The Meandering Noodle

Osaka!

This is a long overdue post, but back in December 2009 I went to Osaka with my family. We were only there for a full day, but we stuffed in as much food in as possible. Osaka's a very modern city. There isn't much there in terms of historical sites to see, but if you've seen Anthony Bourdain's No Reservation you learn that Osakan's live to eat. I tried to emulate that lifestyle for the one full day I was there.

On the first day we got in really late at night, so we asked the hotel front desk what food there was around late at night. They directed us to a ramen place. Awesome! I love ramen. The ramens were of the tonkotsu variety and they hit the spot.

I wouldn't say this was the best ramen I've ever had, but it was everything I was looking for after getting off a long flight, late at night.
After satisfying my hunger by munching on ramen, gyozas and downing it all with a beer, I fell asleep quite easily that night.

Before I went on this trip I had read about this great old school unagi restaurant by this blogger. I was drooling when I read about his description of the place. I was afraid I would never get to try an old school joint like this before the unagi master died(knock on wood). So when I found out that our annual family trip was to Osaka, I was really excited to try this place out. The place is a little hard to find, but Paul gives extremely good directions and background info on his blog. 

I'm so glad I managed to drag my family out there to try it out! The food was amazing, and the setting adds so much more to your meal. As I grow older, I realize that the setting that you eat your meal in also adds a lot to our overall food experience. The whole operation is a family run: the father grills your unagi, his wife is in the back chopping up food and the daughter serves you the food. I think places like these are disappearing all over the world; it's sad, but one day this place will disappear as well. 

Now, the unagi was the best unagi I've ever tasted anywhere. There were hints of smokiness coming in from the fish, the sauce wasn't too sweet but it helped cut through the fattiness of this fish, and best of all, interspersed with every bite of fish and rice, you got charred crispy bits of eel which were divine. 

Now as I was finishing up my bowl, I realized that this might have been my last time ever eating there. I seriously contemplated ordering another bowl, but the place is tiny. There were probably about 9 seats in the whole place. Since there were people waiting in line behind us to eat, I decided against ordering another bowl, so sadly, I had to leave.

It's pretty hard to top that lunch, but I knew that I had to try Osaka's other famous foods before I left the next day. So my family and I walked to Dotonbori, Osaka's famous food street to take in the sights. It was pretty early in the afternoon and freezing cold, so there wasn't too much action, yet. However, by mid-afternoon, some space had cleared in my tummy, and we hit up Osaka style okonomiyaki. 

I don't know the address to this place, so you're going to have to figure it out by the picture of the front of the store. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese pancake that they cook on a griddle infront of you. There are two regional varieties Osaka and Hiroshima. 

And in the Osaka school, there's an old school version and a new school version. I forget what the differences are, but I think okonomiyaki is one of the most visual appetizing meals there are. Though, it didn't turn out as delicious as it looked. Or maybe we were still quite full from lunch, but I found the sauce there a tad bit too sweet. It was still pretty decent though.

After this late afternoon lunch, we went back to the hotel to recover a bit. If you've read Chubby Hubby's post on Osaka you realize that kappo dining is also huge there. This is a form of Japanese kaiseki style dining that's a bit less formal. You sit at the bar, and they chef serves you food from it. I tried to get a reservation at one of the restaurants suggested by Chubby Hubby, but a month or so before the trip to Osaka the Michelin guide for Osaka/Kyoto came out. Both of the kappo restaurants suggested were fully booked for months in advance. So, we just asked our hotel for a suggestion and they gave us one. I know I'm not doing a very good job as a food blogger with the lack of info, but I'll just provide pictures to show what kappo meal would look like. There was a lot of food, and I was already very full from lunch. Word of advice, don't sit down for a kappo meal unless you are very hungry. Needless to say, I had no trouble passing out that night from a food coma. It wasn't too big of a deal, as I had to wake up early the next day to catch a flight to Hokkaido!

    
 

Brussels, Belgium

 

I decided that I need to get this post out of the way before I forget everything. Back in September, I was visiting my sister who was going to school in London. She had a free weekend, and we decided to take a trip somewhere. Initially, we wanted to go somewhere in England. But after careful research, we discovered that it only took two hours to go to Brussels from London on the Eurostar!

 Before this trip, I did not know much about Brussels, however, while I was there, I discovered great bistro food, delicious beers and amazing fries. I used to be a big fan of super thin crispy fries, but after this trip, I think I'm converted, I much prefer thicker fries now.

Okay, one of my favorite restaurants on this trip was Chez Vincent. They served delicious bistro food there. Although I didn't try any of their steaks, they all looked amazing. What caught my attention, though, was the steak tartare or Filet Américain which is what is referred to in Belgium. I could not remember the last time I had a steak tartare, and after a year of living in China, where the quality of meat is suspect, I wanted to indulge, in RAW beef. Well, I was not disappointed. I'm often confused when people eat sushi, but look upon steak tartare with disgust. If you like sushi, steak tartare will not disappoint. This one was spot on. The small bits of onions and capers and whatever else they mixed into it provided small bits of surprises that were amazing. My sister got the mussels, which were also really good. Dunking the thick cut fries into the mussel broth to soak up all that goodness was very satisfying.

