nanamoose Musings

Hong Kong Finds: Unar Coffee

在香港，要找到一個可以讓人慵懶地坐上一個下午，百無聊賴地看人看天看事的地方實在太少了，少得當我發現這個深藏於大坑巷弄中的小咖啡店時，竟然有那麼點的恍神，覺得自己是不是在做夢，像是到了另一個城市了的感覺。

我並不是在做夢。這家可愛的小店叫 Unar Coffee, 黑色的外牆，帶著銅鏽的招牌， 奇怪的名字背後有著非一般的故事。原來 Unar Coffee 本身是樓上設計師團隊的「廚房」，因為大家都喜歡喝咖啡，當時大坑又只有茶餐廳， 老闆就想，為甚麼不好好利用這個空間讓大家在忙裡偷閒的時候可以喝到一杯好喝的咖啡呢？於是， Unar Coffee 就誕生了。

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今天， Unar Coffee 因為愛它的人太多，老闆決定把它開放出來做生意。小小的空間， 室內加室外也只有四張桌子，露天座位繞著牆邊，有花，還有有草。最近報導它的人多了，一到假日這裡就站滿了人，手裡拿著咖啡，圍著小圈子聊天，感覺像是倫敦的 pub。

說穿了，這裡的咖啡並不怎麼好喝，要虛度一個下午看人看天看事嘛，這裡的設計其實也不宜久坐。奇怪的是，它就是有那個魔力，那種香港缺少又太多人渴望的那種精神，會讓你佇足想想：「唔，好像好悠閒的樣子，我來坐坐吧。」

喝完咖啡，再到對面的炳記大牌檔吃碗豬扒麵吧。人生一大樂事。

Unar Coffee is at No. 4, Second Lane, Taihang, Hong Kong
Unar Coffee 香港大坑第二巷4號地下
Tel: 2838 5231

Time for Taitung

The Taiwanese coastal town of Taitung is home to a fascinating culture, great food and laidback hospitality.
This article was published in HK Magazine on November 4th, 2010

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Many like to compare Taitung with Maui. What with its pristine beaches, clear blue skies, year-round sunshine and great surfing, it will certainly make you feel more “Aloha” than “Ni Hao”. However, unlike Maui with its vast open plains and rugged terrain, Taitung is gentler (not to mention far more accessible) destination.

Backed by lush mountains and facing the Pacific Ocean, Taitung has emerged from modernization in Taiwan virtually unscathed due to its shortage of flat open space and “unfavourable” position facing the opposite direction to Mainland China, hence disadvantaged against immediate action towards the Communists during World War II. However, this disadvantage, as it turns out, has become somewhat of an advantage as Taiwan starts to develop alternative industries in cultural tourism and organic agriculture. Today, apart from its awe-inspiring beauty, Taitung is home to some of the best rice fields and dairy farms in Taiwan, and is one of the few remaining places where you can still experience authentic aboriginal culture.

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Thus naturally, Taitung is a place where you can easily spend days, even weeks, just stargazing and wave-watching. However, for the busy Hong Konger eager to explore the area in a weekend, I suggest starting your journey in the city of Taitung. Arrive early in the morning at Zhengqi Road’s “Breakfast King” in time for some shaobing (baked flatcakes), fried dough, and fresh soya milk. Some claim this to be best of its kind in Taiwan, and its long queues at 6 in the morning will go to prove their point. Next, have your second helping of breakfast at “Take a Walk Sometimes”, a cute little cafe opened by three girlfriends based on the simple fact that “we all love breakfast”. The homemade baked apple is a must-try.

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Finish off the morning by taking a stroll around Eslite Bookstore and pick up a book or CD on the local aboriginal culture. Next, pop by Tiehua Village and check out the performance schedule for the night. Opened just this summer 2010, Tiehua Village used to be an abandoned rail workers’ dormitory. Now, with the support of Lovely Taiwan Foundation, an entourage of aboriginal singers and a group of Taitung lovers, Tiehua Village has reopened in style and hosts regular music performances and weekend markets.

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Stop for lunch at Cheela, another dreamy café opened by four men who love to bake. The décor is simple and rustic, with a leafy back terrace opening up to the old rail tracks, now a lively pedestrian path. The salty pork bun is a local favourite.

