both buildings and all eight stories of Akachan, I had time to scout ahead a little bit. There are a zillion eateries lining the Shinsaibashi arcade. But this particular shop seemed like it's been around for a while, it was filled with locals, and featured udon which the wife likes. So when she checked out of Akachan I was right there to help carry the bags and lead us to the restaurant. We'd taken a look at the plastic food outside to get a rough idea of what's available, and we didn't wast time, just pointed to the highlighted specialties on the menu. Tanooki udon with shrimp-tempura sushi for me. A hearty beef and mushroom curry udon for her.

A few puffs and I was slurping away at my soup-udon. But the thick curry sauce in the wife's curry udon retains heat longer, so she had to wait patiently before getting started on her lunch. While she was waiting for her udon to cool off she could mooch off my plate of tempura-ebi sushi. It's a popular side dish that goes with many of the set meals so they do crank them out and the nori and breading have softened just a tad from sitting out. But the set meal is still a great deal and can't quibble too much with the fresh-fried shrimp. The curry is flavorful, with just a tiny bit of heat which you don't notice at first but builds up over time, especially when combined with the heat of the noodles themselves. Good thing we could serve ourselves from the ice water cooler.

The atmosphere and decor is exactly that of a decades-old Japanese food hall. Well-experienced obasans and their younger apprentices with headscarves and aprons scurry about bringing food and cleaning tables. Solid wood furniture haven taken many years of abuse and can stand up for many more. Locals carrying shopping bags and workers on lunch breaks come in-and-out for a quick bite and so did we. For less than 2000-yen it was fast and filling and now it's time for us to move on.

味万
大阪府大阪市中央区北久宝寺町3-6-12
06-6252-0612

中村藤吉本店

Uji has a long history in tea production, serving the noble houses in nearby Kyoto. With its two UN World Heritage temples and many historic tea merchants, it makes for a conveniently interesting day-trip in Kansai. Many of the tea-merchants have added tea-houses to serve the tourists, and Nakamura Tokichi is one of the larger places. They have a newer cafe along the river near the Byodo-In Temple, but we decided to visit the original Honten building, opened for business in 1858, located in a prime spot near the JR train station.

We were expecting hot weather and big crowds on a summer Saturday. But a freak thunderstorm in the morning had scared away the day-trippers and cooled off the air, leaving the streets relatively empty and us slightly wet. However we still wanted to get a taste of their summer specialties. The vegetarian soba seemed like just the ticket for a light lunch, since the menu promoted it as a lunch special with big, attractive pictures. Turned out other tables got the hot-soup soba which would've been preferable to the cold noodles, but we couldn't read the Japanese menu so we missed out on that option. But the combo meal was a decent deal, also coming with a serving of macha ice cream topped with azuki and mochi, served in a cute bamboo cup, as well as a glass of iced macha tea.

Even though we were almost shivering in the air-conditioned room, we still had to order the signature きんとき shaved-ice dessert. A big bowl of finely shaved ice, with macha and molasses syrups to drizzle on top. Azuki paste and mochi balls to moderate the icy coldness and offer different taste textures. Topped off with a dollop of soft-serve vanilla ice cream just because they can. The syrups were sweet with flavor without being artificial-tasting, and by judicious pouring you can keep it from getting to sweet. The ice cream added some rich creaminess to keep the pile of slush from being too overwhelmingly cold. You can always chew on a mochi ball for a while if brain-freeze kicked in.

中村藤吉本店
京都府宇治市宇治壱番十番地
0774-22-7800

Kichisen 吉泉

I was excited about making my first trip to Kyoto and experiencing the traditional city, and what would be more old-Japan than a traditional kaiseki banquet? But there were many pitfalls, starting with the sky-is-no-limit costs, and stories of restaurants that don't serve foreigners, bland uninteresting food, etc. We've had our share of fine Japanese food so at least we weren't going to be caught out by a strange cuisine. On the other hand, it was still a bit intimidating to make sure we would receive an experience that lived up to our expectations and the expected cost.

Unfortunately Japanese food sites like Tabelog was too much for me to decipher via Google Translate. And I wasn't particularly inspired by the typical names thrown around Chowhound. Ran into the Kyoto Foodie site and was intrigued by the tales of a foreigner who lives in Kyoto, with a good understanding and personal experiences of the local culture and cuisine. He was especially effusive in praise for Kichisen, with many articles featuring the chef and showing off many of the his fine cuisines. But frankly what really sold me was finding out that Tanagawa-san had defeated Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto in single combat in Kitchen Stadium. So I carefully composed a polite, but short reservation request in English to make it as easy to understand as possible. Auto-translated it to Japanese just in case. And faxed it off to the restaurant (no Internet reservations here). A couple days later I received a formal, well-composed English reply by email confirming our reservation and requesting us to confirm the price level at which we wished to dine, ranging from 18,000 to 28,000-yen. Flinched a bit at the big numbers, but bit the bullet and chose a medium-level option.

Patiently followed the wife around as she spent the day browsing the shops in Kyoto's old town until late afternoon, before catching a bus out towards Shimogamo Jinga. Would've liked to explore the World Heritage Site a bit, but the temple and the surrounding park already closed at sunset. Not much else to do on the quiet streets of the early evening, we walked over to the unassuming-looking restaurant a bit early.

After the greeter at the door figured out that we were diners with reservations instead of lost tourists, he quickly brought us inside and took us to our private room. We had a hostess and a server, and they were the only other people we would face for the rest of the evening. A warm towel and a cool glass of umeshu was brought to welcome the guests. Then we start the kaiseki tasting menu with a bang. The covering leaf tied with streamers and decorated with gold leaf undoubtedly has cultural and/or regligious significance we're not aware of. Underneath were five flower pods each filled with delicious morsels. One contained shoyu-mirin braised minnows. Others featured a slice of abalone, tempura hamo eel, lotus seed with aspic, shitake mushroom, etc.

Sweet fig soup is a surprising follow-up to the previous appetizers. The figs have been cooked in syrup until softened and fallen apart into strings speckled with seeds. The clean, sweet flavors of the fruit made for a fine contrast with the more savory appetizers before.

The origin of kaiseki cuisine was a light meal to accompany the tea ceremony, and the soup recreates that spirit most directly. 茶碗湯 featured a iron teapot packed with big chunks of pricey matsutake mushrooms and chunks of hamo eel to infuse the light but flavorful broth. Pour some broth into the teacup, a squeeze of Japanese lime, and savor each sip.

The maple branches adds a living, organic touch to the arrangement on the miniature sashimi boat. Not really able to identify all the different types of sashimi (I think there was definitely a tai of some sort), but I'm sure everything is rare and local and definitely quite tasty. Love the multi-colored tail of the fresh ebi-sashimi.

All the frou-frou appetizers were beautiful to look at, but didn't add up to a whole lot in terms of actual food volume. The big plate full of nigiri-sushi provided plenty of bulk, however. The hamo-zushi uses the Kyoto-specialty hamo eel instead of the conventional unagi eel, brushed with the sweet mirin-soy sauce and grilled. The rice perfectly cooked and still warm, unlike the cold vinegar rice of typical nigiri-sushi. Just sticky enough to hold together while maintaining the texture of each grain, to complement the chewier and less fatty hamo. On the side was a small jar of mintaiko and edamame. Not so strongly fishy like the typical heavily marinated, red-colored mintaiko.

Uncovering the bamboo's top reveals a simple arrangement. A slice of lotus root, a single shrimp, a piece of fish. Steamed inside the bamboo section. One might consider it bland and boring. But for the price we're paying let's say it perfectly maintained the delicate flavors of the original ingredients.

Next is hamo shabu-shabu. Are we seeing a theme in the menu yet? Hamo is a long, bony fish, and it's no mean trick to fillet it into the delicate, thin slices. Each slice is to be cooked quickly in kombu broth.The firm flesh of the fish scrunches up into a perfectly formed cluster upon hitting the hot broth, thanks to the fine knifework. The shabu pot is an ingenious contraption with a stick of smoldering charcoal on one side heating the copper vessel, the wall of which is exposed to heat the broth half of the single-serving pot. This must have been how they did shabu-shabu before the advent of gas-powered hot plates. Just a single piece of knotted kombu kelp was enough to imbue an amazing amount of flavor into the broth. A yuzu-flavored dipping sauce provides bright, fruity acidity for the cooked fish.

We could smell the pungent smoke even before the server entered with the big tray. Thank goodness there was no smoke alarm in our room as the smoldering bancha tea leaves would've triggered quite a racket otherwise. Ayu is another typical Japanese summer fish found the in the rivers near Kyoto. The fish had been salt-grilled before being placed on the smoking contraption. The tea-smoke and the fish innards add a bitter tone to the meat that Asian folks all seem to like as one goes crunching into the little fishies.

