Ton Sushi - 同壽司

Ton Sushi

Location: 1F, 22 Songshou Rd, Taipei City (台北市松壽路22號1樓)

Located on the first floor of Neo19 Ton Sushi is Taipei’s Best Sushi restaurant. The menu consists of various items from sushi, sashimi, hot pot, tempura, and special appetizers. I have heard that Taiwan’s sushi restaurants are usually better than the ones in US because of the influence Japan had on Taiwan. I didn’t believe it would make much of a difference until I had my first bite of sushi at Ton Sushi in Taiwan.

One of the unique items that we had was the Uni and Salmon Roe sushi served on a romaine lettuce. The Uni was fresh and sweet with a little bit of rice and wasabi on the bottom.

Our second dish is the avocado roll.

Our third dish is the deep fried king prawn tempura. Unlike the tempura I had in US which are just kind of plain and I tend to not care for them. Ton sushi’s tempura really set the bar high. It’s the best tempura I ever had.

Our fourth dish is the Rainbow roll which is a roll with salmon sashimi and thinly sliced avocado on top and the inside is tempura flakes, crabmeat mixed with mayonnaise and ikura roe. Best Sushi even :P

Our fifth dish is the fish with tofu which looks more like a Chinese dish than something you would get from a Japanese restaurant. The fish and tofu was soft and tender but be careful if you can’t eat fish like a China Man I wouldn’t recommend you ordering this dish.

Our sixth dish is Tea brew rice soup is comfortable food after an array of sushi. It has a refreshing taste with a bit of fresh wasabi to give it a little kick.

And the last dish is fruit dessert is done delicately. There is a piece of orange that is craved for you so that you won’t have to make an orange slice smile. The same goes for the honey dew melon but I doubt you can make a honey dew slice smile unless you have very big lips. The third component of the dessert is a small portion of taro cream pudding. The pudding is really creamy and the size of the dessert is just enough to end your meal without being overwhelmed by a huge dessert dish.

半畝園 Ban Mu Yuan

半畝園 Ban Mu Yuan

Location: 台北市东丰街33号

This is a Chinese restaurant that serves traditional noodle dishes from northern China. My grandparents came from the northern China, so most of these are my favorite dishes since childhood. They only serve some noodles and Chinese pancake/pastry dishes, but seems like their stores in mainland have a lot more dishes.

We had the Chinese beef wrap with scallion. These are thin sliced marinated beef wrapped in toasted Chinese pancake with sweet bean sauce. The pancake is so soft inside and crispy outside. The sweet bean sauce combines the pancake and the beef perfectly. They also wrap the scallion in the middle to add some spice to it.

I had the noodle with vinegar sauce (the actual name is longer, but I can’t remember). The taste of vinegar and the garlic/onion mix are very appetizing.

50嵐 (50 Lan)

50嵐 (50 Lan)

Location: Chain restaurant all over http://www.50lan.com.tw/

50 Lan (50嵐) is one of the most famous bubble tea stores in Taiwan. I like them because their “bubble”, or tapioca, is really small. I always get tired and full after drinking a lot of the chewy bubbles. But 50 Lan’s bubble tea not only keep the texture of the bubble tea but also let you enjoy the tea instead of fill you with tapioca. Of course, there are all kinds of tea here. They have milk tea with bubble, oatmeal (not the breakfast kind), pudding, large tapioca…etc. They also have different kind of tea beverages if you are tired of the mike tea.

The first one we have is the green bubble tea, which is green tea with mike and tapioca. Although it looks like there is lots of cream, you can really taste the freshness of the green tea. The second one we have is the lemon and plum tea. I think there is black tea in this, but the lemon is so sour that I can’t really taste it. The plum is really strong with I like. However, it’s a little bit too sweet. I should have ask them to put less sugar in there.

This leads to this picture here which Mr. Nick insists to take. Taiwanese bubble tea stores are really thoughtful because they let you choose different levels of sweetness. This chart here explains to you how you can pick six different levels of sweetness for your tea. You can have standard, not too sweet, less sweet, half sugar, slightly sweet, and no sugar. This is great since Taiwanese culture do not like super sweet food and drinks. This way, people can adjust their drink based on their taste. You can also ask them to have less ice cube or no ice cubes. They will still give you same amount of tea even if you ask for no ice cube. (I once asked for no ice cube in Starbucks in the US, and they gave me only half cup of warm tea…that made me really miss Taiwan =p)

MOS Burger

MOS Burger

Location: Chain restaurant all over Taiwan http://www.mos.com.tw/

MOS Burger is a Japanese fast food chain store. Unlike the American burger, MOSBurger gives a twist to their burgers and sandwiches. The most famous burgers are the rice burger. My favorite one is the Yakiniku Rice Burger. (yakiniku means grilled meat in Japanese) Instead of bread and beef patty, they use rice cake and stir fried beef. The rice is chewy and soaked with the delicious sauce from the beef. The beef is thin sliced and stir fried with onions and “yakiniku” sauce. I love this one because the sauce is delicious and grilled beef smells really good.