In the afternoon, head up Route 11 north towards Dulan Village, home to the Ami tribe. As you drive along the coast and as your start to feel the wind in your hair and the ocean glistening in the sun, you will begin to see the bewitching power of Taitung. On route, stop at Little Yeliu, Jialulan or Jiamuzi Rest Area for some postcard perfect scenery.

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About fifteen minutes from Taitung city you arrive at a small nondescript village called Dulan. During the month of August, Dulan, along with a handful of other aboriginal tribes along the coast, is busy celebrating the Harvest Festival. Do not be fooled, but here in Taitung they celebrate not the harvest of crops, but the harvest of adulthood. Every year, a new generation of Ami youngsters climb mountains, swim oceans and dance their way into the night to the satisfaction of village elderly in order to pass the coming of age test - in full splendour of Ami’s traditional dress. If you come during this time, be sure to book early as guesthouses fill up quickly with spectators from the cities.

Speaking of guesthouses, my favourite is still “Come Feel the Breeze Again”, an eco-lodge consisting of a handful of individual villas constructed on the principles of modest simplicity and respect for the environment. What “Come Feel the Breeze” lacks in luxury and style with its bare concrete walls, stainless steel roof and raw wood interiors, it makes up for with dramatic ocean views, natural breeze (literally!) and the hospitality of its owner and limping dog, Little Black.

If Tiehua Village’s performance is not enough to entice you back to the city (which, by the way, could be finished off with some late night snack from Lin Ji Stinky Tofu) for the night, visit Sugar Factory. Converted from an old, well, sugar factory, this bar-cum-café is packed every weekend with performances from local celebrity Uncle Long, singing aboriginal folk music in his husky voice.

Come here again in the morning for breakfast, and the mood is completely different. Little House, a small shack just outside of the Sugar Factory with a long communal bench, ocean views and bossa nova music playing in the background, serves a full English breakfast on shell ginger leaf. After breakfast visit Good Buy, a character-filled shop selling a selection of local arts and crafts on the other side of the factory.

Finally, choose between a drive further up the coast to Hualian and venturing into the mountains to visit the dairy farms. Either way, be sure to expect more breathtaking views and exceptional quality food on the way.

Halfway between Taitung and Hualian, stop at Shitiping to marvel at the wondrous works of nature. Here, jetting out of the clear blue waters along the coast of Hualian, are natural rock formations in the appearance of thousands of undulating steps. Listen to the waves lapping against the rocks and let the world around you disappear for just a few minutes.

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For lunch, walk a short distance across the road to “Urn, Lily, Spring”. Make sure you call up ahead since you will easily dismiss the entrance, mistaking this place for a derelict factory of some sort. Nothing here suggests that this is a restaurant, let alone a fantastic one, but let not the plastic chairs and the Ami chef’s muscular physique fool you. With aboriginal smoked bacon beautifully presented with a twig of flowered garlic, sea salt encrusted fish, baked jackfruit, and many more aboriginal-tinged surprises, appearances don't really matter that much anymore. We later learn that the name of this restaurant, “Urn, Lily, Spring” literally comes from the names of the chef’s two daughters, Atomo (meaning “Urn”) and Arifowang (“Lily”), and the chef himself, Canglah (“Spring”).

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If going for the mountains, visit Na Jie Hai right before turning off to Luye Highlands Tea Plantation. Here, at Shi Hui’s cottage-cum-private kitchen, fusion cuisine the likes of Hainan Chicken Rice and tomato and aubergine pasta come hand in hand in a six course meal– all at the pittance of NT300 per person. When asked why she doesn’t charge more for her meals, Shi Hui says, “I’m here to live a life, not to make a killing. If I charge less, people will be grateful and come back. If I charge more, however, they will find something to complain about.”

Ah, what wisdom. Only in Taitung….

A Taipei and Hong Kong Comparison Chart (PART I)

Taxis

Probably the friendliest taxi drivers in the world. With genuinely polite and caring cabbies, taxis in Taipei are easy to hail (and hence there is the relative issue of overabundance), easy to call, technologically advanced (most take credit cards / easycard / and equipped with GPS), and often even take the initiative to give you a discount (for example, if the meter jumps just before the taxi stops, often the cab driver will tell you to pay the lesser fare right before)

Most cabbies in Hong Kong do not utter a single word. No greeting, no goodbye, they don’t even bother reporting the fare. They whizz around like crazy and automatically round up your fare to the nearest single number.