At first I thought it was just a hamo fish soup. Then I dug into the bowl and found that there was freshly cooked white rice at the bottom. I've always been impressed with how good plain white rice could be in Japan, even in the most non-descript fast-food places like Yoshinoya. And fine Japanese rice cooked by a master chef in the traditional manner makes the gohan into an essential component of the dish. Break up the soft-cooked egg, and then slurp away to get soup, rice, and egg in each big mouthful. On the side is a bowl of 漬物 pickles. Kyoto summer vegetables lightly pickled just enough to infuse a bit of acidity and salt, but retaining the freshness and flavor of the obsessively perfect vegetables that one finds Japan.

The post-dinner fruit course is expected, but was certainly not going to be merely slices of cut fruit. A whole grapefruit, hollowed out and refilled with a soft gelatin made from the juice. This ain't Bill Cosby's Jello. The entire citrus essence of the grapefruit rendered from the meat and juices then returned to its original home in a more easily consumed home. Not as sharply icy as a sorbet, but serves the same palate-cleansing function. The gelatin retains the hint of grapefruit bitterness, to be moderated as needed with the accompanying simple syrup.

Now for the real dessert, in the style of Japanese tea ceremony and its accompanying wagashi sweets. Style and taste is the thing over quantity here. Red bean paste is packed into a section of bamboo. The finely ground red bean paste is compacted into the bamboo section almost like a glue-stick, except much tastier. The smooth paste has a delicate taste without the overwhelming sweetness that's sometimes found in other anko fillings. Yuzu gelee candy is alongside. The thoughtfulness extended to the engineering aspect of the presentation, as they punched a breathing hole in the other end of the bamboo section so you can suck out the anko filling easily without forming a counter-acting vacuum suction. A small dish of finely whisked macha green tea balanced the sweetness.

Most of the dishes were similar to things we've had before in other Japanese restaurants, but everything was done to such a high-level of refinement that it was obviously a cut above. It would have been even better if we could've learned more about the ingredients and thoughts that went into the dishes, but that's our fault for not speaking the language. Although the hostess did call someone on her cell phone to translate for us, but that was just too much trouble and we declined. We had the room to ourselves for the whole evening and took our entire meal without seeing any other diners, as if the entire restaurant was devoted to us only. Which was probably the point. Good thing wife and I had plenty to talk about after our day's touring, and the big room let me spread out and carefully photograph each dish. So much so that the hostess actually asked if I were a food writer on assignment. After the meal, the hostess and the server escort us all the way out the door. Thankfully the bus stop was far enough down the street so they didn't see us taking the cheap bus instead of hailing a taxi like most of their upscale clientele. It was certainly worthwhile to experience expert kaiseki cuisine in its home setting. But given the pricey bill it won't be something we'll indulge again anytime soon. So thanks to the wife for being willing to skimp a bit on fancy hotels and transportation for extra budgeting on food (for me) and souvenirs (for her).

京懐石　吉泉
日本京都府京都市左京区下鴨森本町５‎
5 Tadasu-no-mori (Morimoto-cho), Shimogamo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto
075-711-6121‎
http://www.kichisen-kyoto.com

寶船日本料理

The father-in-law was back in town from China, and we wanted to take him to a Japanese restaurant since that's one cuisine that's definitely much better in Taiwan than on the mainland. Told the wife that she can splurge on a fancy place if they wanted to, but her dad didn't want to be too extravagant and formal, so they chose this spot, an old favorite of the family. You could tell the restaurant has some history behind it, with all the middle-aged oba-san ladies in the service staff. On the other hand,the restaurant itself has had some reasonably recent renovations for some nice lighting and faux-granite tabletops in the private rooms for a brighter, more lively atmosphere than the high-end places.

For a mid-line restaurant to survive in Taipei, it's all about delivering visible value for the buck. And nothing says "value" like a fat slice of sashimi. The combo platter itself was impressive as they delivered the raw fish family-style. Each piece was thick-cut such that each piece could've been sliced in two and still be a respectable portion of sashimi.

In addition to the sashimi we also got some hand-rolls. The others chose the prosaic asparagus-prawn rolls. But I couldn't resist splurging for the chopped tuna. The fat in the chopped tuna gave it a creamy mouth feel that melts in your mouth in combination with the sushi rice. It's a lot like a fish-flavored snow-cone, except it's actually much tastier than it sounds. The hana-sushi roll is pretty with orange fish roe coating on the outside and various pickled stuffing inside.

We also ordered combination tempura, salt-grilled fish, and finished the meal with miso soup. Not tremendously memorable, but everything was solidly above-average without breaking the bank. Perfect for a comfortable family meal where you're out for some good food without having to impress anybody.

寶船日本料理
台北市中正區仁愛路二段93號1樓
02-23949665

Mitsui Redux

Mom was heading back to the US and the uncles wanted to have a birthday meal for her before she left, even though the birthday wasn't not for another couple of weeks. Mitsui has been a favorite destination for our big family meals, but this time I had a good excuse to bring the DSLR and snap some pictures during the meal.

One good thing about Taiwan restaurants is that they don't charge big corkage for BYOB. Sure, big Bordeaux reds make for a dubious match with delicate Japanese-style seafood, but uncle's Grand Cru vintages are excellent no matter what the occasion. And the uni appetizer is rich enough to stand up to it, too. There's enough time between courses to take a sip of the wine and just enjoy the flavors permeating the palate.

The sashimi is spectacular, as usual. Although the ebi shrimp wasn't as alive and twitching like last time. That's probably a good thing, as the ladies were put off by the shrimp's death throes, even though they usually like sashimi.

Sashimi is nice, but the hairy crab is the star of the show. Our doomed dinner companion was shipped live from Hokkaido, plucked from the tank and presented to us for a meet-and-greet before being salt-grilled over charcoal. The coal grilling adds a smoky overtone while retaining the original sweetness of the meat. There was plenty of meat, too, fully packed within the long legs and broad body. Meanwhile, the roe is made into a sauce for somen noodles, garnished with salmon roe.

Instead of the usual steamed whole abalone, we decided to have it in a hot-pot instead. As befitting a fine-service restaurant, they cooked and dish out the seafood soups for everyone at the table, which took some of the fun out of it, but there was nothing wrong with the rich seafood broth, except that we were getting almost too full to finish it.

Besides the usual green-tea ice cream and fresh fruit, Mitsui also does a fantastic fresh-made dorayaki for dessert. Uncle is enough of a big-shot customer that we get both the ice cream and the dorayaki. But this time we also had a birthday cake for mom, so we took the dorayaki home for afternoon tea the next day. Far as gifts go? A bouncing, smiling grandson will do.

三井料理美術館
Mitsui Cuisine
台北市敦化南路一段108號B1
(02) 2741-3394

游壽司

Wife's sister took us to this tiny sushi bar near Yongkang St. to celebrate her new job at IBM. With barely a dozen seats and good Internet word-of-mouth, reservations are critical. The entire store-front is barely wide enough for the sushi bar and facing stools, and not much longer, either. Service consisted of three sushi chefs and a hostess, which is quite an extravagant ratio, when you consider the size of the place.

The available sushi options are scribbled on a blackboard, based on what was fresh at the fish market that day. One can choose a-la-carte from the blackboard list, but all of us simply chose a set meal, each containing set number of pieces of sushi but the contents of which are at the chef's discretion. There was a good variety, demonstrating different techniques, flavors, and textures.

• The sashimi donburi is the centerpiece of their most popular set meal. Big chunks of tamago, salmon, tuna, and salmon roe covered the bowl of rice. Garnished with julienned shiso.
• The aji mackerel is pre-cut and marinated with sesame seeds and shiso, ready to be piled onto the gunkan-maki roll.
  
• The sushi chef created surface texture with some delicate knife work, which broke up the stranded meat of the squid to make it easier to chew. Flanked by pickled daikon and ginger.
  
• Some say too large a piece of fish can overwhelm the balance with the sushi rice. Screw them. When it comes to tuna, the more the better.
  
• Ordered the scallop a la carte, in addition to our sushi set meals. Well worth the extra few bucks for the big lump of fresh shellfish meat.
  
• The chef used the butane torch to good effect on a number of sushi pieces to sear the outside while maintaining the rawness of the fish filet. Plus it makes for an entertaining show for the diners.
  
• As the sushi pile up on the plate, gotta love how the fish pieces almost entirely obscures the rice underneath. Note the freshly grated wasabi root in the background.
  

The available seafood isn't as extravagantly high-end as Mitsui, but everything is is fresh and well-handled so no complaints there. It's nice to have some of that secretly-famous hole-in-the-wall Japan sushi bar vibe, but with the ability to converse with the chef, which is actually a big part of what makes those three-star sushi bars worthwhile. And the girls had a good time chatting with the young sushi chefs as they flashed their knives and torches. The cost is much more within our typical budget, too, without having to wait for the rich uncle's treat. Although both places do require advanced reservation, albeit for different reasons. Which explains why nobody ever goes there, because it's too crowded!

