Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki, Taipei

The first thing that crossed my mind when I first laid eyes on the macaroons by Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki was "Ooo! Pretty!", followed very quickly by "woah ... that's really expensive!" when I caught sight of the prices! So, I'd very heroically held off buying anything fm this patisserie (both for the sake of my wallet as well as my tummy) till I could refrain no longer, and this is the result ...

I finally decided on this "Valencia" as it had won some awards ...

This delicious confection has an orange perfumed mousse, with layers of chocolate sponge, chocolate mousse, praliné croustillant and Dacquoise sponge...

... it was truly worth every cent!

... one of the best cakes I've ever had!

I'm definitely going back to try their Matcha Tea Opera cake, and Tart Au Citron!

Slightly less heavy on the pocket were the pastries, so I brought a few home ...

First, an Apple Turnover ...

A Blueberry Tart/Danish ...

An Orange Scone ...

(Incidentally, I just realised that I'd not taken any pics of the counter as I was overwhelmed carefully choosing my pastries :) But for photos, do have a look here - although the shop photographed is in Paris, it is a pretty accurate picture of what I saw in the counter in Bellavita, Taipei.)

Jap Food at Bellavita, Taipei

Bellavita is one of the newer shopping malls in the Xinyi area of Taipei. I always think of it as the Taj Mahal of shopping malls cos it was apparently built by this wealthy Taiwanese businessman for his wife, who loves Hermes, and wanted to own a mall carrying the Hermes brand. To take it a step further, the mall now houses all his wife's favorite brands - Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Bottega Veneta, Roger Vivier, and of course, Hermes.

As we'd heard good things about the Bellavita food court, we decided to give it a try. We walked around, and settled on this Japanese outlet ...

We ordered one of the set meals ... this was the starter ...

The main ... we chose codfish ... it reminded me of the black cod I had in Tokyo ...

This was our ala carte order ... sashimi with rice ...

The food was pretty good value for money, especially the set meal ... I'd totally come back again just for the codfish!

VVG Bon Bon, Taipei

All throughout dinner at Soul Food, I kept looking at all the charming little shops outside, and I suddenly realised that diagonally opposite was VVG Bon Bon! One just can't help but be drawn to this very pretty dessert shop, so it was inevitable that we ended up here after dinner ...

Isn't that such a darling table? All the colours just go so well with the shop's decor. If I ever own a pastry/dessert shop like this, I'd want it to look as pretty as VVG Bon Bon!

Normally, the pastry counter is filled with cupcakes, but that day, apparently, their business was so good that by the time we got there, they were all out of cupcakes!

I had a delicious orange passionfruit sorbet ... the wonderful thing about this that set it apart fm other such "slushees" I've had was there were all these luscious chunks of oranges inside, which naturally enhanced the orange flavour ... yum ...

A beautifully presented cafe latte ....

"Soul Food", Taipei

Last Friday, we decided to try out this restaurant - Soul Food - we had walked past many times after dining at VVG Bistro/Table, around the East District in Taipei.

My Duck Confit ...

Hubby's Roasted Half Spring Chicken ...

(Excuse the grainy pictures, as I'd forgotten to bring my camera ... again!)

Watermelon Feta Salad & Bouillabaisse

Now that summer is here, watermelons are in season, and I couldn't resist buying a gigantic slice home the other day when it was sweltering hot. As I sliced it up, I recalled a watermelon feta cheese salad that I made several summers ago. I looked up this recipe by Nigella Lawson, and voila ... my watermelon feta salad (minus the black olives) ... (the parsley and mint leaves are fm my herb garden :))

I've mostly enjoyed fish served in Western countries mainly cos they are usually boneless when they arrive on my plate :) In Asian cultures though, fish is often served whole or with the bone in. So, when I bought some cod fish fm the market and requested for the bone to be removed, the fishmonger asked "is it for babies?" Hahahaha .... well, I don't mind regarded as a big baby so long as my fish is boneless!

With my cod fish all nicely filleted, I was ready to cook my bouillabaisse. It turned out really tasty ... and healthy too, with tomatoes, yellow capsicums, onions, carrots, celery and cod fish ... I'll be making this again real soon!

Living in Taiwan ...

I was reading this post on sendingpostcards, and it reminded me of crossing streets in Taipei, which is one of my pet peeves about living in Taiwan.

When I first came to Taipei, it took me a while to get accustomed to crossing the roads as I soon realised that the pedestrian crossings were for reference only. Even if the pedestrian has the right of way, the pedestrian has to give way to the cars and scooters and buses.

And while crossing roads without a traffic light, one has to be brave and have faith that the motorists will stop for you, otherwise, you'll never get to the other side of the road. This works majority of the time, but one time, I nearly got hit by a car as the driver was clearly not paying attention.

Have a look at a typical road crossing in Taipei ...





While I was searching for the video above, I came across this hilarious video, which was too good not to share. Although I didn't get some of the jokes, the ones I did get had me literally laughing out loud :) Check it out ...

Jianguo Flower Market, Taipei

Lately, I've been missing having a lil herb garden. Everytime I need some basil, it seems such a pity to buy a bunch and use only a third of it at most, whilst the rest goes to waste. So, I was eager to visit the flower market to pick up some potted herbs for my garden.

I bought a wrought iron hanging planter for the herbs ... isn't it pretty?

And here's my herb garden - basil, parsley, lemon thyme and mint ...

A closer look at my lemon thyme ...

I was also on the lookout for some fragrant flowers - particularly this plant below (Orange Jasmine), which I'd noticed outside some shops in the Xinyi area. They smelled so lovely esp at night. I hope I manage to keep it alive!