Public Transportation

MRT – Badly designed trains and network, plus a climate too hot for walking in the summer make traveling by public transport in Taipei a nightmare. Which is why in Taipei I buy sunhats and use parasols. Not cool.

Hong Kong though, boasts probably one of the best underground system in the world. Super efficient and user-friendly.

Buses – Taipei has some of the most relentlessly polite drivers I’ve seen. They greet every passenger and report every stop. They even remind you to offer your seat to those in need.

Climate

Why is Taipei raining so much, yet so hot, and so humid I have to buy rainboots at times, and use a handerchief and parasol at others?

Books

Just love the book-reading culture of Taipei. Every time I walk into Eslite I feel a new boost of energy that comes from the sight of a bustling, healthy book-reading generation huddled around books that are not about sex, violence or gossip but literature, in its purest form. Try experiencing this, then head to Hong Kong’s annual book fair.

Media

For all its cultural sophistication, Taiwan is, however, home to perhaps the crappiest local media around. The newspapers and TV stations report little useful information and instead are extremely biased and peripheral. Tabloid-style reigns. Why would I want to see an interview of a model who decided to become an air hostess and how much she gets paid?

On the contrary, though HK people don’t like much to read, the city is blessed with a few very good newspapers serious about their role and unbiased.

TV Drama

Like the above, the standard of local TV series production, since the rise of F4 and 流星花園， has fallen hard. Think TVB drama is bad? Wait until you see the Taiwanese one. You’ll miss your 九姑娘 (character from TVB drama 巾幗梟雄之義海豪情 played by 鄧萃雯, one the best shows ever)， badly.

Variety Shows

On the contrary, variety shows in Taiwan are very entertaining indeed. Perhaps the reason for this comes from the Taiwanese person’s relaxed and candid demeanour, a quality I believe makes for genuine, good-natured humour.

Hong Kongers, on the other hand, wear the kind of humour that finds solace in putting people down.

Baked Bread and Fried Dough

In Taiwan, a very peculiar breakfast is quietly born. Something that seems so unbefitting it bedazzles a lot of first time foreign eaters. In fact, I bedazzle myself too with my love for this rather dry, odd combination of two kinds of dough put together, a love so complete it could be a food I’d happily eat on a first date.

I’m talking about the shaobing youtiao (flatbread and fried dough) paired with soya milk, a breakfast food many mistakenly thought to have originated from Shanghai. This is not the case. In Shanghai, they drink soya milk with youtiao, but no shaobing. Where you have shaobing, in the Northern regions, you see no soya milk. So where did this strange combo come from? Both the shaobing and the youtiao are in fact types of bread. Wouldn’t one want to put something more interesting and flavourful into each other, like meat and vegetables in a pizza?

The shaobing comes from Northern China where the barbarians, or hu ren, once lived. In ancient China, hu ren is a term that generally refers to the minorities scattered along the northern borders, namely the Mongolians, Uyghers, Tibetans, Manchurians, and a few smaller nomadic minorities. The hu rens make a hell of a hubing, as the shaobings were once called, by sticking pieces of dough along the sides of a clay urn, so good that the Han people have incorporated it into their everyday diet. Today, in northern provinces like Shandong and Shanxi, shaobings are still very popular and made simply with a sprinkling of sesame, as a snack.

On the other hand, the youtiao, made by frying dough in bubbling hot oil, originally came from the Middle East as desserts, such as the loukoumades in Greece or the lokma in Turkey, both a fried dough pastry soaked in sugar, syrup or honey and cinnamon, and sometimes sprinkled with sesame.

In Taiwan, these two unlikely foods have been brought together to form the shaobing youtiao, a kind of shaobing sandwich where the ingredient is either the youtiao alone or with a piece of egg omelette, and it must be paired with soya milk. The traditional thick shaobings are hard to come by these days with most shops preferring to sell the thin ones, which are simple baked in an oven so do not require a clay urn and hence less labour.

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A few remaining places that still make shaobings the traditional way are Fu Hang Soybean and an unnamed makeshift shop near Linguang MRT Station. Fu Hang is clean, bright, big, and very much blogged and written about, so be prepared to get up early and brave the queues for at least 30 minutes before you will be awarded with a bowl of fragrant soya milk and fried dough and eggs wrapped in a perfectly flaky shaobing. If you are a bit more daring, however, venture onto Section 3 of Heping East Road and look for a nameless, dirty ramshackle shop so popular amongst the locals that the shaobings are often sold out by 10am. The shaobings here are the cheapest, only NT17 per piece, yet almost equally as good as Fu Hangs.

