Apple Pie

Maybe it was all those apple pies I've been reading about on blogs and on pinterest, but I was so inspired to bake one. Plus, I had some nectarines that were going bad, so I thought why not try baking a nectarine and apple pie.

I attempted to make a pretty crust with my heart-shape cookie cutters, but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it ...

Although it didn't look as pretty as I'd wanted it to be, it sure tasted good! Nectarines and apples are a fantastic combi! :)

Taiyaki fm Sapporo, Mitsukoshi, Taipei

A couple of weeks ago, Mitsukoshi, Xinyi, Taipei was having a Japanese fair. When I went there to have a look, I noticed that this stall from Sapporo selling Taiyaki (a Japanese pancake in the shape of a fish) had a perpetually long queue. Since my experience showed that long queues generally = good food, I decided to come check it out the following day hoping that during the weekdays, the queue would be shorter. Amazingly, I still had to wait almost 2 hours to get my taiyaki!

Can you tell I had loads of time to take pics? Hahaha ....

Pretty taiyaki ... with red bean filling and milk custard filling ...

When I first bit into one immediately after I got them, I was so disappointed! I was expecting the outside to be nice and crisp. A friend then educated me on the different types of taiyaki, and the Sapporo kind had more of a pancake texture and therefore was not crispy outside. When I had it a day later, I found that it did indeed have a pancake texture and was pretty delicious in its own right :)

1010新湘菜 "Hunan Cuisine", Eslite Mall, Xinyi, Taipei

We heard fm a friend that 1010 Xin Jiang Cai / "Hunan Cuisine" restaurant at Eslite Mall, Xinyi, Taipei was pretty good, and decided to have dinner there one night ...

Rice was served in individual mini crockpots ... cute touch!

One of their signature dishes ... lightly cooked julienned potatoes ...

Stir fried beef with rice cakes and pine nuts in "Sa Cha" sauce ...

Pork slices with red and green chilies ...

Pork ribs with cumin based herbs seasoning ...

Black sesame paste with milk and sago ...

Almond tofu with fruit cocktail ...

Pet Shops, Tong Hwa Night Market, Taipei

After our dinner at Le Bistro, we took a walk to Tong Hwa Night Market. Of course while we were there, we had to pay a visit to the pet shops there :)

There was this particular pet shop that was supposedly famous for breeding this special breed of cats ... bengals? Egyptian maus?

Shih Tzu and long-haired daschund ... so cute!

Red poodles ...

Corgi puppies!

Le Bistro de L'olivier, Taipei

For my belated birthday dinner, Hubby took me to this restaurant - Le Bistro de L'olivier. He'd told me to dress casually, so I was expecting a casual place with casual prices to match. This is what the shop front looks like (decided to try out a fancy sepia art filter :)) ...

The French looking menu ...

Complimentary hor d'oeuvres ... mini quiches with olive tapenade?

I loved the bread - crust was nice and crisp and inside was deliciously warm and fluffy ... ate more than I should have!

Fish Bisque ...

Boullabaise ...

Accompanying "crouton" ... the garlic was rubbed on the surface of the crouton then the whole thing left to soak up the flavours in the boullabaise ...

The cheese and thousand island dressing were also placed on top of the crouton (atop the garlic) for maximum flavour ...

Escargots ...

Pan fried fish with cous cous and tarragon sauce ...

Grand Marnier Souffle ...

Tea and chocolate to round off the meal ...

Deviled Eggs & Falafel Wraps

I've been meaning to try making these deviled eggs for the longest time, and the other day, I finally got round to it. Mashed up the eggs with a dash of salt and pepper, mustard, mayo and chives ... delish!

Then, I was inspired by this Japanese sesame dressing ....

Thought the Japanese sesame salad dressing would be a perfect substitute for tahini sauce to go along with my homemade falafel ....

(I didn't have any coriander at home, so I made them without, but next time, I'm definitely going to try adding them. Maybe it'll make the falafels more moist ... nevertheless, they tasted great!)

My absolutely delicious falafel wrap!

Le Salon, Taipei

After reading about Le Salon on SugarednSpiced, I came upon a new outlet of theirs at ATT Fun in the Xinyi District, Taipei. So, I decided to try a little something ...

Look at the beautiful packaging ...

A strawberry mille feuille with earl grey tea...

Ondeh Ondeh

Last week, someone very kindly gave us some sweet potatoes. Apparently, he had gone to a sweet potato farm in Taiwan and his wife picked out some sweet potatoes and found them so good and so sweet that they gave us a few :)

For me, my two favorite ways of eating sweet potatoes are cooking them in porridge (Taiwanese style Teochew muay) or making them into ondeh ondeh. As I'd recently recovered fm the flu, during which I'd eaten my fill of porridge, the former was definitely out of the question. So, I decided to make some ondeh ondeh using this recipe ...

(For those who don't know what ondeh ondeh is, it's a Nonya kueh which is made with sweet potatoes and gula melaka, and coated with grated coconut.)

Look at that gula melaka (palm sugar) oozing out! Drool ...

This has got to be one of the best ondeh ondeh recipes I've tried (granted, I've only tried 2 or 3 recipes thus far :)).

Dogs in Prams, Taipei

One thing I find so endearing about the Taiwanese is their love for their pets, as evidenced by how the little ones get pushed around in pet prams like this ...

Tang Hoon and Si Gua/Loofah

I decided to showcase my lovely traditional looking cast iron wok here :) My mom gave it to me when I got married and had my own kitchen, but it took a while to season it so that food wouldn't stick while I was frying it. So far, I've preferred using it to steam stuff to avoid dealing with stubbornly stuck food. But the other day, I decided to use it to fry up some Tang Hoon (glass noodles) with kung pao chicken :)

Then, inspired by a recent visit to a HK style restaurant in Taipei, I decided to try steaming this dish - loofah/si gua with minced garlic and ham on top ... yes, that's enough garlic to scare a whole horde of vampires away! :)