Top 10 Taiwan posts

According to google analytics, these are our top posts about Taiwan over the last 3 years:

Rainbow Village
Leofoo Village Theme Park
Simply adorable (oh my how she has grown since this picture!)
Guava
Sun Moon Lake
Guo Nian
House of Unique Stink (I can still taste it...)
Having a baby in Taiwan
Modern Toilet
Musings (this one was fun for me to re-read since it was from the very beginning)

House of unique stink

Before coming to Taiwan our friends Dan and Debbie invited us over to watch Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. One of the bizarre foods he tried was stinky tofu. Stinky tofu in different variations are everywhere, there is a shop just down the road from us (and trust me, when you walk by you can't miss it). So we've tried it a few times - me taking small bites and Jeremiah actually consuming most of a serving. However, the restaurant Andrew Zimmern went to looked to be just about the stinkiest of the stinky tofu you can get.

Video clip from the show - an introduction to stinky tofu; Andrew's visit to 

Dai's House of Unique Stink starts at about the 5:00 minute mark.

We knew at some point we would make it to Dai's House of Unique Stink to see for ourselves just how bad it really is, and it just so happened that we found ourselves in Taipei with some time to kill when our moms were in town. Lucky them right?  Right.

It took us a couple minutes just sitting in the restaurant to acclimate to the smell.  It about knocks you over when you walk in.  Ms. Wu herself came to take our order and recommended two varieties of stinky tofu - one that comes cold, soft and raw, and another that is fried.  We tried the soft one first:

Folks, this is the grossest thing I have ever eaten.  Think of the worst sewage smell you have ever experienced and imagine that being in your mouth.  I thought some of us weren't going to be able to swallow it.  We had chasers of dark, strong, juice that we quickly drank but the taste doesn't leave your mouth that easily.  Next came the fried stinky tofu and Ms. Wu showed us how to prepare it.

Compared to the raw kind, fried was a piece of cake.  Smothered in sauce it was manageable.  Manageable as in I would probably never again eat it on purpose but if made to I could do it without gagging.  Jeremiah rallied and went back for seconds of the raw type, and I think even ate a whole square of the fried one by himself.

Now whose ready to try some?

more about food

confession - we eat out a lot here. and by a lot, i mean... maybe 5 nights a week. i'm pretty sure i'd eat out 7 nights a week if allison let me. not that we can defend going out that much, especially after cooking so much at home, but i'll try. as vegans, the food here is super cheap. actually, most food is cheap, but the vegetables are cheaper. currently, you can get about 33 new taiwanese dollars (NT$) for 1 US$, which helps (i think... not sure how that works). also, our kitchen is really small and narrow and we don't have an oven. ok, i know those were weak points, but the food is reallllly good.

we live really close to three or four restaurants. there is a thai place, with an english menu, near us called thai yun (first one on the page) that has great water spinach, spicy green beans (best ever), fried tofu with garlic piled on top, and some fried cabbage that allison loves. the only thing holding this back from being our "cheers" is that they can't speaking english, so they don't know our name. right next door to that, there is a japanese place (see: stanky tofu experience) with an english speaking waiter who helps us out. this place has silken tofu, which isn't allison's favorite, but quite a few vegetable options. i think the best part about this one is the atmosphere (pictures later). a couple restaurants down, there is a vegetarian dumpling place (that are boiled, not fried). we'll get to the fried goodness in a second) we had our friend's girlfriend (who speaks/reads chinese) translate the whole menu for us, so we're able to order anything we want. 10 dumplings = US$ 1.33, which is crazy. allison usually gets wonton soup with it and we usually end up spending around $5 for dinner and lunch the next day. my favorite thing about this place is the lady/owner/cook there pretends like i can understand chinese. if it isn't charades, then i don't want to play. she likes to speak chinese a million words a minute to me and then repeat a world 10 times, trying to get the point across. accidentally ordered sauteed and boiled water spinach at the same time. she really didn't want me to get it, but i did she was right. i should learn chinese. in addition to those three restaurants, there are about 10 small little street food carts that are along the side of the road within three or blocks both directions of us. i usually go to one owned by a brother and sister that is amazing. all of it is fried, so we try not to eat there too often (but it is so good, so i go too often). they have fried tofu, gelatin fries, sweet potatoes (sprinkled with strawberry-y sugar), rice brats, broccoli, green beans, corn on the cob... yes, fried, and a lot of other meaty items that scare me. i usually have them smother mine in their chili powder stuff and allison opts for a sweet kind of sprinkled stuff. lately, i've brought the brother, who is around my age, a beer and he has a big smile on his face and then gives me a bunch of stuff for free. i've been using google translator on my phone to tell them things and asking questions, but it is pretty funny because they can't reply back to me.

also... about ten minutes away from us, we've been hitting up indian food once a week. we're currently addicted to a place called little india moslem restaurant. they have five or six veg dishes and each one comes with naan and rice. everything tastes great and we usually get some to take for lunch the next day. another place, a little closer to us, is a place called loving hut which is a chain of restaurants throughout the world with pretty cheap set meals. other than that, we're looking forward to trying spring natural vegetarian restaurant in the next couple of weeks. anyone that is reading this in taiwan know if any other good places to go?

since there are no resources for vegan restaurants in taichung (that are in english) i'm going to start a review blog of the places we go to and try to go to a new one each week or month. i'll plan on posting a few pictures of the places i've mentioned here once i get it going. i'll probably get that going this week and will post the link.  hopefully it will kind of look like stumptown vegans food review site, but we all know it won't.

few random pictures.

sign shop in taichung (looks fun, right virgil?)

morning traffic

rest stop sighting on the way to taipei for volleyball

still love our car

(and spending $75 on gas per month instead of $375)

Stinky tofu round 2

Jeremiah tried stinky tofu again, this time on purpose, at a little market. I stayed away - once was good for me.

