Our tour bus wound its way up mountain roads to the Appi mountain resort, where we were staying at the Appi Grand Annex for the evening. The air was getting chilly and there were signs of the snow on the ground, but it was still a few more weeks before the ski resort would open for business, so it was definitely the slow season. I imagined the travel agency got quite a deal on the rooms, which had plenty of closet and bathroom space, much unlike the typical Japanese hotel room, in order to accommodate skiers and their gear. And there was the obligatory onsen hot spring bath to soak away any lingering chills.

Our tour group had the hotel restaurant mostly to ourselves. A little bit of DIY yakitori action for dinner. Definitely a step down from the our other hotel's dinner offering. But still better than most Japanese set meals you'd find in Taiwan or US. And the kid loved the tender chicken chunks fresh off the grill pan.

To break up the monotony of the long bus ride across Iwate we stopped in at a workshop for some hands-on kiritanbo-making and souvenir shopping. To make kiritanbo, first mash the cooked rice to extract the starch and make it stick together, but still retain some shape of the grains without totally bashing it into mochi.

The grandmas stayed on the bus with the napping kid. Wife's aunt did come along so we had somebody with actual cooking experience to help. Formed the mashed rice onto a thick dowel before grilling on the hibachi. Brushed periodically with a spicy miso sauce to add some zing to the plain rice and to help form a crispy, charred crust. One can also remove the crisped rice roll from the dowel and cut it into pieces to enrich soups and nabes, and we had it a couple more times in our subsequent meals.

This was the first time I've traveled to Japan with a tour group and stayed at a large vacation resort instead of a business hotel or traditional ryokan. Tour groups try to put the nicest meal/hotel at the start, to make a good first impression, and the massive Morinokaze hot-spring hotel-complex in Iwate Prefecture was our first evening's resting place of our Tohoku trip. Usually I'd prefer something more intimate or historical, but as the Chinese-speaking hotel hostess went over all the amenities available one starts to see that size does have its benefits.

We've stayed at fancy ryokans where one night's sleep plus two meals cost more than the entire tour fee of this trip. But I've got to admit that the big hotel with tour-group's economy-of-scale advantages can sure dish out a lot of tasty food for a fair price. Our group had a large banquet room to ourselves, with gilted ceilings and tatami floors.

Most of the meal was already laid out on the table in anticipation of our arrival, except for the tempura course. Our own fry chef didn't start battering and frying until we arrived, to make sure everyone could have fresh-fried tempura the way it was meant to be served. The paper-nabe contained local vegetables and rice cakes cooking in dashi broth. For the beef yaki-bowl, they light the fire at the start of the meal, so the slices of Japanese beef is hot & ready by the time you're ready to dig into the meat. I almost filled up on just the sashimi as wife and mom gave me a part of their portions for being too much. Sampling the local Ginga Kogen Beer, made with clean alpine snowmelt water in the style of a German Hefeweizen. Much tastier than the usual Asahi Extra Bland.

The large room and relative privacy allowed plenty of space and freedome to take pictures to our hearts' content. Our hostess even brought out her daughter and grand-daughters to perform the drum and dance routines from the local matsuri. Makes for cute entertainment for us and a good practice session for them.

A brief rest after the large meal then it was time to seek out the hotel's other entertainment amenities. There was a kids' arcade featuring simple carnival games. No live goldfish scooping here, but marbles made for a good substitute for the kid to keep. For the elderly visitors, and us, there was a taiko drum performance, followed up by a little old-style enka songs. To entertain the kids there was a mochi-making demonstration, complete with kid-sized pestles for the rice-pounding. Afterwards, the audience each got a piece of the warm fresh-made mochi in a bowl of sweet azuki-bean soup. Later in the evening, the noodle bar and izakaya area come alive with the men on company-sponsored tours drinking and snacking, while us tourists and the old ladies retreat to the onsen hot-springs for a long soak.

The rooms were so much larger than the tiny city-hotel rooms we usually stay in. And one can't help but sleep well after the good meal and the relaxing hot bath. Unfortunately that made us late for breakfast the next morning and we only made it once 'round the breakfast buffet with the tour bus waiting. Missed out on the fresh-made French toast with local milk and eggs.

Our tour group landed at Sendai Airport in the late afternoon. When we got on the bus it was still too early to go to the hotel, but the sun was already low in the sky in northern Japan. Good thing the tour company had it all worked out so we were able to hit this one tourist destination before nightfall. Genbikei Gorge might've been a gorgeous autumnal scene in daylight with golden leaves. But we were already past the fall-colors season, so the leaves had already turned brown and fallen away, and the light was rapidly fading with the sunset.

