Yes, fruit was lacking

I don't disagree that Taipei isn't beautiful like SF or Vancouver. I just think saying it once is enough. But I lost count after the fourth mention of ugly. Plus, it's not like Ho Chi Mihn, Bangkok, Chongqing, etc are examples of urban architectural loveliness, but I don't see him harping on how ugly they are.

Aw, thanks, KK...

I totally agree with you on the Keelung seafood bit. Honestly, tons of seafood joints in Taipei that have their seafood from Keelung every morning. And they do fast fry too... there another two birds with one stone!

So can I say I was kind of disappointed?

Obviously, the show is geared as an overview for first timers in Taipei, but....

- Yes, beef noodle soup rec needed to happen but clear style? Red or hong shao style is the most iconic style in TW. I went to Yong Kang beef noodles in Dec and it was all right, nothing amazing. For an institution, they should have gone to the one on Tao Yuan St (where they do sell both red and clear).

- Hardly any Hakka, but I get this a Taipei show.

- Keelung market was covered properly although I think if I were to only have 48 hours in Taipei, I wouldn't travel all the way to Keelung. I would do one of the nightmarkets in the city proper. Shi Da market is good and not quite so tourist hellish as Shilin. Raohe is okay, has more junky shopping than food stalls these days. I went to Ningxia this Dec and it was in the words of my cabbie, "Food Heaven."

- The chick who took him to the bus fast fry, shrimping, beef noodles, and was always talking while in a hot spring tub annoyed the HELL out of me. She did not seem knowledgable at all about the Taipei food scene. All those scenes with her were a waste and as an aside, I've gone shrimping several times and grilled and ate up some rather tasty shrimp and to live to tell the tale. Shrimping is perhaps too "Tai/台" for them to get, I guess.

- Zhongshan district... they should have gone to an izakaya or sushi place.

- DTF was necessary though they could have shot a more close-up or talked about the 18 folds or whatever. Just shots of Bourdain saying yum over and over again was meh.

- I don't know anyone who lives in Taipei who has even heard of Modern Toilet. But somehow, all the Western toursim pieces have it.

- When he was at Taipei 101, they could have gone to Shin Ye for a contemproary take on traditional Taiwanese cuisine (which also would then get your Hakka) and also your 101 view.

Overall, I felt like it gave more of a negative impression of the city than I would have cared for... like the incessant talk how ugly the buildings are, how much he hates stinky tofu, and not showing how much night life - hell, go to a damn hostess bar- (which Bourdain enjoys) there is instead of taking him to a bus to have fast fry.

I was looking for a thread o nthis but I couldn't believe I that I couldn't find one!
Anyway, anyone see this episode? Thoughts/

Hi there,
We are staying in downtown Vancouver for a couple of days and are looking for specifically the following:
- Sushi, omakase ok or a la carte
- Seafood dinner (Cantonese style) blow your mind type
- Dim sum lunch
We are three people - one from Singapore, one from NYC, and the other from SF. We have a rental car so willing to drive for yumminess.
Thanks!

So I ended up going to Mama Chen's. It was very good and I want to go back again to try more things. We got:
a beef noodle soup - broth with depth, noodles with bite, and good meat
the mix mix cold appetizer dish - really flavourful lu wei.. not just soy suace taste
the oyster omlette - crispy on the outside, appropriately gooey on the inside.

Mama Liang's
or
Mama Chen's
or
Southland?
Which one is better? I know Mama Liang's is going to be more military village type rather than Taiwanese. But not caring so much about than taste/execution. Thanks!

Ah, so mean the terrine looking ones are gone now? Very sad.

So I ordered the double sauce noodles. The two sauces are za-jiang and sesame sauce. Neither had any heat which was kind of bland even for me (someone who isn't a huge spice fiend).