Nameless Soya Milk Shop is at No. 2-2, Lane 463, Section 3, Heping East Road, Taipei (near Lin Guang MRT Station)
麟光站旁無名豆漿店在 台北市信義區和平東路三段463巷2-2號
Fu Hang Soya Milk is at no. 108, Section 1, Zhongxiao East Road (inside Huashan Market)
阜杭豆漿在 台北市中正區忠孝東路一段108號（華山市場二樓，捷運善導寺站）
tel: 02-2392-2175

Food Wizards of Oz | Crave Magazine

The above article was published in the June 2011 edition of Crave Magazine in Hong Kong

Here's a question you ask at your peril: What exactly is Australian cuisine? In response, expect either blank stares or longwinded lectures that involve the indigenous hunter-gatherer diet, colonial influences and the influx of globalization. However, although it is true that the technical and historical composition of Australian cuisine is a rather complicated one, the heart of the matter is in fact quite simple. When you have a free, fertile land and a hodgepodge of different peoples, what happens? They mingle and get creative. There is no reference, and hence no pressure. Imagination runs wild, and a new cuisine is born.

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Make a visit to a local coffee joint and you will see what I mean. I was in Melbourne during the annual Food and Wine Festival and when online lifestyle magazine, Broadsheet, was hosting a pop-up coffee store on Crossley Street as a way of promoting the local coffee culture. Not that Melbourne needs much promoting in terms of coffee in fact, because every cup you have there will likely be at least twice as good as your regular Hong Kong version. Why?

“We had a lot of immigrants coming in from Italy, and they heavily influenced our coffee culture. In fact, Australia is one of the few places where the Starbucks giant could not penetrate – they closed over two thirds of their 85 stores countrywide in 2008,” says Nick Shelton, founder of Broadsheet over a cup of perfectly blended flat white from Seven Seeds. “Here in Melbourne, coffee is treated with almost as much esteem as wine.” When you manage to turn coffee into something so distinctively “Melbourne”, credit must be lauded for. The same goes with everything else, from food to wine.

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At Da Noi, your Sardinian feast is one that evolves as much with season as with the whim of the kitchen. Candlelit, with creaky floorboards and decked in simple white linen, Da Noi in South Yarra has no menu but serves whatever Chef Pietro Porcu feels befits his customers for the night, and hence no two tables are likely to have the same food. The usual suspects such as osso bucco are paired with an unusual lime scented semolina salad – just don’t expect your waitress to be able to tell you what you’re eating, as they too, get confused by the ever-evolving menu.

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Further into town, Cumulus Inc. is your destination of choice if you’re looking for something fun and unpretentious. Located conveniently in the CBD on Flinders Lane, Cumulus Inc. is a “eating house + bar” in a converted warehouse-like space with high ceilings, large windows, and a black-on-white décor. For those of you who have had enough of the minimalist trend, don’t fret, since what Cumulus Inc. lacks in warmth they make up for with an ever-buzzing atmosphere and a busy, friendly, open kitchen. The menu is strictly Australian, with oysters shucked to order, 12-hour cooked lamb - crispy on the outside but a melt-in-your-mouth tenderness on the inside, and an extensive wine list. There is nothing else you can ask for.

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Happy Friday: Apple Pie, with a Twist

Thanks to Mise en Place, I was forced to think of a dessert that would go with my class theme of a Sichuan inspired meal and something manageable within two hours alongside “saliva chicken”, dan dan noodles, and a cane and imperata arundinacea soup.

Inspired by a spiced apple baumkuchen (a layered cake originated from Germany) produced by a Yuan Le Cakeshop in Taipei, I decided to try my hands at making a Sichuan-spiced apple pie, and the result was surprisingly good! Here’s the recipe for those who are daring enough to try:

Sichuan-spiced Apple Pie

INGREDIENTS

For the crust
2 ½ cups plain flour
¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks / 225g butter
7 tablespoons sour cream

For the filling
About 4 granny smith apples, cut into ½ inch thickness
½ cup honey
About 6 dried chilies, snipped in half, seeds discarded
About 10 pieces Sichuan peppercorn

Use a 9-inch pie dish

METHOD

For Crust
Mix flour, sugar and salt in processor. Add butter and cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add sour cream and blend in using on/off turns just until dough forms. Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Divide in half. Form each half into a ball; flatten into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 hours.

