Osaka Grill Meat (大阪燒肉) in Taipei

When traveling in Japan, many tourists must eat ramen and sashimi. Besides these two popular dishes, the other one of favorites is the grill meat (燒肉) of Japan. However, after coming back to Taiwan, I can’t help but keep missing the awesome taste of the grill meat in Japan, so I try hard to find a good restaurant of traditional Japanese grill meat in Taipei.

 

Osaka Grill Meat

After a Osaka grill meat (大阪燒肉) restaurant, which have more than 20 branches in Japan, started to operate in Taipei, my dream of eating traditional Japanese grill meat finally came true. Many people will think Osaka Grill Meat is from Osaka. In fact, the reason why Osaka Grill Meat used the Osaka, a city in Japan, in its name is just because the boss of Osaka Grill Meat was born in Osaka.

In Osaka Grill Meat, they do their best to keep the restaurant as same as the ones in Japan. For example, they also write their menu in Japanese. Moreover the way they souse the ingredients are almost the same with the ways in Japan. The common grill meat will use the fire which is right below the barbecue grill; on the contrary, Osaka Grill Meat use the fire which comes out from the two side of the barbecue grill. With using this special way to heat the meat, the meat will be tenderer and juicier after being grilled. If you still worry about that you are not good at grilling the meat, you should not be hesitate and ask the waiters for help!

 

The Menu of Osaka Grill Meat

At the beginning, the waiter will give the costumers some appetizers, like the cucumbers with spicy sauce, spicy pickled vegetables, and the potato salad. After the appetizers, it is time to eat some grill meat. In Osaka Grill Meat, the ingredients, except for the vegetables, are all about cattle. Therefore, if you are a beef-lover just as me, you must enjoy the time in Osaka Grill Meat. The pictures below are the ingredients in Osaka Grill Meat. In addition to the photos, I will also share the tastes of these food!

The cucumber with spicy sauce

 

Potato Salad

1. Ox tongue

The ox tongue slices will be ticker than the beef slices, so the grilled ox tongues will taste crispier than beef slices. I recommend to eat the ox tongue with chopped green onions.

2. Cattle rib meat

As the in Osaka Grill Meat have abundant greasy on its surface, it becomes very delicious after grilling for couple minutes. You don't need to any seasoning, and you can feel the origin taste of the beef. 

3.Sushi with grilled beef slice

They will grill the beef for couple seconds to let the greasy of the beef comes out, and then use the grilled beef slice and mustard to make a sushi.

4.Beef slice with sea urchin

They put the grilled beef slice and sea urchin on the laver, purple perilla, and the chopped green onion. The tastes with all the ingredients will mix up after you put it in your mouth. 

5.Raw beef with egg yolk

Stir the raw beef with the row egg yolk, and then the egg yolk will make the beef taste tender. Besides, you can also add some lemonade in it to reduce the gamey taste of raw beef.  

Last but not least, the location of Osaka Grill Meat is just around the Chung Xian Fu Xing MRT station, which is quite easy to get. As a result, next time, if you are missing the traditional Japanese grill meat when you have no time to travel in Japan, you can give Osaka Grill Meat a try. The nice services, fresh ingredients, and the Japanese cooking way in there must give you a happy and unforgettable meal time. 

A Rou Ting(鵝肉亭) in Minhsiung

In my family, it is a hard task to invite my grandparents to have a meal in a restaurant, since they always think eating in a restaurant costs too much and eating the food prepared by ourselves is healthier and more delicious. However there is a restaurant which locates in Minhsiung can attract my grandparents for more than ten years. This restaurant is A Rou Ting (鵝肉亭) , which means “a stand selling goose ” in Chinese.

A Rou Ting

The fresh goose in A Rou Ting

In A Rou Ting, the most popular ingredient is definitely goose meat. They use mature goose to cook their dishes. The meat of mature goose are juicier and has good texture. In addition, the way they cook their gooses is also the key factor of why the goose in A Rou Ting is much more delicious than other restaurants in Minhsiung. The way A Rou Ting cook the gooses is putting the whole goose in the boiling water for couple minutes. Maybe some people will think this way seems to be too simple and become curious about what the magic power in this cooking way?

Goose with gingers 

 This simple way can easily maintain the water of the goose so that the goose meat will taste tender and juicy. Once, when my family and I visited another restaurant which also provides goose, we thought the goose meat in that restaurant is so dry and bland. Hence, we decided to ask the cook their cooking way, and we got the answer that they steamed the goose. Due to the long process of steam the goose, the water inside the goose will keep losing. At the end, the goose will become so hard and tasteless. As a result, choosing the right way to cook the gooses is a quite important issue for the cooks.