游壽司
台北市大安區麗水街18-2號
02-2322-5531

越粉舖

Rushed to the ChungHwa Telecom office after work to pick up my spiff new iPhone. But by the time I finished the sign-up process and got the phone activated, it was too late to go to grandma's for dinner. So I went to the Eslite XinYi's basement food court for dinner, and to play with the iPhone's many functions. Set off in its own nook in the Eslite Xinyi basement, Phõ is nominally a slight step up from the standard food court offering. It offers the signature Vietnamese soup noodles with different meats, as well as fried rices and other standards like shrimp spring rolls. The broth wasn't as clear as it could've been and they were a bit skimpy with the dressings like basil and bean sprouts. Frankly, it was straight up mediocre, and less than that when you take into account the cost. On the other hand, the iPhone camera takes surprisingly decent pictures for a two-megapixel sensor with no auto-focus and no flash.

越粉舖
誠品信義店B2
台北市信義區松高路11號B2樓
02-87893388

土三寒六讚岐烏龍麵

The wife loves udon noodles, so it's a bit surprising that we never tried this dedicated udon shop until now. Her cousin suggested it as a good dinner spot after a hard afternoon's full-contact shopping at Sogo and I met them there coming from home.

The place is built like an authentic Japanese noodle bar. The open kitchen bustles with cooks juggling boiling noodles and steamy broths. There are seats at the bar for a quick meal or tables for sit-down dining. The walls are decorated with posters of Kagawa Prefecture, the historical home of the udon.

I ordered the unfamiliar Tanuki Udon because in CHANGE, 木村拓哉's character got stumped by the kids he was teaching on why the noodles with fried bits on top was named for racoons. His explanation was unconvincing, but the noodles were very good. I think I would've preferred a more substantial option for my noodle-topping, though. Also got a side order of takoyaki for everyone to share as an appetizer. One taste and you can tell that it's not their strong suit, but I'll give them a pass for it so long as they do their main thing well, which they do.

土三寒六讚岐烏龍麵
台北市大安區復興南路1段126巷6號1樓
02-27754611

吉奈屋咖喱烏龍麵

The wife loves udon noodles, so I've been eying the new Taiwan outpost of the Japanese chain ever since it opened on Guangfu Rd. On the other hand, we're used to the traditional soup stock or stir-fried udons. The thought of the sweet and goopy Japanese-style curry on noodles didn't seem particularly appetizing.

However, we didn't go out searching for food until late one night. Other nearby restaurants were starting to close and the SO blanched at the thought of McDonalds. So it seemed as good a time as any to give Konaya a try.

We came in right near closing time so they'd already shut down the fryer, so no katsu or tempura for us. But the duck-breast over their signature curry udon wasn't bad at all. The soup stock had a strong Japanese curry flavor without being thick and goopy like the curry sauce on rice. The soft-boiled egg could go right into the noodles to add even more richness, while the other side dishes with the green salad and brown rice are safe and healthy. Excess curry soup goes well over the brown rice, too. The udon noodles themselves were thick and springy as they should be, perfect to wick up the flavorful soup in one long, noisy slurp, Japanese-style.

巢鴨古奈屋
臺北市光復南路306號
(國父紀念館旁)
02-2751-3568

天讚烏龍麵

Dinner before a movie is always kinda awkward since there's no time for a big sit-down meal, but the typical food-court options get old after a while. Tempura Sanuki Udon is on the first floor of the Warner Vieshow Cinema with its entrance located on the side-street between the Cinema and the Neo19 building, so it's perfectly situated for pre-movie or post-shopping dining. Its offering of Japanese standards seemed like a good option for a quick sit-down meal.

Being down in the basement, the restaurant seemed a bit dark, relying on halogen spots to light its thick Japanese-style wooden tables and benches. I had the veggie ten-don with a big cake of tempura vegetables. SO had the pork yaki-udon, with lots of benito flakes on top. My rice bowl was drizzled with plenty of soy sauce, and her noodles had the soy sauce cooked in, so it tended a bit on the salty side but not out-of-line.

The restaurant is a cousin of the Aubergine Curry chain, and it lives up to the same standards of good casual Japanese dining. One of those options that's perfect to have around for a certain time-and-place, so we'll probably eat there again sometime when we're looking for a meal before the 7:30 showtime.

天讚烏龍麵
台北市信義區松壽路16號1樓
02-87883099

A Lorcha - 船屋葡國餐廳

Macau's colonial Portuguese heritage combined with the Chinese love for food creates a unique culinary mix, offering Old World European cuisine in the heart of Asia. A Lorcha is one famous example next to the A-Ma Temple, and our first stop right after landing in Macau and checking into the hotel. English, Portuguese, and Cantonese all cheerfully spoken by the polyglot staff. Mandarin, not so much. Didn't have reservations so had to wait until 2:00 for a table, but it was well worth it for the food and atmosphere.

Caldo Verde is a barely thickened soup flavored with slice of Portuguese sausage and cooked with greens. Bacalhau fritters were solidly packed with the reconstituted salt-fish, a Portuguese classic. A bottle of cold Portuguese beer hit the spot on a hot day, although I should've just gone with the Carlsberg on tap for the quantity over quality.

The Galinha Africana (African Chicken) is a juicy half-chicken smothered in a slightly spicy sauce full of exotic spices. Very tasty and would've been great over rice except we had a tough time finishing the big portions as it were.

Feijorada is a hearty pig-knuckle and beans stew. Despite the Portuguese name, the dish didn't taste all that foreign to us since we're used to chomping on pig's feet.

The fresh-baked bread was excellent, too. The plain, crusty bread is such a refreshing change from the oily, soft Asian take on bread.

A Lorcha (船屋葡國餐廳)
289a Rua do Almirante Serigo
澳門河邊新街289號
Macau
+853 313 195

CoCo Ichibanya

Was inspired to have a big plate of good-old Japanese style curry with katsu by an article in Wired pining for the thick, brown goodness. CoCo Ichibanya is an imported Japanese chain serving exactly that. There's one in the Taipei Main Station near where the SO works. Unlike me, she doesn't get Labor Day off, working for a governmental agency. So I went out to meet her there for lunch.

No surprises here. A thick pork cutlet breaded and fried. The big plate is filled with half rice and half curry sauce. You can choose various degrees of hotness for the curry, and choose extra or less white rice for a bit more or less money. Funny how her plate of eggplant-spinach curry cost just as much as my big-hunk-of-meat katsu curry.

A perfectly simple meal in a quiet, clean setting. Good thing I had the rest of the afternoon to sleep off the starch-and-meat induced digestive coma.

CoCo壹番屋(漢口店)
CoCo Ichibanya
台北市中正區漢口街1段19號B1樓
02-23822650

WASABI Japanese Buffet

The father-in-law had to fast for his health checkup so a nice all-you-can-eat buffet seemed like the perfect post-op fill-up. And he likes Japanese food, so the premium buffet in the Taipei101 restaurant row seemed liked a perfect option. We had a coupon for one-person-free which made the pricey buffet a more worthwhile value. The restaurant was packed but not overflowing even on a Tuesday night, which was good in that all the eaters helped to keep the buffet fresh. The place must be an absolute zoo on holidays, though.

The buffet line featured a wide variety of seafoods, meats, and main dishes. The coal-grilled skewers were tasty and freshly grilled, and they were surprisingly generous with the sushi with decent quality raw fish. The raw oysters and crab legs were a bit harder to come by, though, but the FIL was a crafty buffet-goer and snatched up enough of the good stuff for all of us. Probably not the best value-option for us small-stomached folk, but it worked out nicely for this particular occasion.

WASABI日式自助餐廳
台北市信義區市府路45號4樓
(Taipei101 4F)
02-81018166

十二燒

SO's cousins and David all have birthdays around mid-April so it seems like a good reason to get everyone together for an evening out. A good izakaya is always good for a party, and this one on 市民大道 is one of many in the area.

The menu offered all the izakaya basics. Mixed salad with Japanese-style miso-sesame dressing. Deep-fried chicken wings and scallion-stuffed pork-instestine rolls alongside. All designed to make you drink plenty of beer, sake, or soju along with the food.

Moved into a bit more substantial fare for the next round with a mixed meat-skewer plate and the coal-grilled squid (with mayonnaise for dipping). Well-marinated edamame and other pickled morsels for even more 下酒菜. Topped it all off with a kimchee nabe. The bubbling fermented cabbage hot-pot looked like an evil witch's brew and smelled similar, but the spicy soup is surprisingly tasty. And you can always put out the fire with more beer.

All in all it was a good time. The only downside is that beer is a bit costly compared to similar places. They didn't offer pitchers and the per-bottle price was a bit high, which added up fast, especially with David around. Still, there was more than enough suds to put me away well before the night was over, and they've got to make their money somewhere, considering the high-rent of the premium East-side district.