For Filling
Preheat oven to 400°F.

Put in about 10g butter in heated wok. Gently fry dried chilies and peppercorns until fragrant. Add the sliced apples and honey. Gently simmer for about 10 minutes, or until apples soften.

Roll out 1 dough disk between sheets of plastic wrap to 13-inch round. Peel off top sheet; invert dough into 9 1/2-inch deep-dish glass pie dish. Peel off plastic. Mound filling in pie dish. Roll out remaining dough disk between sheets of plastic wrap to 13-inch round. Peel off top sheet of plastic and using a dough cutter, cut into strips about 1cm thick. Braid and form lattice to cover the top of the apple pie.
Pinch edges of dough to seal. Trim excess crust. Crimp edges decoratively. Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown, covering with foil if browning too quickly, about 1 hour.

Serve with vanilla ice-cream.

Mise en Place is a cooking studio in Taipei opened by my friend Elaine Tsang. I'll be teaching and hosting private events there at irregular intervals. Check her website for more details.

Mise en Place is at no. 10, Lane 295, Dun Hua South Road, Taipei
tel: (02) 2784-7460
Mise en Place by 食旅概念在台北市敦化南路一段295巷10號1樓

Taipei Finds: Shida Area

Let me be the first to tell you this: the much acclaimed Ecole Café on Qingtian Street in Yongkang area just opened a new café on Taishun Street, near Shida, a short hop from its old location. And this time, they’re making it BIG. Occupying a beautifully restored old Japanese-style woodhouse on a quaint end of Taishun Street, Café Trouve is operated in collaboration with Mooi to offer antique restored furniture and knickknacks in the front part of the café, and simple drinks and sandwiches or pastas at the back. It even comes with an equally fitting Chinese name: 找到咖啡, literally meaning “Café Found”, or, more romantically, in French, “Café Trouve”.

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With its high exposed wood-beamed ceilings and school chairs, Café Trouve reminds me of a grander version of After School in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.
Eight out of ten customers here will be designers or writers working on their laptops, as they do at After School. The only difference is, here in Taipei, you will probably walk away making a new friend. This time, I made friends with the founder of Mooi Minfu, and in the short span of our 30 minute conversation I learnt more about restoring old Japanese-style houses and connected so much better than through some formal introduction we’re most accustomed to.

A short stroll towards Wisteria Tea House I found Sonnentor Café, a bakery cum bookstore that advocates the LOHAS lifestyle and fresh organic produce. Behind a beautifully rusted metal gate on Xin Sheng South Road, a tree-filled courtyard leads you into a bright, airy space; a designed blend of industrial chic and organic living. A row of freshly baked bread greets you to the left, while a bit further to the right there is the book library with a careful selection of books on farming, organic and eco-living, social work, design, art and travel. Towards the back of the room, a small display of classical music is there for customers to listen to.

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I sat down on the best seat in the room - a comfortable two-seater leather sofa with a coffee table display of wooden chops – ordered some ginger tea and brioche, and pulled out my laptop. I asked the waiter for the password to their Wifi connection. In Taipei with its popular coffee shop culture, it's almost a given that they provide Wifi to customers.

“I’m sorry, we don’t provide Wifi,” he said apologetically. I was shocked. “We’re a bookstore. We hope that our customers would read.”

Ah… for some strange reason I felt almost ashamed of myself. Once again, Taipei, by being herself, has reminded me to slow down and get back to the basics. Thank you girl.

Cafe Trouve is at no. 4, Lane 16, Taishun Street, Taipei
找到咖啡在台北市泰順街16巷4號
tel: 02-23655653
Cafe Sonnentor is at no. 7-1, Lane 22, Section 3, Xin Sheng South Road
日光大道健康廚房在台北市新生南路3段22巷7－1號
tel: 02-23621134

Best Beijing Finds - Dan Dan Noodles, two ways

As a self-proclaimed dan dan noodle specialist (I am, after all, host to a video that’s the first to come up if you type the words “dan dan noodles” into YouTube), I am quite ashamed to say that I only learnt what really goes into authentic dan dan noodles until my recent trip to Beijing.