Tender goose slice and special sauce

Besides the goose meat, in A Rou Ting, they also have many special sides. For example, the goose gizzards, goose livers, goose intestines and goose blood cake. The ingredients of those sides are all washed carefully, so they are not scary at all. Some people may think these sides will taste gamey. In my personal opinion, I think they are not. Furthermore, A Rou Ting also provides a special sauce, which taste a little bit spicy and sweet to let customers eat with the sides and goose. In addition to the special sauce, they use bean sprouts and gingers to reduce the gamey smells of the dishes.

Goose gizzards

Goose blood rice cake

Vegetable sides 

Last but not least, the prices in A Rou Ting are very fair! The whole goose in A Rou Ting only costs 900 NT dollars, but the whole goose in Taipei costs more than 1500 NT dollars. Thus, every time when my family visit A Rou Ting, we can get very satisfied and only spend less than two thousand dollars. No wonder, every time when my mom invites my grandparents to have a meal with us, my grandfather is always willing to spend one and half hours driving to Minhsiung to taste the fresh goose!

There are always many people in A Rou Ting

Yi-He Sour Cabbage Hot Pot (頤和酸菜館) in Kaohsiung

The weather in Taiwan becomes frozen suddenly during this week.  People start to take out their jackets, coats, and scarfs. When the temperature keeps declining, people are easier to get hungry and tend to eat more food to keep their bodies warm. However, what kind of food is the most popular one during the winter? Ice cream will definitely be kicked out from the list, while the hot pot will become people’s new favorite in Taiwan.

Hot pot is our good friend in winter

Hot pots have many different kinds of savors, for example, spicy hot pot, Cantonese hot pot, bouillon hot pot, and vegetable stock hot pot, and so on. Among all of the savors, my favorite is sour cabbage hot pot. In sour cabbage hot pot, people only put pork slice rather than other kinds of meat. There is a sour cabbage hot pot restaurant in Fengshan, Kaohsiung, which is called Yi-He (頤和). This restaurant doesn’t locate in a noticeable place and the decorations inside is mediocre. Nonetheless, the soup and ingredients of Yi-He are all excellent!

Yi-He sour cabbage hot pot restaurant

 In Yi-He, the cook will put some ingredients in the pork stock in advance, including, sour cabbages, squid fish balls, sausages, dried bean curd, and duck blood as the base of the hot pot. In these ingredients, my family and I like the squid fish balls, sausages and duck blood the most. The squid fish balls in Yi-He have a lots of squid chunks inside. Due to these chunks, the squid fish balls will stay chewy after cooking in the hot soup for a while. In addition, those squids are all from Penghu where is popular with its fresh seafood. On the other hand, the cook in Yi-He use chicken to make the sausage rather than pork. Hence, the taste of the chicken sausages in Yi-He are quite different from the sausages we eat during our daily lives. Last but not least, the duck blood is also an important ingredients of the hot pot. Especially, when the duck blood is cooked with sour cabbage, the duck blood will taste kind of sour rather than gamy. 

Food in Yi-He 

Besides the ingredients I mentioned in last paragraph, the pork slice also plays the main role in the sour cabbage hot pot. First, Yi-He will cut the pork in very thin slices so that when customers put the slices into the boiled soup, the slices will be cooked thoroughly in few seconds. This process can prevent the pork slices from being over cooked. Second, they also choose the pork with abundant grease to make the pork have better texture after cooking. Moreover, Yi-He provides the sour sauce which is made by leek sprouts under a thin layer of the soil to let the customers eat with the pork slices.

The pork slices

The sour sauce

When eating the hot pot, we still need some staples and vegetables in order to have a balance diet. In Yi-He, the staple they provide is bean thread; and the vegetables will change according to the season, as a result, they can make sure all the vegetables are fresh. After the meal, even though Yi-He doesn’t provide any dessert, they will give each customer a glass of juice which is made by dark plum fruits. The plum fruits will urge our stomachs and bowels to digest the food we eat.

In conclusion, next time when you travel in Kaohsiung, you can go to Yi-He to enjoy a delicious hot pot which contains multiple ingredients, fresh pork slices and vegetables. However, the business hours of Yi-He sometimes will change a little bit; hence, you have better to make a phone call before heading for Yi-He. I’m sure the Yi –He sour cabbage hot pot will be a nice choice for you in this frozen winter! 