十二燒居酒屋(市民店)
台北市大安區市民大道4段36號
02-27791185

武藏坊 Musashibou

The sis-in-law and her BF were nice enough to take us to 羅東 and 宜蘭 for a nice weekend outing. Figured the least we could do was to buy them lunch and mom had just visited Luodong the week before and stumbled upon this Japanese place and turned out to like it quite a bit. The place was nice and the kaiseki combo meal was quite a multi-course deal compared to the high Taipei prices. Two sets of the kaiseki supplmented by some extra sushi and noodles were more than enough for the four of us.

• A pumpkin mousse for the cold starter, along with a few pieces of quality sashimi.
  
• Ordered an extra nigiri/maki sushi platter just in case anyone was still hungry.
  
• Tempura, simply battered and fried. Love the fan on the eggplant.
  
• The 煮物 was a home-y Japanese meat-and-potatoes stew.
  
• The grilled 燒物 item was teriyaki chicken. Having eaten a lot of Japanese food in Taiwan we always try the fancier stuff. So it's actually been a while since I've had good-old teriyaki chicken, and it's not something you can really screw up. The grilled fish wasn't bad, either.
  

武藏坊日本料理
宜蘭縣羅東鎮公正路130號
03-9557878

富士屋 花筏 和菓子

Only had less than a day in Takayama so we concentrated on the historical district. Running around on the snowy day had us a bit pooped out as the sun began to set. The stylish tea-house had caught my eye on our way out from the train station, and it seemed like a good rest stop on our way back.

An old house stylishly converted into a tea-and-sweets shop with big picture windows featuring both blonde-wood modern as well as tatami-sitting traditional furnishings made locally. The counter at the door offers a fine selection of Japanese-style sweets which may also be ordered in the sit-down area. We had just enough time for a bit of fresh-brewed tea in traditional iron kettles and a cherry-chocolate wagashi sweet before our train to Nagoya.

富士屋花筏
岐阜県高山市花川町46-1
0577-36-0339

Omicho Market Kaisendon-ya

This was a short trip and we were determined to see the sights, so we did a lot of running around without much time to sit down for fancy meals. It's also a bit tough to find good information on Japanese places and even if you have the reviews and the address they can be hard to find in the old streets, not to mention the communication issues.

The Omicho Market is the central marketplace in Kanazawa, and a wide variety of restaurants surround it to take advantage of the fresh bounty offered within. As a well-known tourist destination and a natural foodie draw, most of the restaurants have lines stretching well out the door at meal-time. We didn't have the patience nor time to wait, but once we saw the lines the day before, we planned to get back to the marketplace early to grab a spot before the lunch rush.

Managed to do a tiny bit of research before-hand thanks to the ePC and found 近江町 海鮮丼家 to be highly rated on Japanese user review sites as a cheap-eat destination. The narrow shop only offered a few tables and a long counter where two chefs and a server handled the busy lunch hour. Kaisendon (海鮮丼) for me, layered on top with thin slices of fresh sashimi. Tendon (天丼) for her, covered with fresh-fried tempura shrimp and veggies. The ingredients presumably came fresh from the market next door, and Japanese rice is always amazingly perfect, combining for a quick and tasty lunch.

Thankfully we got there early and ate without much of a wait, because the line was out of sight by the time we left. We had just enough time to get back to Kanazawa station to catch our bus to Shirakawa-go.

近江町 海鮮丼家 ひら井
石川県金沢市上近江町29
076-222-5887

甘味処 漆の実

Spent our full day in Kanazawa taking in the sights. After a long day of walking through the historical districts and the Kenroukuen gardens we were getting sore feet and looking for a spot to sit down. We went into a lacquerware store near the City Hall to check out one of the local specialties. Can't quibble with the craftsmanship, but the prices were a bit high for a travel souvenir. Was just about to slink out of the place when I noticed that they offered afternoon tea and dessert upstairs.

Sure, we couldn't afford the fancy lacquer-ware, but we figured we'd at least to handle a few pieces in the dessert shop upstairs. And it was a chance to get some rest and warm up. As befit a traditional crafts shop, they offered mostly traditional Japanese sweets accompanied by green tea. I chose warm mochi three ways. Small balls of mochi topped with macha, peanut, and anko powders or sauces for flavor. Accompanied by a frothy bowl of fresh-whipped macha green tea, of course.

SO had the #1 recommended dessert of the shop: macha ice cream over warm mochi balls and anko sauce. The combination offers a wide range of flavors, textures, and temperatures. A bowl of bitter green tea on the side cuts the sweetness of the dessert nicely.

Enjoyed our afternoon interlude and we were ready to continue our walk about town. The mochi was surprisingly filling, and the warm tea hit the spot as night fell on a winter day.

甘味処 漆の実
石川県金沢市広坂1-1-60 能作ビル 4F
076-263-8121

千代田

The father-in-law is finally back in Taiwan after a long stint wandering about China and the SO wanted to take the family to some place nice to eat. Japanese food is always a good choice for a classy mid-priced meal in Taipei, and it's something not as easily found across the Strait. SO's been to Chiyoda for company get-togethers before and recommended it, which was good enough for me.

The room was dim but nicely decorated with Japanese flair. Flexible partitions allow them to provide private accommodations to groups of various sizes. The initial server was out-of-sorts and clumsily spilled tea on the SO's purse, but thankfully the Prada nylon is easy to wipe and keep clean. The manager was profusely apologetic and offered us an extra appetizer to make up for it.

The appetizer offered a variety of morsels with interesting flavors and textures, some more tasty than others. We chose a few different set meal options amongst us for a nice variety, with beef shabu-shabu, sashimi platter, and seafood teppanyaki. The first two were tasty with good ingredients, but the third was a bit greasy.

Okay, so the food may be better at Mitsui. But Chiyoda offered a good value in a good space with a more relaxed atmosphere than the more upscale restaurants. There's a lot of similar Japanese restaurants in the area, popular with visiting Japanese businessmen, so most of them are pretty good. Will have to try more of them later.

千代田
臺北市中山北路一段105巷10號
02-25310918

火間土

An izakaya-restaurant in the Bistro98 building across from Sogo. Decent food for slightly high prices in a nice spot. Finally got a chance to try an okanomiyaki. Not sure how authentic it was but it was tasty and filling. The misoyaki fish was nice and moist, although the portion was a tad on the small side. Also shared a pot of sukiyaki which had enough stuff and the soy broth wasn't too salty although it may have been nice to let it infused into the meat a bit more.

The lighting for the group of smaller tables was cool fluorescent which didn't do much for the atmosphere. The larger tables in more intimate boothes have nicer halogen spotlights. I think it would've been better to have a larger group to enjoy a more izakaya-type atmosphere (i.e. more beer) instead of just the two of us having a quick meal after-work. Although they do advertise quite heavily in the paper extolling their set-lunches for two.

火間土
台北市大安區忠孝東路4段98號6樓
6th Floor, Bistro98 Building
02-27527822

定食8

A well-positioned new restaurant chain doing land-office business. Eight Japanese combo meals such as tempura, teriyaki, or grilled fish, all priced at 200 NTD with unlimited white rice and miso soup. Perfect for a quick meal after work. More expensive than a roadside bento, but you do have a professionally-decorated space to enjoy your meal, which makes it a better option when out with the SO.

She had the grilled salmon fillet, I had the teriyaki beef donburi. Also comes with a small plate of well-dressed veggies, a chawanmushi egg custard, and a milk-pudding dessert.

Usually gyu-don is made with thinly sliced beef but here they use smaller, thicker sirloin chunks which were satisfyingly meaty but a bit tough and didn't seem salty enough. The chawanmushi is a nice value-add but it came in a plastic pudding cup which cheapened the feel a bit. Plus it was made obvious that it was a bulk-produced item reheated in the microwave. Well, what did you expect for 200NTD?

定食8
台北市中山區民權西路36號B1樓
Plus other locations around greater-Taipei
02-25314882

勝博殿

We were tempted by the restaurant when we went by on Mother's Day but it was overflowing with a long line for the occasion. Did note it for future reference and it was no problem to get a table on a normal weekday evening.

Missed out on katsu while we were in Japan, but to be honest we can do frying in Taiwan just as good anyway. The restaurant in the XinYi Mitsukoshi A9 building is important from Japan, complete with the the bowl of toasted sesame seeds which you grind up yourself and mix with their special BBQ sauce. The different pork cuts are moist and not too oily after the breading-and-frying. The katsu-asparagus roll was good, too. I think I prefer tempura-fried shrimp over the katsu-shop version, though.

The unlimited shredded cabbage is standard issue for a katsu shop but they also had a nice light dressing which gave it a bit more flavor than usual. Found the egg a bit overcooked in the SIL's egg+katsu combo. I think it would work better being runny like in an oyakodon.