Yes, #108 is the cucumber dish. Less garlicky than most version. More sour and sweet with a wisp of heat.
Yes, #702 is the tofu dish I had. Just the tofu sliced up dressed with a bit of seasme oil.
Dan zi mi fun is rice noodle soup. #226 o nthe menu.
I would emphasize this place is a TW military village type eatery... so more Northern Chinese dishes transplanted and less Minnan or TW provincial foods. SO I wouldn't be looking for oyster omelet or ba wan or the like here.

I have gone twice now. The first time, I ordered the beef noodle soup (half tendon, half meat) and an ordered of the cold cucumber appetizer and an order of the stewed dry/firm tofu. I thought the meat in the noodle soup was the star... mine came in chunks. The soup was a bit weak in my opinion and the noodles were cooked too soft for my taste. Their cucumber and the ir tofu were outstanding. I think someone there knows how to stew / lu (as in lu wei).
The second time, I had the dan zi mi fun. That was pretty good. I had the cucumber again as I have been craving the marination flavour they have. I also ordered the stewed/ lu chitterlings. And once again, the lu wei side dishes really shined.
There is quite an extensive menu and I will be going back to try out more again.

Depending of what part of town you are looking for, Bund Shanghai in Chinatown isn't bad either.

Yeah, I see Fujianese fish balls pop up in some places in the Bay Area. But haven't seen the yen wan dumplings. The last time I had this dish was in a place in Santa Clara on Steven's Creek whose name I can't recall in the early to mid 90's. They were one of the first in the area to have soy milk and shao bing on weekends.

I posted asking about this several years ago but since we seem to have more influx of Mainland restaurants so I will ask again. Do we have in the SF Bay Area a place that sells 燕丸子 (yen wan zi, or swallow balls/dumplings)? It usually comes in a soup. Seen it just steamed too. Looks similar to wonton. The difference being that the dumpling skin is made from pork punded with potato starch. It is a specialty of Fuzhou and Fujian. They have a lot of this in Taiwan too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_cuisine (see bottom of article
)http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%8... (unfortunately only in Chinese)

You're right on about French Laundry... but no res available. None at an okay time for Ad Hoc either which is why I was thinking lunch at Bouchon. But Benu might be a good sub and kill two birds with one stone (FL pedigree and soy sauce).
Mine do like Italian... in fact, their new restaurant in their hotel is in partneship with Igor Macchia, chef and owner of the one-Michelin-star La Credenza in Italy. This is why I was trying to stay away from the BIG Italian place like Perbacco and was hoping to charm them with homey Sardinian. But maybe Italian is just bad move overall.

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Perbacco
230 California St, San Francisco, CA 94111

The French Laundry
6640 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Ad Hoc
6476 Washington St., Yountville, CA 94599

Bouchon
6534 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Benu
22 Hawthorne St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Yeah, I hear you... I was trying to sneak in some small, mid-range, neighborhoody places that I think SF is good at in this itin. Blend it with the "flash."
But I am pondering the Tadich and Kokkari idea.

Oh, and I guess I should figure out a Chinese place to have in my back pocket in case they really do want Chinese desparately. I was thinking maybe R&G for salt and pepper crab since they don't get Dungeness in Taiwan? Any other ideas - I mean Cantonese isn't that great a genre in Taipei.

Thx for the tip! Yeah, was wondering about Quince as everything good I had heard was before the move. You have another rec to fill that Fri night spot?
I was considering La Folie or Leur de Lys

Background: Late 50's couple from Taipei visiting me in SF early Oct Well traveled. They own a 5-star hotel with higher-end Itlaian, steakhouse, and Chinese restaurants in it. Last time they were here, their business partner took them to Chez Panisse, Boulevard, Epic Roasthouse, and Burger Bar. They weren't particularly into any of it.
They have requested that I take them to "famous and special Chinese/Western resaturants." I don't think there is any Chinese in SF worth their time, but I think they meant in case they were craving a flavour of home as they are coming to me from a week in Kaui (as an aside, they don't consider Hawaiian food "Asian.") They tend to like flash and design - .. but unfortunately SF tends to do neighborhoody, mid-range the best. My planning frustration thinks we should all meet in Vegas instead, but SF it is so I am going to give them a bit of that and try to appease their need for the "famous."