Yi-He sour cabbage hot pot

Second Floor in Taipei

When people go to a restaurant frequently, sometimes they go there not only to eat the delicious food but to cherish their memory in the restaurant. In Taipei, there is also a restaurant for me to cherish the sweet memory with my friends. My friends and I come from different cities of Taiwan but we all study at NCCU. To release our homesick, we sometimes hang out to have dinner together. Our favorite restaurant in Taipei is called “Second Floor”.

My friends and I in Second Floor

Second Floor provides a cozy dining space which can let people enjoy the whole afternoon or night. They also decorate the restaurant according to the holidays. Comparing to other restaurants in Taipei, Second Floor won’t limit the dining time during weekdays. In consequence, girls can chat, complain, and gossip until they feel satisfied; that is the main reason why my friends and I always choose Second Floor for our reunion.

Dining space of Second Floor

Besides the ample dining space, Second Floor provides many kinds of food, for instance, pizzas, spaghetti, sandwiches, hamburgers, steaks, risotto, and so on. Hence, even though my friends and I feel like eating different kinds of food, all of us can fulfil our needs in Second Floor. In addition to the main dishes, Second Floor also has many kinds of desserts and brunches. No wonder, Second Floor can be the heaven of me and my female friends.

The first dish in Second Floor I’m going to introduce is German Pork Knuckle. The knuckles in Second Floor have crispy surfaces and chewy texture. The most important side of German Pork Knuckle is the sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is one kind of vegetables which has sour tastes. Eating the roasted knuckle with sauerkraut can let the knuckle be less oily; and it will balance the taste of meat and vegetable as well.   The set of German Pork knuckle also offer soup with puff pastry and breads. The breads in Second Floor will be baked before delivering so that the bread will be hot all the times. Dipping the bread in the soup is also one of my favorite foods in Second Floor.

German Pork Knuckle

German Pork Knuckle

 Soup with puff pastry 

Soup and bread

Le Cordon Bleu Chicken Gratin Rice with Creamy Sauce is the dish which my friend orders all the times when visiting Second Floor. They use the cheese to cover the chicken gratin. After that, they pack the cheese and chicken gratin with floor and fried it until it turns to gold. On the other hand, the rice is cooked with creamy sauce and cauliflowers. A girl will become very full after eating Le Cordon Bleu Chicken Gratin Rice with Creamy Sauce. If you think you will be thirsty after eating this large size meal, don’t worry! Second Floor provides many kinds of beverages for you to choose. By the way, most of these beverages are supplied unlimitedly!

Le Cordon Bleu Chicken Gratin Rice with Creamy Sauce 

After reading the introduction, you may be curious about that if you don’t feel that hungry, what else dishes can you order in Second Floor? Second Floor is also famous with their brunches. In fact, many people even order 2 brunches at the same time if they feel hungry. Among all brunches, Diced Steak with Sauteed Mushroom and Scramble Egg is the one I highly recommend to you. They use the medium well sirloin, juicy mushrooms, and eggs to make this dish. After finishing this dish, you will have enough energy to face the brand-new day.

 Diced Steak with Sauteed Mushroom and Scramble Egg

To sum up, there are too many cuisines provided in Second Floor to introduce all of them in details. Although I have already visited Second Floor for more than ten times, I still can’t eat all of the dishes. However, I’m sure that Second Floor will be a good place for people to spend couple hours eating, drinking, and chatting for couple hours. Furthermore, Second Floor is also a sweet place in Taipei which bring back my pleasant memory with my friends.   

Totto Ramen in NYC

The food culture of New York is famous with diversity. Since New York is the biggest city, as well a significant financial center, in the world, there are lots of immigrants living in New York. When these immigrants moved to USA, they built their own regions, such as little Italy, China town and so on. Hence, when we wander in New York City, we can find lots of restaurants providing exotic cuisines. However, Japanese restaurants are definitely popular choices among New Yorkers. One of the most popular one is Totto Ramen, and there are always lots of people waiting in lines before it.

Signboard of Totto Ramen

My friends and I visited Totto Ramen in the summer of 2013. We arrived at otto Ramen at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Surprisingly, there were already around 20 people waiting on the pavement in front of Totto Ramen. We even needed to write our names in the 2^nd page of the waiting list. However, I was not a big fan of roman in fact, for the soup of roman is too salty for me. At that time, I was really curious why those New Yorkers were fascinated with Totto Ramen? In addition, Totto Ramen was cramped for space, thus, every one needed sit closely with each other. Being frank, Totto Ramen wasn’t a restaurant which attracted me lot at  the first glance.