Another gem that I discovered in Brussels was their beers. They were damn good. One of the things I miss most about living in America, is all the good microbrews that are available to Americans. I guess this was one of the reasons why I enjoyed my trip to Brussels, too. I could indulge in the wide varieties of beers that they had there. Before the trip I had only known about Duvel, but now I realize there is so much more to beers in Belgium.

With all the eating, and drinking, we didn't sightsee too much. We were only there for two days. But there was this one square where they had some pretty cool architecture.

It's pretty hard to miss the square, I can't remember its name right now. But it's really easy to find, it's right near another one of Brussels landmarks - a peeing boy! That's right, talk about a strange landmark. I was actually really underwhelmed when I saw this supposed tourist attraction.

Oh, and I'll leave you with one last picture. I discovered that Belgium is really famous for their chocolate. Me? I'm not a big chocolate fan, and I bought some chocolate there, and I'm still not a huge chocolate fan. My utility for high end chocolate is pretty low. I'd be just as satisfied with a snickers bar as I was with the fancy chocolate that they had in Brussels. But the box does make for a nice picture. I believe this box of chocolate was from Galler.

Chez Vincent, rue des Dominicains 8 - 10, 1000 Bruxelles, 0032 (0)2 511 26 07.

Taipei Potstickers

Well, I recently just moved to Taipei, and in the confusion of my move I had left my camera back at one of my relative's place in Hong Kong. Well, I just got my camera back and I decided to share with you some of the simple pleasures that I've been enjoying in Taipei.

Just based of first impressions, it seems that Chinese food in Taipei is much more diverse than individual cities in China. What I mean is that in Shanghai, it seems that the casual eatery was much more Shanghai centric, and the same goes for restaurants in Beijing. However, in Taipei, the casual eatery seems to reflect food from all over China, however, with a Taiwanese flair.

 Since I haven't gotten around to buying kitchen equipment yet, I've been sampling a lot of the restaurants near my apartment. One of my favorites is a dumpling restaurant. I don't know if these are the best dumplings I can get, but it's less than 5 minutes walk from my apartment so that's good enough for me. Pictured above is my favorite kind, pot stickers (guo tie). Typically, the pot stickers that I have seen are crescent shaped, but these seem to be like the ones in Beijing where they are long and cylindrical. They also have these packets of a sweet hoisin like sauce, and hot sauce which tastes very much like Tapatio hot sauce that I used to have back in Texas, except less runny. In China, the only sauce that people used to put on dumplings were soy sauce and vinegary, but these are much much better! The icing on the cake is that each of these pot stickers cost 5 NTD which is roughly 15 cents. So lately I've been getting ten of these pot stickers at lunch for $1.50!

Portugal - Lisbon

So, I should probably have done this trip report earlier when the trip was fresher in my mind, but I didn't have this blog up yet. In September I went on this amazing trip in Portugal. I think Portugal is one amazing country and it seems to be very underrated. It's a very nice city to walk around and to just explore. The many hills, trams and small windy cobblestone roads made for a very cool city to just get lost in.

 Since it was by the seaside, I assumed that there seafood would be pretty good. I was not wrong - it was delicious! All the seafood that I had there was so fresh. The clams, shrimp, fish were all spectacular, but far and away my consistent favorite in Portugal was their octopus!

The first restaurant that I realized they were doing something amazing with their octopus was in A Travessa. The octopus was deliciously charred on the edges but it basically melted in your mouth in the middle. I never knew octopus could taste like that. I just assumed that it would taste kinda like calamari, where it is always a little chewy. However, A Travessa, I learnt was a fancier restaurant. They served a bunch of small little appetizers that are supposed to be shared by the table followed up by a main course and a desert. Their presentation seemed to be atypical for Portuguese restaurants, which didn't seem to care too much about presentation, but the food looked delicious and photographed well!

Olive tapenade appetizer.

There deserts weren't bad either!

We went to another more traditional Portuguese restaurant which also turned out to be a big hit, Solar dos Presuntos. During lunch time, this place is packed with regulars, of the business men sort. Tons of people came through here wearing suits and they all seemed to be on very very good terms with the owners. What was interesting to see, was that the owners seemed to be eating lunch at this place as well - which can't be a bad sign! They had a table on the first floor in front of the kitchen where the entire family seemed to be hanging out, through the entirety of the lunch time service. And obviously we went straight for the seafood.

The octopus was amazing. Done differently than the previous restaurant but still so so good.

These garlic prawns were also a big big hit. I was mopping up the olive oil sauce with the bread even after all the prawns were gone.

Finally for the main event, I had their feijoada with seafood. I think feijoada just translates to beans. It was served with rice. I love eating beans and rice, but once they added their seafood with hits of clams and prawns, it became an instant home run for me. A word of warning, though. After frequenting a few restaurants, portion sizes in Portugal are not small at all! Not even on an American standard. Haha, so needless to say, I was stuffing myself every time we got to the main course because it seemed like such a waste to not eat all of this delicious seafood! I'm going to have to learn some serious self control if I ever go back to Portugal.

Make it snow

So the day we arrived into Beijing, it was snowing. Apparently the Chinese government decided that they needed to make it snow, and figured that making it snow on Sunday would be the least disruptive to businesses. So, they made it snow on Sunday. Since it's almost always a drought there it never snows, so I thought it'd be cool to post a couple pics of snow in Beijing.

Alley behind our hotel.

Forbidden City