Fri night - Quince
Sat Lunch - Morimoto or Bouchon (we will be in Napa Valley for the day)
Sat Dinner - La Ciccia
Sun Brunch - Zuni Cafe
Sun Dinner - La Mar

What do you think? Any tweaks? Thanks for the help!

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Zuni Cafe
1658 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

La Ciccia
291 30th Street, San Francisco, CA 94131

Chez Panisse
1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709

Epic Roasthouse
369 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105

Bouchon
6534 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

Morimoto
610 Main Street, Napa, CA

I have two:
1) Salt and pepper chicken wings from Capital in Chinatown
2) Cumin lamb pot from Spices 1

Okay, now that I have all the pics up, I can give my take on the meal our table (Table 2) had.

First off, I did the ordering for our table while accomodating specific requests. While it may seem we ordered a lot, it's a Chowdown so the point is to sample as much as possible that one may not get to in an ordinary, smaller group setting. I will say that by the end, our table was able to polish off most of what we ordered and all of it came to only $23pp with tip. All the dishes, even the ones o nthe whiteboard, are included in the main menu and translated (albeit sometimes not very descriptively) into English. The ladies that served us did not seem to be very fluent in English and their Mandarin is very Dongbei accented so I would say even for a non-Northerner Mandarin speaker, communication isn't exactly flowing. Lots of pointing to things, patience, and back and forth (verbal and non-verbal) was needed.

In general, we tried to stick with Dongbei style food. We ordered some Sichuan and Northwestern dishes to accomodate some people's specific requests and seeing the chef was at Little Sichuan before. But I really didn't have high hopes for things like mung bean sheets being good at a Dongbei spot. Also, while lamb would be featured in this cuisine due to the Mongolian influence, Dongbei families, I know, celebrate CNY by whold hog cuisine and have restaurants specializing in this, so we felt when in doubt, PORK.

My fav's for the evening were the sour cabbage and bacon pot, the sweet and sour pork (a far cry from what the American version has morphed this dish into), the steamed lamb dumplings, the dongpo pork leg, all the cold apps except for the seafood roll, and the beef roll. I thought the intestines to be over fried and the chicken dish was blah for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and will be back to revisit some favourites...

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Little Sichuan
168 E 4th Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401

Last of the hot dishes (In order from left to right, first row then second)%3

Cumin lamb on iron platter

Chonqing chciken wings

Steamed lamb dumplings

Boiled pork, shrimp, and chive dumplings

But oops forgot to take the dong po braised pork leg pic

More hot dishes (In order from left to right, first row then second)%3

ry fried intestines with chillies

Chicken with potato and mushroom

Beef roll

Sauteed pea shoots

ongbei pork (sweet and sour pork)

Some of the hot dishes (In order from left to right, first row then second)%3

pork belly with tofu knots

sour cabbage with bacon pot (yi guo tsu) with corn cakes

mung bean sheets (double skin)

pork liver

Table # 2 Cold Appetizers
In order from left to right, first row then second
Cold smoked fish
Seafood roll
Cucumber salad
Terrine of pork shoulder
Chicken roll with preserved egg and duck egg
Terrine of head cheese

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Dong Bei Mama
4737 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94118

Here were the whiteboard specials

Hmmm... wonder if the Sing Tao ad is available on the web? Or other Chinese language write-up. We have a Chowdown there today and I would love to get a head start on the menu perusing. Oh, and I wonder if there will be other Chinese readers at our Chowdown as I am hoping the menu is not in Simplified or we will be in trouble.

The Richmond. Was exactly what we were looking for.

Yeah, probably b/c she was looking for a quiet, celebratory dinner while I'm not. Thanks tho.