Thankfully the sad foliage wasn't the only attraction at the site. Although most of the nearby shopping arcade had already closed their doors, the famous mochi house located on the river-shore had stayed open by prior arrangement. They even put up Taiwanese flags on the outside to welcome our tour group. No need for us to cross the river and squeeze into the small shop, either. Instead the shop sent down a basket from their second-story window on a cable line across the gorge to our side. Our tour guide wrote down our order and put it in the basket with the money. They pull it up to the shop and soon sent the basket back filled with boxes of mochi and a big pot of hot green tea.

Each box contained skewers of marble-sized mochi balls, each skewer coated with azuki, sesame, or sweet shoyu sauce. The sweet sesame and red-bean spreads are similar to wagashi fillings, except spread over the outside of the mochi instead of being wrapped within. The salty-but-slightly-sweet thickened-soy-sauce sauce was a bit funky, but it's a very Japanese flavor and made for a nice change from the standard sticky-sweet fillings. A couple of skewers made for a perfect afternoon snack, washed down with hot tea in the cooling air. Unfortunately we had to eat it in a hurry to catch the bus before it got full dark, instead of relaxing by the river under sunny skies as it was meant to be. By the time we were leaving the mochi shop was already readying another basket of goodies to zip across the river to the next Taiwanese tour group which arrived just after us.

I was hooked on Paul's authentic French croissants and viennoseries for a while, but the exorbitant prices got to even me. Unlike the French, Taiwanese folks certainly do not live on bread and butter alone. And after the initial wave had passed the store could've easily crumbled like so many other food fads before. Good thing that Paul's managed to find a stable business model by dressing up their shops as a fancy place for pastries & tea, as well as offering some light meals for lunching ladies.

Wife was supposed to pick up something from her sister, who was just leaving work late near Mitsukoshi. So the department store was a convenient meeting point, and a good excuse to eat out. Didn't feel like the basement food hall offerings, but the formal restaurants were too much trouble with it being later and just the three of us. So a light dinner at Paul offered an interesting alternative. Sis had a grilled cheese & chicken sandwich on baguette, wife had a savoury crepe with soup & salad, while I got by with a flavorfully cheesy quiche. Nothing too fancy, but not that easy to do well, either, and just a little bit different from the usual options. Not too expensive for a department store dinner, if one didn't quibble too much about portion size.

The menu was faithfully transplanted from its American roots, thus featuring many items not usually seen in the Taiwanese basic burger-and-pasta American-style restaurants. It's almost kind of overwhelming, so I skipped to the list of House Specialties, where the Cajun Fish Tacos caught my eye. Some American-Mex food plus a tall glass of Hefeweizen seemed like exactly what the doctor ordered. The dish certainly looked the part. The tacos were filled with blackened fish topped with a creamy sauce and pico de gallo salsa which were tasty but not too spicy. The double-wrapping of soft flour tortilla and crunchy blue-corn tortilla shell was a smart flourish. Unfortunately the tortilla shells were a bit stale and not too crunchy, possibly due to lack of turnover or Taiwan's high humidity? But the food did went well with the beer, not surprisingly.

We parked the car in the garage and went down RenAi Blvd instead of going home for dinner. I'd noticed this curiously named restaurant before but the wife wasn't in the mood for American food back then. Today she was more amenable.

The restaurant is a tiny converted shack in an alley just off Guangfu Blvd. The interior is decorated much like an American family diner, but the extensive menu scrawled in chalk across an entire wall covers a surprisingly ambitious range. There's the classically American burgers and breakfast foods, but there's also American-Italian pastas, and a whole section of Cal-Mex dishes. One could be generous and talk about the open kitchen, or just note that there's no room for a real cooking space so they simply had a bar to blocked off an area with a few gas-can burners. As a family-run operation, I'm inclined to think of it as a pleasantly quirky feature, since it also allows them to chat with the patrons. The name of the restaurant itself comes from their mother's restaurant work supporting her children through school, and any tips are donated to educational charities.

I couldn't resist the temptation of Mexican food, especially the less-often seen dishes, so I ordered the beef chimichanga. Wife wasn't as inclined for adventure so she chose the fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.

I wasn't a big fan of the chimichanga while living in the States, but it's so rare to find it in Taiwan that I had to give it a try. I wanted the fried burrito to be good but frankly I was prepared for disappointment, as is usually the case for Tai-Mex. The dish made a good first impression, the pan-fried tortilla wrapping glistening hot and golden brown. Two ramekins with mild salsa and sour cream were on the side to dress up the chimichanga or to dip the home-made tortilla chips. The inside was packed with ground beef, onions, and sweet peppers, generously spiced with chili powder. Humble ingredients, but when well-prepared it is tasty as a rare treat. Wife's pasta was less flavorful. But the sauce was rich and nicely thickened, unlike the soupy white sauce often found in Taiwan eateries. The wider fettuccine noodles suited the sauce better, too, more so than the usual strands of spaghetti.

With just the two of us, we didn't even get to the online-famous bacon cheeserburgers. And there were a ton of other tempting options on the menu that still needs tasting, too. Will definitely return.