While I couldn't find any nice roses at the flower market, I did manage to find some at the market near my apt ...

And look at this pretty white hibiscus! The plant my friend D gave me finally flowered!

Taiwanese Beef Noodles & Curtis Stone

We had actually wanted to go to Ding Tai Fung for lunch over the weekend, but when we got there, we were told we had to wait 50 minutes for a table! So, we decided to look for an alternative. As hubby wanted some taiwanese beef noodles, we remembered being told about this place - Lao Zhang - which is apparently very famous for their beef noodles.

Look who came here and had 2 bowls of beef noodles! Curtis Stone!

Appetisers we chose:

Bittergourd

(usually I dislike this vegetable as it's too bitter for my taste, but this cold dish was very well done - it had just a tinge of bitterness, the right amount of crunchiness, and tasted pretty good for bittergourd)

Japanese cucumbers with garlic and chili

Beef Noodles in Clear Broth ...

Zhajiang Mian/Noodles ...

Gordon Biersch, Taipei

We were trying to decide what to have for lunch when we suddenly remembered Gordon Biersch, which we hadn't patronised in a while. As we thought tex-mex food would suit us just fine, we went in ...

Chicken Quesadillas ...

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich ...

See's Candies

Virtually everytime I go to the States, I try to get hold of See's Candies. My favorite is See's Toffee-ettes. As they aren't exactly inexpensive, after buying my toffee-ettes, I'm reluctant to spend any more on chocolates. So, I was thrilled when hubby came home one day with this ...

Hubby's work associate from California was visiting Taipei, and brought us See's Candies as a delicious gift!

A smorgasboard of See's chocolates! Yum! Yum! Now I can try a wide variety of their chocolates :) (If you look closely, you'll notice one at the top is missing ... burp ...)

Macaroni Grill

Ever since I saw some pizza on Mrpineappleman's blog, I had been thinking of having pizza. As I'd such good experiences dining at Macaroni Grill, we went there for my pizza fix.

But before our pizza came, we were served a freshly baked foccacia, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping ... yum! ...

Hubby ordered a starter platter consisting of mushrooms capped with crabmeat (left), bruschetta (middle) and calamari (right) ...

And to satisfy all my pizza cravings, a four-season pizza, named for the 4 different flavours all in one pizza! Toppings: Prosciutto, mushroom, pepperoni, and tomato... all on a woodfired pizza crust. That really hit the spot!

Weekend Outfits

I'd been waiting for summer to come to wear this dress ...

(Bcbg dress, purple G2000 cardigan & lil diamond earrings.

Teamed with a pair of black sandals from Hue, Singapore)

Ever since I saw this lovely lace top on cupcakesandcashmere, I'd been longing for one, but I couldn't find a similar one, and tailoring one would cost NT3,000! (Just the tailoring, excluding cost of material!) I was about to give up on my search when I saw this top at a lil stall at the East District, Taipei.

(Cream lace sleeved top, self-made floral earrings.

Teamed with BDG Jeans and gladiator sandals.)

Macadamia Nut Crust Chicken

The last time I was in Stamford, CT, USA, I tried this wonderfully delicious macadamia nut crust chicken at Kona Grill, and the memory of it has stayed with me since. It's usually pretty hard to find this kind of food (parmesan or nut crusted anything) in Asia, so I decided to try to recreate it in my kitchen. Here's my attempt ...

Erm ... sadly, it looks rather burnt, but tasted delicious! Next time, I'll put more oil so hopefully it'll be less charred.. am determined to perfect this dish!

Dumpling Festival 端午節!

Today's the Chinese Dumpling Festival or 端午節 "Duan Wu Jie", and a public holiday in Taiwan. Honestly, I tend to forget the legend/history behind this festival, and just enjoy the celebrations - in Spore, it's usually celebrated by the dragon boat race and eating these special rice dumplings or "bak zhang".

Since moving to Taiwan, I've discovered that although Chinese everywhere in the world make these dumplings, they are different everywhere. In Singapore, one of the most popular varieties are the nonya zhang, which is my personal favorite. In Taiwan, there are the northern and southern zhangs. The northern variety is made of harder rice, whilst the southern zhangs are made with softer rice. The fillings are also very different from the Spore ones. Then there are the sweet zhangs, which I recently learnt how to make ...

Black Glutinous Rice Dumpling with Red Bean Paste ...

(Courtesy of the award winning chefs from Regent Formosa Hotel, Taipei)

After my session learning how to wrap these zhangs, I've decided that they are truly too time consuming to make them myself. Apparently, the chef had soaked the black glutinous rice for 6-7 hrs, then cooked them till semi-cooked. And after we had wrapped them in the bamboo leaves, we still had to cook them in water for 4 hours! I never knew how much work was involved in making zhangs till now!

For those who are interested, I decided to do a lil research to refresh my memory as to the origins of this festival, and this is what I found:

端午節 was to commemorate this ancient hero/Chinese scholar "Qu Yuan" in 3rd Century BC who was maligned and framed, and as a result drowned himself in this Milo river in China. As the people believed him to be righteous, they starting throwing rice dumplings into the river to feed the fish so that they wouldn't eat his body ... this is one version. But there are other versions which you can find here.

Happy Dumpling Festival!

Kagetsu Arashi Ramen

The other day, we had ramen at Kagetsu Arashi.

We ordered one set meal which came with rice and sliced pork with garlic and spring onions ... it was really tasty!

This was my spicy ramen with a special order of a hot spring egg ... which is basically like a poached egg ... yum! (this was super spicy though ... even for me!)

We also ordered a miso ramen ...