Always crowded in Totto Ramen

After 2-hour waiting, it was our turn to have a bowl of ramen in Totto Ramen. I could finally revealed the magic power of the ramen in Tooto Ramen. There are three key factors in a bowl of delicious ramen: noodles, soups and grilled pork. The noodles in Tooto Ramen were made by their own cooks. These noodles were thicker than ordinary noodles, as a result, when these noodles soaked in the hot soup for a while, they would still be chewy rather than over tender. Moreover, the thicker noodles had better texture, and we could taste the savor of wheat after chewing these noodles for couple minutes.

Noodles in Totto Ramen

Besides the noodles, the soup also plays an important role in a bowl of delicious ramen. Totto Ramen put a whole chicken and onions in the boiled water to simmer for chicken broth. Comparing with the soup simmered with pig bone, the chicken broth is usually less greasy. People could smell the aroma of the chicken broth even they just stood around the entrance of Totto Ramen. If you are a lover of spicy odor, you can also add their special chili oil in the soup or even try to order a ramen with spicy soup.

Chicken broth 

Last but not least, as a meat-lover, I think grilled pork is the essence of ramen. First, the cook need to choose the top pork belly, which has more fat, so after grilling the pork, they won't become too hard and dry to eat. Furthermore, the cooks in Totto Ramen used a little spray gun to spray the fire on the pork belly as the same time as grilling the pork on the barbecue grill. The reason why they used the spray guns was to control the fire precisely. By doing this, they could make sure all the surfaces of the pork belly were grilled and the surplus gravity was grilled out.

The way of grilling pork belly

Grilled pork

To sum up, although the tastes of Totto Ramen are still kind of different from traditional Japanese ramen, it still worth people giving it a try when missing the orient cuisine in New York. Nonetheless, if you want to have a dinner in Totto Ramen, you have better to arrive there as earlier as possible. If you can, don't forget to buy a cup of coffee on the way to Totto Ramen because you will need to wait for it at least an hour all the times!!!!!

People always lining for Totto Ramen 

Le Palais in Taipei

In the past, when foreign friends or business partners visit Taiwan, maybe you will consider to take them to the night markets to taste some Taiwanese snacks. Recently, due to the cooking oil problems in Taiwan, you have better to choose a restaurant strictly so that you can confirm all the ingredients you eat are safe for human bodies. Therefore, high-class restaurants are likely to be an ideal choice, for they usually manage their ingredients with higher standard. 

The dining wares of  Le Palais 

 There are many high-class restaurants locate in Taipei providing exotic cuisines, but if I want to treat the friends from other countries, I will invite them to try Chinese food. The reason is that food is also a part of our culture which totally merging into our lives. “Le Palais” is the restaurant I recommend; and its Chinese name is “頤宮”. Le Palais not only chooses fresh ingredients in the season but also provides great atmosphere in the dining space which has high privacy. There are some popular dishes in Le Palais, such as barbecue pork pastry, roasted baby duck in chief’s special and steamed egg yolk custard buns.

 

The roasted baby duck in chief's special

The  barbecue pork pastry and roasted baby duck were so popular, a famous dancing star, Jen Liu, had recommended these two dishes on a famous TV show of Taiwan. As a result, If you feel like ordering these two cuisines, you can order these “must eat” dishes when doing reservation so that you won’t miss them. I’m a lucky person who has a smart friend, so when I first visit Le Palais, I can eat all the famous dishes! 

The barbecue pork pastry was a traditional Chinese cuisine. The cooks roast pork covering with sugar or honey. After roasting the pork, the cook will take pork out and cut it into slices. Actually, you can eat barbecue pork pastry at any corner of Taiwan. However, why the barbecue pork pastry of Le Palais becomes so delicious? What is the secret of the pork? First, they need to choose the pork of mature pig with enough fat because the fat on the pork can let the pork taste chewier after roasting. In addition, the roasting skills of the cooks also play an important role in preparing the barbecue pastry pork. They need to be care of the temperatures of the herd and the cooking time carefully; in consequence, the surface of the pork will become crispy and the gravy will be maintained in the pastry pork.