Had the car with us, so it seemed easy enough to go somewhere for dinner. But not having done any research beforehand I had no idea what was available in the area. Some quick searching on the iPhone and the GPS devices pointed to this Taiwanized-Italian restaurant in Neihu as a decent option. Offered the suggestion to the wife, and it turned out that this restaurant has a sister branch in Sindian near her mother's place and she'd eaten there a couple of times. So no points for innovation, but with the kid along safe and reliable isn't a bad way to go.

Apparently we weren't the only ones who were looking for some spaghetti in the evening. The multi-level restaurant amongst the re-developed Neihu office parks was packed, with lines waiting out the door, and almost every table had a kid or three. We were out of other ideas, and a thirty minute wait isn't that bad. Thankfully the kid was a really good sport about it.

The restaurant was brightly lit with faux-timber tables and almost-kitschy country-style decor. The food was similarly cheerful and hearty. Was worried that the kid wouldn't like the strange new flavors, but when I shared my spaghetti in tomato-mushroom sauce he slurped it up and asked for more. He didn't quite have the patience to sit through the entire meal but with all the other families and kids in the house nobody minded our gyrations. The various cutesy decoration items were enough to catch his attention until the wife could finish her pesto-seafood pasta.

It's not sophisticated gourmet fare nor was it trying to be. It's not exactly the cheapest plate of pasta in town, either, NT400 for the full combo meal pasta+soup+salad+dessert. But with a 1.5-year-old in tow a pleasant, kid-friendly family-style restaurant was just what we needed.

It's not as if we left hungry, but perhaps given the high-end atmosphere we were expecting more out of an NT1000 lunch. On the other hand, that's not much money for a high-end Japanese meal, either. So perhaps what we need to do is to return to splurge for the higher tiers, preferably with a generous, well-off, relative in tow. After all, all those Mercedes-driving patrons can't be wrong?

The brunch menu is less adventurous than the standard fare, but the dishes featured good ingredients well-prepared. Wife's dad had the fish-and-chips, which seemed nice enough but didn't get a taste because in the Confucian tradition one doesn't swipe food from one's elders. My Salad Frisée Aux Lardons was dressed with drippings from the thick strips of smoky bacon and the runny egg yolk from the poached egg on top was more than enough richness to offset the slightly bitter greens. Followed by the Eggs Benedict, one original and one Florentine style. Both were dressed with perfectly lemony and buttery Hollandaise sauce, with spinach or bacon on top of real English muffins. Wife had the signature M's Weekend Fryup which came on a huge platter with minute-steak, lamb chop, grilled sausage, crispy bacon, grilled tomato, sautéed onions, mashed potatoes and a fried egg, "of course."

That was enough food for the wife to give up her second brunch course to a shared dessert for the table. They referred to the pavlova "M’s Very Famous," so it behooved us to give it a try. The fame appears to be well-deserved. Lots of fresh fruit and whip cream on top of crunchy baked meringue. More importantly for Chinese palates, not too sweet. The single serving was more than enough dessert for the three of us to share.

As one of the first re-developers on the scene, M On the Bund chose No. 5 for a reason. The entire curve of the Zhongshan Road waterfront stretched out before us, when seen from the outdoor patio. Glamorous old-world buildings of The Bund contrasting with the modern cityscape across the river in Pudong. Heck it's actually more historically authentic to be enjoying a Western meal in the former Concessions area, isn't it?

Both English and Chinese foodie sites seem to acknowledge Yang's Fried Dumpling as one of the best purveyors of the classic Shanghai pan-fried dumplings, which is quite a rare agreement. The location near People's Park is the most convenient, and we decided to stop by for breakfast, before meeting up with wife's dad. We were there early so there wasn't any lines and we even got ourselves a table. The chain is big enough to have cleaned themselves up a bit compared to the typical hole-in-the-wall place. Hair-capped workers behind glass diligently stuffed and folded the dumplings with the pork filling. The flat grill is right up front visible to passers-by, convenient to scoop into a box for take-out, or into a bowl for eating in.

Considering the explosive rise in Shanghai's cost-of-living, four-yuan for four dumplings is a real gourmet bargain. I was expecting the dumplings to be bite-sized like xiaolongbao, but they turned out to be a good bit larger and more filling than they look. The hot-off-the-pan fried dumplings has a crispy crust, a chewy skin, and filled with meat juices inside. So it takes some skill (that I lacked) to bite into the bun, sip out the juices, all without it all bursting out or burning my tongue process.

The dumplings are good as a hearty breakfast, a quick lunch, or a late-night snack. It's no wonder they have good business all times of the day.

The Japanese set-meal is the most common mid-priced sit-down restaurant around. And one can get similar, but tastier, food at much better prices elsewhere. At least the pricey meal helped to offset the parking fees, so it was barely worthwhile.

代官山101店
台北市信義區市府路45號
02-8101-7828