At Transit Restaurant in Sanlitun North, where they paired authentic, sophisticated Sichuan food with contemporary Sino-French-style décor (think green French windows and chandeliers with gold-rimmed Chinese tassels), dan dan noodles came beautifully plated in Phoenix designed bowls and had the perfect balance of spice, nuttiness and that numbing sensation. It was delicious. And then it revealed itself to me, that interesting dark green vegetable. It tasted like mustard greens, and somewhat like Tianjin preserved vegetables, but I knew it was neither.

The next day we had our second dosage of contemporary Sichuanese at beautifully restored courtyard restaurant the Source, a private kitchen tucked away in a small hutong off Nanluoguxiang and opened by the people behind art gallery Yan Art Space. There it was again. That curious vegetable! This time I had to ask the waitress.

“Yacai” she said after consulting the chef.

Yacai, I later discovered, was in fact a dark, salty aromatic pickle made from the tender leaves of one variety of mustard greens. The leaves are sun-dried, rubbed with salt, and then mixed with spices and sometimes sugar. They are then sealed in jars and left to mature for several months. The city of Yibin is one famous producer, and hence its famous noodle dish, 宜賓燃麵 , or Yibin “kindling” noodles, a vegetarian dish made from yacai. Dan dan noodles in Chengdu are also traditionally cooked with this vegetable, though lots of substitutes are available these days.

That said, when you're missing dan dan noodles anywhere outside of China, the best bet is still to come to Nana's kitchen.

Transit Restaurant is at N4-36, Sanlintun Village North, 11 Sanlitun Lu
渡金湖在三里屯路11号三里屯Village北区N4-36号
Tel: 6417-9090

The Source is at 14, Banchang Hutong, Nanluoguxiang
都江源在南锣鼓巷板厂胡同14号
tel: 6400-3736

The Duanwu After-party

So it may already be after the Dragon Boat Festival, but partly to appease Mr. J (who rightfully pointed out that the Dragon Boat Festival in truth has nothing to do with poet Qu Yuan) and partly to tell you about one of my favourite hangouts in Taipei, I present to those of you with an acute interest in the true origins of Chinese culture, a short story on what all this zongzi gorging and boat racing business is all about.

Long before poet Qu Yuan committed suicide in the Milo River the peoples of ancient China have already been celebrating the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar by eating rice parcels and praying to the water gods. The earliest recordings of Duanwu festivities (端午, or Dragon Boat Festival) was from Wuyue (吳越) , a small independent coastal kingdom founded during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (五代十國 907-960), now mostly Zhejiang Province and laden with water villages. According to the 24 solar terms used in agriculture in ancient China, “夏至” or the “summer solstice” is a day when the sun is at the celestial longitude of 90°, when we have the longest day and shortest night of the year. This typically celebrates the birth and flourish of all life forms, but is also a dangerous time when water activities, like fishing or swimming, become abundant. Children often drawn in the rivers so in order to appease the gods, people throw rice parcels into the water so that the river gods will not have to feed on human beings. Summer solstice occurs in 午月 according to the Lunar Calendar. Since 午月 and 五月, or the fifth month, shares the same pronunciation in Chinese, and further since according to Chinese mythology and numerology the fifth month and fifth days are significant days of the year, Duanwu Festival was organically established on the fifth day of the fifth month, and its traditions and significance closely tied with those that celebrate the birth of summer.

Today it is interesting to see how some aboriginals in Taiwan, believed to be descendants of Wuyue, still make their zongzis in a bamboo pipe or in cow horn shape according to the ancient Wuyue tradition. Because Duanwu signifies the start of summer, you will also see in Taiwan today some people hanging bundles of herbs (usually the five herbs including calamus and Chinese Mugwort leaf) on their doors, like a wreath for Christmas, signifying protection against the five poisons of scorpion, centipede, snake, frog and lizards.

Well, I heard a lot of this from Han laoshi (韓良露) at her Taipei Tea Café. Han Lianglu is one of Taiwan's foremost food writers and regularly hosts talks and walks in relation to Taiwanese food culture at her cafe. The one I attended today was part of Taipei’s Culture Passport 2011 events, with events running all the way till September.

Taipei Tea Cafe is at N0. 10, Lane 80, Shida Road, Taipei
旅人茶房在台北市師大路80巷10號
tel: 02-8369-2963

Thursday Musings... Beautiful Hong Kong Facades

Sometimes it is only when you don't have it, you start to miss it...