About 350NTD per head after service charge isn't super-cheap, but it's not bad for a nicely decorated space in a fancy department store. A good mid-range option to keep in mind as they expand with more branches in Taipei.

勝博殿日式餐廳
110台北市信義區松壽路9號6樓
(新光三越百貨A9館)
XinYi Shinkong Mitsukoshi A9, 6F
02-27255829

Jojoen BBQ (叙々苑 焼肉)

Sushi and seafood are nice and all but I have equal love for the red meat. Japanese aren't into big thick steaks like the Americans, but yakiniku is fun and tasty, too. I've actually been to this location at the Odakyu Dept. Store before when our Japan manager took us after a long day at the electronics show. SO's Nippon-phile cousin also recommended it highly as a must-go, so it seemed like a good choice for our last dinner in Japan. It is a chain and not inexpensive, but the meat was top-notch and if it's overcooked that's your own damn fault.

The brought us to a long bar-like table set against the big windows overlooking Shinjuku Station West, split into individual booths around the grills. Each table is also segregated for privacy, perfect for a post-shopping date or co-workers coming in from the Shinjuku office towers. Except the ceiling is covered with mirrors so a peek upwards lets you see exactly what the nearby tables are doing (mostly eating and drinking).

The simply salted cow tongue requires just a few seconds on the hot grill, then a quick dip in the lemon juice. You can also get marinated or salted meats of cow, pig, or lamb and there are a couple of other dipping sauces to go with them. A sparkling lemon sawa (freshly squeezed fruit juice added to club soda and soju) drink is a perfectly refreshing antidote to the heavy meat. The salad's great, too, with really fresh greens dressed with a flavorful sesame-based Japanese dressing.

Didn't get a chance to try the famously sweet and juicy Japanese peaches on our trip, so I figured a frozen peach sorbet held in a hollowed out peach would make an interesting alternative. Found that it didn't match up to the real thing, though, as I found the sorbet a bit too sweet and the round peach container made it hard to scoop. The Italians definitely do the best fruit sorbets, where they somehow manage to make it taste even more flavorful and refreshing than the actual fruit.

叙々苑 (Jojoen) 東京都新宿区西新宿1-5-1
小田急新宿西口駅前ビル8階
(8th floor of Odakyu Halc department store outside Shinjuku Station west exit)
03-3340-8989

Many other locations

湯葉井

There was a line out the door so we figured the unassuming little restaurant near the Hakone-Yumoto station was the way to go for lunch. The signature dish is yuba-donburi. A bubbling-hot pot of chicken broth, egg, and fresh yuba accompanies the obligatory big bowl of perfectly-cooked Japanese rice. A fast, light meal just before we head out to explore Hakone.

湯葉丼 直吉
神奈川県足柄下郡箱根町湯本702
0460-85-5148

兔屋烏龍麵

Hungry after a long day of walking we stumbled into the little shop in a Ginza side-street. I didn't realize the specialty was hand-made udon and ordered sukiyaki rice like an idiot. It was still pretty good but nothing special. At least it still came with a bowl of udon soup.

SO was smarter and ordered the summer special of cold veggie udon. Grilled vegetables and a shoyu broth complimented the QQ udon on a warm summer day.

Other people's pictures:

• Tempura rice and kimchee udon
• Outside Photo

手打うどん銀座兎屋
東京都中央区銀座3-4-19 大倉別館　１Ｆ
03-3561-1698

富士日式鐵板燒

Went by the Breeze Center to check out the new Dean & Deluca there. Wasn't about to actually buy anything there, though, so we still needed to find a place to eat. Wanted something a bit nicer than the standard basement food-court fare but wasn't looking for a formal dining experience or anything like that. So the sit-down teppanyaki place off the side of the food-court was a good in-between option.

The pricing definitely encourages one to go with one of the standard set-meals-for-two, which makes sense given the teppan chefs are busy enough as it was during the dinner rush. The filet option was a bit too spendy, but the sirloin stir-fry ended up being pretty good. The set meal offered a nice variety of meat, seafood, and veggies. Not high-end materials, but well-chosen and prepared well. To be honest the veggies was probably my favorite as the high-heat teppan really brings out the sweetness in the cabbage and bean sprouts.

宮崎日本料理

We had May Day off but the SO working at the government agency didn't. So decided to meet her near her office for lunch. 宮崎 is down the block, a narrow bi-level space with the sushi bar and kitchen on the bottom floor and tables upstairs. Not luxurious, but well-worn and comfortable, except I was sitting right under the AC vent wearing a T-shirt. A group of oba-sans and a couple groups of biz-lunchers already occupied most of the small space so it was good that the SO went over first to get a table.

Good thing the SO gets 1.5 hours for lunch. Perfect for a couple of lunch specials. Paid for one 100 NTD supplemental of good sashimi and a gobo-yamaimo (牛蒡山藥) hand-roll. Both lunches came with miso soup, chawanmushi, and half a grilled fish. The chawanmushi was flavored with small fish instead of scallops and shrimps found in the fancier places, but the warm, delicate egg custard was just as good. The grilled fish was just cooked and perfectly moist with little salt instead of the usual salt-grilled, drier style.

SO had the unagi-don as the main. Not a huge portion but plenty for her. The eel was meaty enough and the sauce was different than the usual, more gingery and less sweet. I had the soft-shell crab which was a whole crab halved, breaded, and fried, seated on a crab-roe sauce. Gobbled it down shell and all, and fried gobo added to the crunchy goodness. A slice of pineapple and green-tea mousse finished off the meal.

The meal offered a variety of distinctive but not overpowering flavors and textures. Perfectly portioned for a leisurely lunch. Bill was under 800 NTD. An excellent value, in my opinion.

宮崎日本料理
台北市中山區中山北路1段57號之3
02-25638711

肥前屋

The place is famous as an inexpensive place for great unagi grilled eel. They even keep tanks of live eel in the back for optimal freshness. It's near the GF's workplace but all her co-workers have tried it enough times to be tired of it and so she's never been there either. Seemed like a good choice for a quick get-together weekday meal, while avoiding the long lines on more popular days.

Walked in and snagged a table before the rest of the after-work crowd got there. The tables are communal to maximize usage, though, so we had to share with another couple anyway. The obasan waitresses sat us down, handed us one menu, and stood there expectedly awaiting our orders. Didn't exactly leave us much room to peruse the options, which mostly consisted of standard Japanese quick-meal options plus some extra grilled items. Got an unagi-rice and a tempura meal, plus grilled squid and a couple of yakitori skewers.

The unagi was as advertised. Not the meatiest eel I've ever seen, but certainly fresh, appropriately fatty, and perfectly grilled with the sauce which makes it go so well over rice. Found the rice a bit lukewarm, perhaps a bit pre-prepared for the dinner rush. The tempura was generously portioned with two large prawns and plenty of veggies, but the fry wasn't quite on and the coating was a bit soggy with oil. The grilled squid was a bit tough and definitely not the best we've had. The miso soup wasn't bad, though.

The place was atmospherically shabby. The heavy wood furniture worn smooth from heavy use. It's an open kitchen, a touch of modernity which must've been well ahead of its time, considering what horror shows the typical Asian street-food kitchen can be. Not the absolute cheapest option out there, but certainly well worth a visit, as confirmed by the number of tourists in the house. Next time we'll stick closer to the specialties grilled items though (the neighbor's grilled 秋刀魚 fish looked good, too).

肥前屋
台北市中山區中山北路1段121巷13號之2, 1樓
02-25617859

大戶屋 (Ootoya)

Was away to China for a couple of weeks and GF was busy when I got back so it's been a while since we'd seen each other. Decided that getting together for a quick dinner after work was better than nothing so we met up at 中山 near her workplace. Didn't have any particular destination dining in mind, but Idee has been flogging their remodeled food court in ads at the Taipei Main Station so we decided to give it a shot. They were definitely going with the Fashionable Japan theme in their offerings, and Ootoya was one of the anchors. Remembered seeing an Ootoya outside Shinjuku Station East which was enough of a reason for me.

The restaurant was still spiffy new but much smaller than I was expecting, but Idee isn't a big building and tonly half the basement was dedicated to the food area. We were early enough to beat the post-work dinner rush and get a table immediately. I had the signature char-grilled fish 烤竹筴魚 and she chose the curry nabe. My fish was split in half lengthwise and grilled until both sides were golden brown. The thin fish was deceptively fatty which kept the flesh moist, and well-salted to make good company for rice, which was quite good but not quite up to the Japanese standards (just a tad stickier than perfect). The skin was more tough than crispy but I'm not sure whether that's the inherent quality of the fish or insufficient heat on the grill. A bowl of grated daikon and small dishes of tangy pickled items helped to break up the saltiness of the entree.