We didn’t take a photo of the food, but we definitely will try to go back later and update the photos. Mr. Nick wants to try other kinda “interesting” burgers from them. =p

Taiwanese Breakfast 早餐店 Miko

Taiwanese Breakfast 早餐店 Miko

Location: Traditional breakfast store is all over Taiwan. This one is near Daan Road, Taipei.

Instead of coffee and donuts in the US, in Taiwan, the Breakfast stores are pretty simple and delicious. The traditional Taiwanese breakfast stores usually provide freshly made breakfast sandwiches, Taiwanese egg pancake (蛋餅)(sorry, not the best translation), burger (it’s actually like sandwich but in the burger buns), and beverages.

My favorite sandwich is the egg sandwich with pork sōng (肉鬆). It is so simple but really delicious. It is mostly because of the freshly cooked pan fried egg. There are two layers, one with egg and pork sōng in between and another with cucumber. The egg is perfect with crispy egg white and slightly raw egg yoke taste great with the warm toast. The usually boring cucumber actually gives the sandwich crunchiness and taste of freshness. Although the sandwich looks small, it’s actually pretty filling.

The egg pancake (蛋餅) is actually egg wrap in the flour pancake(the kind of pancake you get from Chinese restaurant). What they do is basically pour the egg on top of the thin pancake. After the egg is cooked, they wrap it up with the fillings you picked. You can wrap cheese, bacon, corn, and anything you can think of in the egg pancake. The one I have here is the original one which have no filling. The scallion in the egg gives it some Taiwanese taste. I like the combination of the softness from the egg, the chewy pancake, and the crispy edges.

What attracts people to stop by here every morning before heading to school or work is not the fancy caramel macchiato but the fresh sandwich and a warm welcome from the breakfast store owner.

Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐

Breakfast @ Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐

Location: FuXing Sogo Department Store B2 (there are also two other location in Taipei)

When you think of Taiwanese food you think of xiao long bau or soup dumplings from Din Tai Fung. Din Tai Fung is the world known restaurant in Taiwan with many food chain around the world including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. This is our first restaurant stop in Taiwan. We actually started eating and totally forgot to take pictures. But don’t worry this won’t be our last visit to Din Tai Fung, we will make sure to head back and take more photos.

Soup Dumplings is often described as dumplings magically injected with soup broth. The truth to this mystery is that they mixed soup jelly into the meat in the process of making those magical soup dumplings. Shh this is a secret that I am only sharing with the viewers of this blog. These dumplings were so delicious by the time I took out the camera it was all gone. So here is a picture I took off the internet.

Dan Dan Noodles (Spicy)

Shrimp Wonton mixed with Chinese spices

Steam Veggie and pork dumplings

Chefs were working hard at making those dumplings one after another. I am pretty sure I can eat those dumplings faster than they can make it :P.

Trying to record the secret behind those soup dumplings J

鬍鬚張 Formosa Chang

魯肉飯 Braised Pork Rice

Store: 鬍鬚張 Formosa Chang

Location: lots of chain store! Go to this link for all locations (sorry, all in Chinese) àhttp://www.fmsc.com.tw/retail.php

Stewed pork with rice (lu rou fun 滷肉飯) is very popular anywhere in Taiwan from the market street food stalls to restaurants. This dish is pretty popular in Taiwan because it has the traditional taste of Taiwanese cuisine and it is easy way to fill your stomach when you’re hungry. This dish is deep fried and steamed in a three level iron steamer until its totally overcooked, yummm. The picture I took doesn’t really do this dish any justice because the picture doesn’t make it look that appetizing. It definitely does melt in your mouth and makes you feel so guilty because it’s so good but so bad for you : P .

7 Hours until liftoff

Ann & Nick (AN) Food Adventure in Taiwan

7 Hours until the flight from JFK to Taiwan. Pit stop in Anchorage Alaska halfway. This is Ann's first time in economy class. Poor Ann :'-(. Good thing we are sitting a two seater with noone else near us. Haven't been on China Airline since 6 years old when I first came to the states. If memories serve me correctly their food is ok. Hopefully I won't be stuck eating crappy salad which was served on Continental air.

Heres Ann & Nick signing out from the States to explore Taiwan and its exotic cuisine.