The barbecue pastry pork 

When it comes to the roasted baby duck of Le Palais, we must talk about the duck the cook chooses. The baby duck is not as gamy as other mature duck. Therefore, choosing the baby duck is the first successful step of the process. Besides, as I mentioned above, the roasting skills are essential in these Cantonese style barbecues. If you are worry that you don’t know how to cut the whole duck in slices, don’t worry! The cook will come to your table and cut the main part of the dark into slice in Le Palais. After this service, the cook will also inquire what you want to do with the remained duck and the duck bones. Customers can choose duck soup or duck porridge. Either the soup or porridge tastes fantastic. By doing this, people won’t waste any food!

Sliced roasted baby duck

Duck porridge

Sides of the duck porridge

After all these dishes, it's dessert time!!! What kind of traditional Chinese snacks should we choose? My answer is definitely the steamed egg yolk custard buns!! With a mediocre appearance, people may think those buns are quite bland. Conversely, when tearing the little bun apart, the gold egg yolk custard will flow out. When tasting these little buns, you will find they are so different from the custard breads from western countries. The taste of custard is sweet while the egg yolk taste kind of salty. Surprisingly, these two kinds of taste can incorporate with each other so perfectly. Thus, you can’t help but eat one after one!

The steamed egg yolk custard buns 

The gold liquid flows out

These three cuisines I introduced are the basic ones you must try when visiting Le Palais. There are still other Chinese dishes, snacks and desserts in Le Palais, for example, soybean milk film with shrimps and pork, chilled mango sago cream with pomelo and so on. Next time when you get a promotion, celebrate anniversary with your spouse or entertain important family members or friends, Le Palais is a restaurant you will never regret to choose! 

 

soybean milk film with shrimp and pork

Gelatissimo in Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city of Australia. The temperature of Sydney is between 13.78 and 21.68 degrees Celsius during year. Therefore, Sydney is cozy for people to travel around in any season. When I visited Sydney in 2012, the trip was in July, winter of south hemisphere. However, Sydney is not only warm but also shinny. Comparing the winter in Taipei, in Sydney, I’m willing to take a walk in the city rather than stay at home

The Sunshine of Winter in Sydney

If you are a person who like travel in slow pace and enjoy wandering around the city without specific destination, Sydney will be a great choice for you. Today, this essay is going to introduce a delicious dessert which you can eat easily when walking. It is ice cream! Ice cream is one of the cheapest food in Australia, for example the ice cream in Macdonald only costs 30 cents. Hence, there are always lots of people lining in front of the ice cream stand even though it is in winter.

People are waiting for ice cream

This ice cream shop is called Gelatissimo, which sells Italian flavor ice cream. Gelatissimo is a multiple shop in Australia. One of my friend in Australia told me a romantic story of Gelatissimo: a couple, who were both love eating ice cream, found Gelatissimo after getting married. Although they divorced at the end, the ice cream brand still be very popular in everywhere I traveled in Australia. Due to their love story, the flavors of ice cream in Gelatissimo have some fancy name bout love, boy and girls, such as “you had me at hello” and “high heel”.

Flavors of ice cream

"You Had Me at Hello"

The first time I tasted the ice cream of Gelatissimo was near Darling Harbour, a famous scenic spot in Sydney.  After laying on the grass and having a sun bath at the afternoon of winter, I started to feel warm and I knew it is time to having an ice cream cone and wander around the harbor. Though Gelatissimo didn’t provide customers with comfortable dining space, it was still an enjoyment to eat ice cream on the stairs around the harbor. There were many different kinds of boat and ship. Seagulls were flying above the sea. Everything is peaceful and enjoyable.

Darling Harbour

 Stairs around the harbor

The recipe of the ice cream is traditional Italian style. They make the ice cream with fruits on the selling day to make sure all of ice cream is fresh. Furthermore, the ice cream in Gelatissimo is less sweet just as the cake in Hopetun Tea Rooms in last post. The ice cream has the sense of multi-level, for instance, the chocolate flavor tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. 

At the end, Gelatissimo is a multiple shop, so now you have it a try even in Taiwan. Nonetheless, why I chose to introduce the Gelastissimo in Sydney? According to my personal experience, the tastes of ice cream of Gelatissimo will change with the locations. Once I tried it in Brisbane, it tasted much sweeter and I didn’t think it taste as awesome as the shop of Sydney. By the way, the Gelatissimo in New Zealand tasted great, too. I haven’t tried all of the shops in different locations, but I can promise the one in Sydney is perfect. Last but not least, the scenery and the weather are also the best. You must give it a try when arriving in Sydney!

Scenery people can see from Darling Harbour

Little girl staring at Gelatissimo