GF's chicken curry nabe came in a roiling earthenware bowl sized for one. The thin curry soup had plenty of hearty veggies and shrooms but only came with one piece of chicken, quite at odds with the menu photo. Call the server over to express our disappointment and were advised that it was suppose to come with two pieces of chicken and they would take it back and add our rightful protein right away. Oh well, GF could share some of my fish in the meantime. The chicken chunks were good, grilled to crisp the skin and seal in the juices before being dumped into the hot-pot. The curry soup is a bit weird to drink as a soup but not thick/flavorful enough to be a sauce on top of the rice. It's good Japanese home-style cooking, just not our favorite thing.

It's perfect as a convenient meal with the consistency of fast-food but delivering comforting savory dishes instead of greasy gut-bombs. 300NTD per person or so is fair, although perhaps more so when compared to Japanese standards than Taiwan levels.

大戶屋
台北市中山區南京西路14號B1樓
(Idee 衣蝶本館)
02-25110882

三井日本料理

Had a nice little overtime bonus from doing over-time at the China factory. Spent most of it on a spiff new cell phone to replace the old one which was gravitationally challenged by a very hard floor. Had a little leftover to do something nice for the GF, so decided to check out the fancy Japanese restaurant located discreetly in the basement of a bank building.

The decor is one of the advertised high-points of the establishment and it didn't disappoint.The room is dramatically lit with bright spots focused on the tables and diffused background lights for a warm glow. Fabric curtains partitioned the large room to provide intimacy without being a hard separation. Clean modern furniture and heavy Japanese porcelain servingware complete the effect.

The menu offered the standard array of Japanese standards, but it seemed more expedient to just go with the set meals. The appetizers arrived promptly with monkfish liver for her (tastefully liver-y without being fishy or overly offal-icious) and uni on shredded one-imo for me (wished there was more rich uni-goodness to go with the naturally bland-ish root).

The dishes came steadily at a good pace. Of course, the foundation of a high-end Japanese restaurant is made on the sashimi and they didn't disappoint, with a large plate of ruby red maguro, sweet orange shrimp, and many other fancy seafaring critters. Most of the follow-up dishes also featured seafood. Charcoal grilled, delicately steamed, and even a mini-hotpot nabe full of boiling-hot rich broth. The salt-grilled crab legs was especially simply good. A french-style lamb chop dish added diversity and red meat.

Sure was a heck of a lot of food, and all of it was good to great, but in the end we weren't really sure if it was quite worth the 2500NTD/head prix fixe, when 吉園 features food that's 99-101% as good for half the price with more attentive service from the sweet obasans. Decor isn't that big a deal for us.

三井日本料理
Mitsui Japanese Cuisine
台北市松山區敦化南路1段108號B1樓之1
02-27413394

椒麻雞

Spent the day over at GF's place and it turned out her folks weren't going to get back from Xinchu in time to bring dinner so we were on our own. Didn't feel like running off somewhere fancy so we decided to try one of the many new places that have sprouted up in the neighborhood. The Thai place seemed the most popular so we decided to give it a shot. Managed to squeeze into a table just before the place filled up not to mention the stream of takeout orders.

Had to order the 椒麻雞 of course, it being the name sake of the restaurant and all. It's basically a chicken katsu, complete with pile of shredded cabbage, but instead of the Japanese mayo/ketchup dipping options, the fried cutlet sat on a lighter thai-style sauce. A strong lime juice base with soy, cilantro, chilies, and probably a dash of fish sauce for a refreshing dressing that made for a great mix of flavors which accompanied rice nicely.

It's a bit tough to order dishes like steamed fish when it's just the two of us, but I saw a fish coming out and it wasn't that big so it seemed like a good opportunity. Sure our fish was a bit small and on the bony side, but it was fresh enough and perfect for the two. Finally figured out the smell that permeated the restaurant was the smell of steaming lime juice that made up the base for many of the dishes including the flavoring for the fish. Scallions and some chilies added the to the clean and simple flavors.

The flat shrimp pancakes was okay. Which was fine because we ordered it, cancelled it, got it anyway, but didn't get charged for it. However the pad thai, which is my yardstick for Thai restaurants, was flat out terrible, with no thai flavorings at all. It was just a bad chicken chow-mein made with rice noodles. And no Thai iced tea on the menu. What the heck? Nevertheless, the main dishes were quite tasty, it was cheap, and the location is convenient. Good enough for me.

椒麻雞
新店市民權路 (捷運大坪林站)

Azabu Sabo (麻布茶房)

They're all over Taipei, with a couple on the east-side and one right down the street from GF's place. I guess the proximity was sufficient to breed contempt since we've never bothered to try the place due to the ubiquity. But I was over at the GF's and we found out late that her folks weren't bringing dinner back from Hsinchu. Didn't feel like running out some place far for dinner, so we decided it was time to give the chain restaurant a try.

Received the training-ingrained pseudo-Japanese greeting from the service-people upon entering. There were the standard Japanese meal choices such as various stuff-over-rice donburi bowls, ramens and udon noodles, plus some down-home mains like Salisbury steak. The seasonal menu added some zest to the standard menu, which was what we went with. I had the eel+egg donburi and the GF got the spicy egg-flower udon. Also ordered the fried-tofu appetizer, which was a little different than usual since it was coated with a sticky tapioca-starch coating instead of the typical crispy outer coating. The softer skin does allow it to sit in the soy-benito sauce longer without losing integrity and helps to soak up the sauce for flavor.

My rice bowl was covered with the cut up unagi chunks melded with almost-raw scrambled egg to provide extra richness. Mix the runny egg sauce into the warm rice, and it was time to pick up the bowl and shovel. Sure, it's mass-produced food, but it's tasty and filling without being too full of crap. The spicy udon was in an eggy shoyu broth with shrimps for substance. The broth wasn't blazing hot or anything, just a hint of spice reminiscent of kimchee or sansho. The shrimp kinda get overwhelmed by the other flavors, maybe chicken would've worked better.

Azabu Sabo is more known for its desserts, which contained various combinations of shaved ice, soft-serv ice cream, mochi, bean pastes, and syrups. Got the strawberry milk ice, and for once the real thing actually lived up to the plastic window model and more. Shaved ice is a bit painful sometimes because my teeth get sensitive, but the ice cream on top helps to moderate the cold ice, while the crisp coldness of the shaved ice keeps the ice cream from being too rich. A cheap strawberry syrup was added for flavor and color. The artificialness was a bit disappointing, but it was fine in small doses, and the bowl was large enough that just eating the edges was plenty for the both of us and we could leave the syrup-drenched core alone.

NTD750 for all that wasn't cheap, but it's fair enough for a decent sit-down meal in a tastefully decorated space. And it's useful to have a reliable spot for a decent meal or an icy dessert.

Azabu Sabo
麻布茶房
All over the place

晃士家 (Koshiya Tonkatsu)

We were feeling hungry after spending some quality time at the hospital. Although everything checked out alright, GF was still feeling twinges in her back, and it was still raining outside, so it wasn't a good time to be randomly wandering for restaurants. She noticed Koshiya along the alley behind the hospital, and she'd heard good things about the place, so we went by to check it out. We were lucky to squeeze into a table that just opened up while larger groups still waited outside, and the restaurant continued to be packed during our time there. The room is Japanese-utilitarian, with thick wood tables and texture-papered walls which wouldn't seem out of place on a Tokyo street corner. The crowd was young-professional, streaming in from the nearby office towers and fancy residences for a quick bite before a night on the town.

Being a katsu shop, just about everything was going to be breaded and fried, including the veggies (tempura style). There's the classic pork cutlet, jumbo prawns, fish filets, and various sorts of potato croquette. They offered a variety of fillings for the tonkatsu if a chunk of pork is too plain for you. The waiter recommended the cheese-tonkatsu (almost like a cordon-bleu, if you think about it), but we demurred. I decided to go with the ginger-scallion stuffed tonkatsu and prawn combo meal, and GF had the plain tonkatsu and prawn combo. The combo meal includes unlimited rice and miso soup, just to make sure you don't leave hungry, and an extra bowl of hot soup (more like hot miso-water, really) always goes down well with the GF.

While you're waiting for your meal, they offer you a small dish of toasted sesame seeds in a mini-suribachi (a.k.a. Japanese mortar and pestle) to grind up the seeds yourself to go with the strongly flavored, almost medicinal (tasted of dried orange rind to me), tonkatsu sauce. They also deliver up little bits of marinated kanbu and acidic pickles, along with a big bowl of shredded cabbage, all to help the oily mains from becoming overwhelming. Also ordered a veggie potato croquette, with bits of corn and cabbage in the standard creamy-potato cake. You just can't beat fresh-out-of-the-frier for something like this, which is all about the contrast between the crunchy panko breading and the soft creamy filling. Although fresh-fried does mean a serious danger of tongue-burns if you take a big injudicious bite. The croquettes were strongly enough salted to support the starch and make the flavor stand up on its own, which probably make them even worse for you. At least my blood pressure checked out just fine at the free check-up station in the hospital, so a bit of extra Na don't bother me.

