Friday, November 27, 2015

my kitchen: Thanksgiving leftovers turkey soup

I looked up a bunch of recipes on how to make turkey soup with my thanksgiving leftovers and everyone single one described the first step being that you make stock from the bones. I was too impatient to simmer for hours and make a stock and then make the soup, so I just made it one pot soup, adding carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli, green beans, potatoes, salt, pepper to the turkey carcass and water, then some pasta, alternated boiling and simmering, and it was ready in an hour. The secret is adding one can of tomato paste to give it that depth quickly. I also cooked some quinoa separately and added that in whenever I made a bowl for myself. Winter has finally hit Taipei this week, so this is the perfect meal.

One pot thanksgiving soup

Scooped in the quinoa before stirring it in

Thursday, November 19, 2015

CLOSED/revisited/korean: I recommend HONEY PIG

HONEY PIG

No. 415-3 XinYi Road, Sec. 4
台北市信義區信義路四段415號-3
(02) 2725-5757

closed as of 2021

MRT: Taipei 101

website: Honey Pig Taiwan's FB page

hours: 24 hours! (although I feel like sometimes when I drive by it doesn't look open 24 hours)

$$ (about NT$600/person)

Kid friendliness: high chairs available, as well as scissors to cut meat for kids

Visit reviewed: 11/12/2015
Last Visit reviewed: 1/9/2015

Round 1- kalbi, beef brisket, sliced pork belly, fresh pork belly

Round 2-spicy pork belly, spicy sliced pork belly, bulgogi, fresh pork belly, kimchi

Revisited Honey Pig with some friends last week and was happy to find that I could make reservations over the phone fairly easily. The only thing is that they told me that the 12noon reservations for that day were full, so I had to choose 11AM or 12PM. It seems they stagger their seating so that the servers can cook for the tables at different times, as when we sat down there were only a couple other tables seated at 11AM.

The menu is slightly expanded from my last visit, with more soups and cooked foods available, as well as fresh romaine lettuce to wrap your bbq'd meats in.

There are also combos now that they didn't have at my last visit, during their opening weeks. They are a good deal if you have more people, but I wanted more kalbi and less thick cut pork belly slices. So if you're choosier about what you want, you should stick to ordering ala carte. We ended up with the Pork and Beef combo NT$2332 which saves you a few hundred NT and was two rounds on the grill and enough for 6 people.

Fresh romaine (NT$100)

Japchae Korean Stir fried noodles (NT$219)

This was good, with sizeable strips of meat and vegetables with the noodles. We wanted to get the kimchi fried rice, but they make it on the grill and the servers insist on making it after they cook your meat, so of course by the end of the meal we were too full to order it.

The servers are still a bit hard to wave down and the music was a bit too loud for some of my friends (especially if you sit near the speakers), but they are not as crazed and chaotic and overwhelmed as my previous visits when they first opened.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

modern/gastronomy: i strongly recommend MUME

MUME
No. 28, Siwei Rd
四維路28號
(02) 2700-0901

MRT: DaAn or XinYi/AnHe

website: Mume's FB page

Hours: 6PM -12AM (last order at 10PM). Closed Mondays

Visit reviewed: 8/2015

Seeing that I am playing a never ending game of catch up on my blog, I'm going to work backwards with Mume. By the time I've posted this, Mume already has a bevy of new menu items to drool over and try, but I still would like to post the previous meals to compare and contrast. For those of you who haven't heard of Mume yet, it's a "modern European restaurant" for casual fine dining, founded by Hong Kong born chef Richie Lin, Australian chef Kai Ward and Asian American chef Long Xiong, opened almost a year ago in December 2014. They bring to Taipei their experiences from Noma in Denmark, Per Se in New York and Quay in Sydney, and sometimes their colleagues, such as when they let Per Se's Chef Frederico Ribeiro take over the kitchen and do essentially a pop up menu of collaborative creations.

I luckily got some last minute seats at Mume for Chinese Valentine's Day back in August (yes, that's a thing), and you can't have a Valentines day without a "special menu" (translation- more expensive than usual. Half joking!). It's kind of cool that each of my visits has been quite different- my first visit was in the first few opening months when they still did a set menu (memorably with duck hearts and beets). My second visit was when they first started doing their a la carte menu. My third visit was during Per Se's Chef Frederico's take over, and now hearts and champagne and delicious oysters and shrimp brains and chocolate cookies.

The Valentines day tasting menu started off with Gillardeau oyster, cauliflower couscous, Taiwanese bacon and celery. Yum.

Shrimp toast using fresh prawns, baby avocado, pickled peppers and salsa verde.

I liked this a lot, but wished the toast was more like toasted bread rather than a crouton (if I had to nitpick that would be one of the only things I could say about the meal). Despite the description it wasn't spicy at all so you could taste the sweetness of the prawn. Got a sneak peek at the baby seedless Taiwan avocado which was long like an small eggplant, but cut into miniature circular slices, perfect for finger food. It was creamy and not stringy like typical Taiwan avocados and so it made for a perfect pairing. So fascinating! Will have to look for it at the market Chefs Richie Lin and Kai Ward found it. Served with the prawn heads so we ate the shrimp brains.