Dinner at Tau Shan (陶善)

We had passed by this little restaurant so many times without giving it much thought when one day, we decided to try it cos it was within walking distance from our apartment and we had a craving for some Japanese sushi. To our enormous surprise, it was such a little treasure! The chef is a lady in her early 40s, who was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the food she served. We also learnt that some celebrities had visited this restaurant too! So, when we wanted Japanese food again, we decided to come here. This was our second visit:

(While we were there, Janet Ma from "Fun Taiwan" on Discovery's Travel & Living walked in! That's her in the grey top next to the guy in pink.)

Sashimi

Sushi

Stir-fried radish flower! This was something we'd never heard of before being served as a dish, so we decided to be a lil adventurous and try it. To our dismay, the leaves were rather bitter, so we ate them with the stems (which weren't bitter at all, and were in fact rather nice and crunchy). However, we still left a good deal on the plate untouched. Then, the chef saw our "leftovers" and encouraged us to finish them cos it was supposed to be good for our health (like lowering cholesterol etc), and she started telling us about how she only recently discovered these "veggies" and how pretty they looked, and especially how they were pretty well devoured by caterpillers - apparently the chinese believe that if caterpillars like the veggies, they are generally very good for humans' health! I learn something new everyday!

Due to the big group behind us, our food was a long time coming, so the chef served us this baby squid dish to tide us till our next dish arrived. Now that's taking care of your customers!

Soft-shell crab rolls.... these were HUGE. Even hubby couldn't pop an entire one into his mouth! Hahahaha ... but they were really yummy! I'm such a fan of soft-shell crab!

Miso soup with fish

During our last visit here, we noticed that the chef always served us soup after all the cold dishes. We were puzzled as in Chinese and Western restaurants, soup is usually the first dish served. When we posed this question to the lady chef, she told us for Japanese cuisine, so as not to interfere with the taste of the sashimi/sushi and other cold dishes, the soup was served last. So das neh! :)

(PS. In my hurry for some food, I'd forgotten to bring my camera, so forgive blurry pics taken with my hp)