The main dishes came quickly, arranged artfully on heavy Japanese-style porcelain-ware. The ginger-scallion tonkatsu was a pork cutlet pounded thin, rolled around the herb filling before being breaded, fried, and diagonally-sliced in attractive pieces almost like a sushi roll. A pepper-salt was provided as the dipping option. Was more used to the ginger-scallion mix as a dipping sauce for cold-cut chicken and I think it works better that way. The warmth of the meat doesn't cook the filling enough to concentrate the flavor but just warmed it up enough to take away the cool herbaceousness. But it was different and interesting, and the extra herbs do help to cut the oiliness of the tonkatsu quite a bit. The head-on but shelled whole prawns were breaded in a thick, eggy batter. Not as light as a good tempura and the prawn isn't as high-quality as at 吉園, but good for the price and it went perfectly with the tartar sauce, which I'm not usually a fan of. The rice was also quite good, almost Japanese-quality, and a judicious combination of the rice and shredded cabbage made it a balanced meal instead of just a fry-up.

A strong, bitter cold green tea accompanied the meal and a negligible after-dinner drink plus dessert to round it out. Pretty darn good meal for well under NTD1K.

晃士家炸豬排專賣店
台北市大安區仁愛路4段266巷15弄4號1樓
02-27022976

牛角燒肉 (Gyu-Kaku)

GF's grand-aunt gave her some money to help fund a get-together for the kids. Char-grilling meat around the hibachi is always a good time, and we had a good experience at Gyu-Kaku before, so we rounded up the usual suspects for a Sunday lunch at the location across from Sogo. The place was relatively sparsely populated for a weekend mealtime, unlike when we went to the XinYi location on a Saturday night. Once we got everyone together, it was time to light up the charcoal. The servers started bringin' the raw meat and we were off to the races.

The first round was all about the beef. The cow-tongue is a signature selection. The thinly sliced tongue had a slightly chewier texture without being tough, tasty either sprinkled with salt and dipped in fresh-squeezed lime juice, or pre-marinated and dipped in a heavier soy-mirin dipping sauce. For each order of meat, one can choose between just rock-salt, a soy-based marinade, or a miso-based marinade. Plain salt lets the flavor of the meat itself come through. The soy marinade gave it a more hearty flavor, and I found the miso marinade to be a bit too sweet for my taste. The sirloin was the best bang-for-the-buck, with a plateful of thick-cut meat which grilled up perfectly. Filet was tender, of course, but the cubes were barely large enough to not fall through the grill openings. The kalbi meat was tasty but a bit too fatty, although it may have helped if I'd the patience to let the grill render out all the fat.

One can't live by meat alone, and the restaurant offered some vegetable sides wrapped in foil packets which one can set on the side of the grill to steam in its own juices. Asparagus and bacon is a classic combo and the addition of shitake mushrooms worked well, too. A bit heavy-handed on the bacon which made the packet a bit salty but not overwhelmingly so. The shitake-enoki packet was dressed with butter and a bit of stock to give the mushrooms that creamy richness when the bundle of enoki is saturated with the juices. It's a trivial dish to do yourself at home, but it's still good eatin' even in a restaurant setting.

The savory meats would've gone great with a bowl of Japanese white rice if I had the stomach capacity. As it were, we ordered bimbimbap, which is the Korean-style stone-bowl rice which is plenty flavorful on its own. The rice pressed against the hot stone bowl forms a slightly charred crust which is broken up into crunchy bits when the rice is mixed with the fixings and the red-miso sauce. Not the best version ever, but then this isn't a Korean restaurant, and it was still plenty good. The kimchee-seafood hotpot was totally terrible, though. The seafood had the crap boiled out of it and the kimchee obliterated any potential seafood flavor but wasn't strong enough to actually assert itself in any interesting way.

Had some pork along with more beef in the second round. The fatty bacon-like cut wasn't really suited for the hot hibachi as the bubbling fat caused scary flareups. And by then we've all gone way past our daily allowance of char-grilled animal fat.

When we went to the XinYi location, the waiters had fancy PDA-things to record the order and they were attentive throughout the meal. No high-tech order-taking here. Maybe it was just because the room wasn't busy enough to rouse the waiters, but the servers at the Sogo location spent most of the time huddled in the back half of the dining area or in the kitchen when the patrons were sitting in the front room. They were tardy in clearing the emptied but bloody plates, and didn't bother refilling water, etc. without active summoning. They're not really paid well enough to care, but the lack of attention did annoy the GF and she let 'em have it when she filled out the diner-comment form. Maybe somebody will even read it before it gets disposed in the leftover hot coals.

牛角日式炭火燒肉 (頂好店)
台北市大安區仁愛路4段27巷34號
02-27514514
Other locations around Taipei

圓桌鐵板燒 (Round Table Teppanyaki)

The spring rain season has started and it was pouring outside. Thankfully uncled offered us a ride home from work plus a nice meal out. Turned out to be a guys' night with cousin and I plus uncle and his friend. The restaurant is located near the Far Eastern and you can tell that the place caters to the business crowd from the nearby office towers. The teppan table is perfect for an office get-together, whether out in the main dining area or in individual rooms. The food goes well with the usual Asian-biz binge-drinking, and there are flowery couches to lounge for an after-meal drink&smoke.

We shall be Manly Men tonight, eschewing wimpy set meals and going with the all-beef plan, accompanied by a couple bottles of fine Bordeaux reds. Arf-arf-arf. There was a cup of carrot cucumber, and celery sticks plus a squishy multi-grain roll for starters, but it's hardly worthwhile to say anything more about that.

Our chef showed soon after the wine was poured and he began to warm up the teppan for the preliminaries. First he sauteed a big pile of sliced garlic until golden brown. Even with the massive fume hood, the smell of the frying garlic soon permeated the room and perked up the appetite. He distributed the cooked garlic to our plates, then ground fresh pepper on the plate for meat-dipping. Plus we each had a dish of diced onion in soy-sesame dressing. The chef simply salted the beef, cook it quickly on the hot teppan (medium rare, please), cut it into bite-size pieces, and put it on our plate. We could then choose to accompany the meat with garlic, onions, pepper, or any combination of the above. Offers a variety of tasty, clean flavors without overwhelming the meat, unlike the typical goopy smothering sauces served by the cheap-o Taiwan steakhouses.

The meat itself was unlike the typical protein matter found in the cheap-o steakhouses, too. Both the thinly sliced ribeye and the thick filets were richly marbled and barely took any time to cook to perfect doneness. Not as much fun to have the meat cut into bite-sized pieces by the chef, as opposed to hacking through a big piece of steak yourself, but it does make for a smooth and pleasant dining experience. Wasn't cheap, but it was certainly the most carnivorously satisfying meal I've had in Taiwan.

圓桌鐵板燒
台北市大安區敦化南路2段128號B1樓
02-27008699

Dozo

Needed a place for a late dinner with the GF, since neither of us were that hungry 'til then. GF did some research on the Net and Dozo got some good reviews as a night-spot and as an izakaya. Plus it's close by. Good thing we were calling relatively late, since the only way we were getting a table was by slipping in after the dinner crowd and before the nightlife crowd. High ceiling, mirrored walls, spot lighting, and plush chairs indicated that this isn't your typical after-work drinking-spot type of izakaya. There was the Japanese guy and his Taiwanese companion chattering away in Japanese next to us. One more seat over was a couple of OLs well on their way to finishing off the five-liter tower-of-beer. Hey, a fancy izakaya is still an izakaya, and that means beer and lots of it. I had my usual, the fresh-lemon shoju sowa. They give a bottle of marble soda instead of the usual unflavored soda water, so it's quite a bit sweeter, which I'm not sure I like. GF got the green-tea latte, which was basically concentrated green tea mixed with foamed milk. Tasty but not really special or complex in any particular way.

There was a loft with taiko drums and a Japanese dulcimer for some added entertainment. Taiko wouldn't be my first choice for chamber music, although they did give it a shot by playing a 梁靜如 ballad to start. Delicate ballads don't usually come with a big drum section, so the taiko guy was reduced to an occasional bang behind the dulcimer. Thankfully the other numbers had the big drums hammering away. Even more thankfully the show was over soon enough to we can get back to dinner.

The sesame-miso salad dressing came in a shot-glass which was a clever touch, a light and flavorful way to add flavor to the mixed veggies. The teppan kimchee pork had plenty of hot kimchee. Really could've used some white rice to go with it. Instead we got the Dozo special grilled rice-triangle. The big hunk of rice was grilled to give it a nice golden color on the outside, and stuffed with dried fish-roe (or something like that) for flavor. The stuffing did make it a bit too salty as an accompaniment to other dishes, and the grilling seemed to do more to dry out the rice rather than imparting that grill-char flavor. Should've gone with the sushi-maki instead.

The meat skewer is the signature dish of an izakaya. The skewer combo plate featured various mysterious but tasty fatty/crunchy/gelatinous pig/chicken bits and innards, along with a straightforward chicken teriyaki kebab, a piece of unagi, and a beef-roll skewer. The beef was the star of the show, thin slices of tender, barely-cooked beef wrapped around scallions and daikon. Unfortunately the GF was a bit squeamish of the fatty bits and not a big fan of under-cooked beef.

Dozo makes for a great night-spot for those wanting to see and be seen (it's next to the CTS TV studios), but for izakaya food I liked the more casual Watami (和民) better. Surprisingly the cost-per-person ended up being very similar (i.e. not cheap), even though Watami appears to be more casual and less up-scale at first sight. Must be the fancy east-Taipei rents.

Dozo
台北市信義區光復南路102號
02-27781135

Naan and Curry

Was at Sam's and considered going to the Mission for a burrito or finding an SF Naan and Curry for lunch. Looked it up and it turned out that there was a Naan and Curry on Irving a mile away, so the proximity broke the tie in favor of the Indian food. Been to the one on Telegraph, which was busy with UC Berkeley students. The Sunset location had a wider assortment of folks, including a surprising number of Chinese folks. The place was also more decorated, with drapes, fabric ceiling hangings, and a big mural to combine with the purple walls for an atmosphere of some sort.

Nothing fancy today. Went with the Chicken Tikka and Garlic Naan with a glass of Mango Lassi. I ordered at the counter, was assigned a numbered table, and was suppose to pay after eating, but I had to retrieve my own silverware, napkin etc. from a closet in the back, which was a bit confusing at first. The tank of free milk tea was a nice touch. The rich yogurty sauce of the Chicken Tikka Marsala was intensely flavored and clusters of crushed garlic were generously sprinkled over the naan, which was easily the size of a medium pizza. The CTM made for a great bread dipping sauce. The chicken itself was a bit dry but anything would taste good with the flavorful and very orange sauce. The only disappointment was that the dishes were barely lukewarm when I got them. Thankfully the sauce didn't separate or congeal, otherwise I might've sent it back. It was a late lunch on a cool day, but still. Plus it was almost 11 bucks for naan, curry, and drink. That's par for the course in SF these days, I guess. It hit the spot, though.

Naan and Curry
642 Irving St. (between 7th and 8th Ave.)
San Francisco, CA
(415) 664-7225

Eos Wine Bar and Restaurant

The acclaimed fusion place is literally down the block from Sam's place but they'd never gotten around to trying it. My illustrious presence was as good an excuse as any. They gave us a 7:30pm reservation, but we went over early and they were able to seat us without trouble.

The space was industrial in that it had high ceilings, tall windows, with steel braces and cables forming the geometry above. But they also maintained the warmth by building thick wood beams across the room lower down along the wall to add intimacy and still maintain the airiness created by the high roof. The pistachio green walls graced by local art remain muted up close but gives the overall room some pop when you walk in the door. A large bar area makes it a good place to drop in, hang out, or have a sit-down dinner.

The schtick is Asian-fusion small-plate action. They were participating in the Dining Around Town promotion, which in their case was three small plates (each with 2-3 choices) and a dessert for $35. There weren't quite enough choices for each of us to all get a different DAT lineup, plus that'd be way too much food anyway. So Sam nominally went with the DAT choices and we picked three more plats for all to share, avoiding plain things like "Spicy Pan Fried Chinese Long Beans" (a.k.a. 乾扁四季豆, which is good but probably done better at a good Chinese place).

The bar's part of the deal, so it behooved us to have some drinks to complement the food. The Lemon Drop was a bit too fruity for Sam's masculinity, but the Sake Kamikaze was tasty yet manly. Michelle and I split the Varietal Hodgepodge white wine flight, which was four half-pours of very different wines for not much more than the price of a single full glass.

• Pircas Negras Torrontés, Famatina Valley, Argentina, 2005

Rich, honey taste without being sweet or oaky. Very unique and tasty.

• Lucien Albrecht Pinot Blanc, Alsace, France, 2004

Austere, minerally, and almost bitter. Not crowd-pleasing but good with the right foods.

• Schlossgut Diel ‘Dorsheimer Pittermännchen’ Kabinett Riesling, Nahe, Germany, 2003

Riesling works well with the lighter Asian flavors. Fruity but not sweet.

• Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc, Limari Valley, Chile, 2005

Light and drinkable South American SB.

The tuna from the Seared Rare Ahi Tuna Tower starter wasn't going to match the sheer purity of the maguro sashimi from 吉園, but the additional flavor and construction of the dish more than compensates. The barely cooked slices of tuna and microgreeens on fried wonton skins flavored by an Asian-style miso viniagrette. A bit more fish woulda been nice, though. The salad was a Japanese-style soy-sesame dressing, over a lacquered bowl full of fresh Californian greens.

Usually not a big squash person. Don't particularly like squishy sweet-ish savory things. But I did like the Red Curried Kabocha Squash, and besides we needed some starch, otherwise it'd kinda hard to fill up on the small plates (emphasis on small). The red curry provided spice and a bit of heat, and the yogurt sauce added richness to make a complex mix of flavors with a little of just about everything. The wild mushroom risotto is pure savory goodness without being heavy at all. Although mom would probably faint at the thought of twelve bucks for a small plate of fancy 稀飯.

The Grilled Korean Style Short Rib (geez, it's SF, people know what kal-bi means) had two big meaty slabs of beef rib meat sitting on a bed of kimchee. The meat is high-grade and the flavor was there, but it's really just a yuppiefied version of a regular Korean dish. And the kimchee was totally weak sauce, which we will grudging accept in the name of harmony with the more delicate dishes. In comparison, the Grilled Green Curry Marinated Mahi Mahi (with pinapple-habanero salsa) was different and good. Even when I was in Hawaii I would run into dry mahi-mahi. This, on the other hand, was an oh-so-juicy piece of fish with grill marks on the outside, but with just the barest hint of translucency in the middle. One bite of the fish just by itself, and one bite with some salsa for an additional zing. Sometimes sharing sucks.

Sam had his eye on the Mango Panna Cotta as soon as he saw the menu. The PC was creamy smoothness with good flavor, but couldn't but feel that the two-dollar mango pudding at the dim-sum places was the better deal. Also got a warm berry-apple cobbler topped with chunks of sugared bread cubes (kinda like sweet croutons) and a scoop of coconut ice cream. Now I usually wouldn't go for such a heavy dessert after a big meal, but the small-plate approach left just enough room for dessert so we could dig in without going bust.

In the end, got to taste a lot of different flavors, and walked feeling pleasantly full with a good buzz on top. And all for a not-cheap-but-reasonable price, at least according to Sam, who picked up the bill. Thanks.

Eos Wine Bar and Restaurant
901 Cole St.
San Francisco, CA 94117-4315
415-566-3063

Patara (泰軒精緻泰式美食)

Located in the alley behind the Dunhua Eslite, on the corner of Renai Rd., Patara doesn't seem distinguished from the outside, its lighted sign faded just a bit. But behind the hedges is a quiet pool with stepping stones leading you into the restaurant, which is surprisingly large. The menu and business card proclaims locations around the world, and the atmosphere reflects the international flavor. The room is decorated like a typical middle-upscale Western restaurant, with framed fabric squares hanging on the walls and halogen lamps focused on each table. The room lighting perhaps a tad brighter to accommodate Chinese tastes. Almost every table in the full house had at least one non-Chinese person. Many seemed like they were there on the company expense account. Looking at the prices, that's probably the best way to go.

The menu was a non-threatening internationalized Thai/SEAsia mix. The mixed satay were marinated with an Indian-type curry, accompanied by a yogurt-based dipping sauce and toast points. The roasted vegetable salad was basically an antipasto drizzled with a Thai herb marinade instead of Italian dressing. The seafood curry went well with the rice, and the seafood was fresh and attractive in the white coconut-milk broth, but I would've liked the additional herbage of a green curry, I think. The lemongrass lamb chops was definitely the best thing. The chops sat on a bed of green papaya salad and accompanied by glutinous rice spring rolls, making it a meal all by itself. Meat was a pleasant medium and the lemongrass definitely gave it some zest.

Other tables had steamed whole fish which looked good, too bad we couldn't really order it with only two people. The desserts were in a self-serve bar as an all-you-can-eat thing, which I felt didn't really mesh with the atmosphere, and the desserts didn't look all that special anyway. The service was professional, by nice older ladies who spoke Chinese and Thai. No work-study students, thank god.

So perhaps not a place for the casual get-together, but a useful place to have in the back pocket for an occasional special dinner. Or to impress an outside visitor on the sophisticated international food scene in Taipei. Although that might be construed as a deceptive presentation.

PATARA 泰軒精緻泰式美食
106台北市大安區敦化南路1段247巷12號
02-27315288