Made fresh to order

He made a good go at it, eating a good majority. When the sauce ran out though, he couldn't eat any more.

so wrong (but i ate it) and rambles

ever since i watched andrew zimmerman's crazy ass food show about taiwan, i have wanted to try stinky tofu. there are two different kinds (from what i've seen and heard about). one is the fried stuff, that isn't too bad, and the other stuff is wet, and from what i can tell, uncookedish and nastier than mr. nasty himself. i've told quite a few people back home that i intend to try and down it, and even promised d-mac i'd send him a video of it. well... we went out to the japanese restaurant (one of the two restaurants down the street from us) and decided we'd be brave and try and tell the nice kind of english speaking waiter/manager that we wanted to try some fried tofu. allison wasn't a huge fan of the soggy marinated tofu we had last time. i'll eat anything, so i was ready for something new. note to self: if someone ever describes food in a game of charades, and then put their fingertips in front of their upper lip, make an ugly face, and move their fingertips down and back up a few times, just pray to whatever god you believe in that allison IS NOT on your team. she goes, "i think he is trying to tell us that it is going to be spicy! we should get it, you like spicy." true story - i like spicy food. see: mad dog 357 (drew likes it too. on his burritos at lunch). soooo... we order the "spicy" tofu, some water spinach (we think... we're still not sure what it is actually called), two orders of noodles, and some water. we always order extra so we can take it home. all of that cost about $9 US.

out comes of the food! well, not all at once. in taiwan, they don't you make you wait around for one dish, they just bring it out as it is done. first we got our noodles (udon, i think), and then our veggies, which are amazing, and we're eating along, and we're enjoying our dinner, and allison still thinks she is going to like the tofu, and i'm excited for spicy tofu. slowly, the waiter makes his way towards our table and i know, without a doubt, that HE knows he wasn't making the "this is hot face," because now that i think about it, i know he wasn't making the "this is hot face," the - stick your tongue out and pretend like you're sweating look. plates goes down, chopsticks from both sides of the table reach out to partake in the wonderful japanese spicy tofu we're about to enjoy. unfortunately for allison, i decided to set my piece down for a second so i could get a drink. i'm about two seconds behind her on the "whoa, this isn't spicy, this is sewage" train, but it hit me just as quick. in allison's defense, some of the peppers in the dish were incredibly spicy, but we all know now the hand motion for super stinky tofu. allison did finish her one bite and i ended up eating half of it that night and the other half the next day in the faculty lunch room (and once that stuff is reheated, it smells as bad as it tastes). however, here is the weird thing about it. 80% of the time you're chewing it up, it tastes amazing, it's just the other 20% of the time it is in your mouth, you feel like you're gnawing on gelled sewage that has been lightly fried with a hint of seasoning. overall, the meal was pretty good. i'd order it again, but wouldn't expect a kiss from allison for the following three hours.

the not so spicy stinkiest of the stank tofu
(and this isn't even the bad stuff!)

other ramblings:
- we bought our car! it is a 1998 nissan verita but everyone thinks it is a 1958 and it is pretty swanky (thanks to our teacher friends who spent a long time on a saturday driving us around. and we ended up getting the first one we looked at)
- allison drove home for the first time the other day and did an amazing job
- the actual driving part isn't bad, it is when you have to stop at a light or turn. that is when the scooters decide to close in
- i've ran more red lights in the last three days than i have in the last 27 years
- the lines on the roads here don't mean anything (at all)
- we have our furniture all set up. wireless internet all set up. allison has her iphone up and running. skype is perfect. the wii is in place. and i have a multi-regonal dvd player going.
- the no-see-'em mosquitoes love allison. a lot. i'd say the ratio of bites for allison compared to jeremiah is easily 23:0
- i finally finished the ishmael triology. going to teach a few of the concepts this year i think. starting back up on the neverending story. finish any good books lately? let me/us know!
- when you fill your tank at a gas station, you get a free bottle of water and/or towels to wipe your hands off with (all self service)
- it is amazing how many older people, like 75 year olds, are hopping on scooters and riding their bikes around compared to in the US. it just amazes me.
- i did receive my ARC card, which means i now have a bank account, a chop, a chinese name (jerry), and a stamped international drivers license. however, allison's ARC card was missing her last name and the first letter of her first name, so her card should be here soon!
- goodbye megan. taiwan already misses you!
- and that's all i can think of. if you have any questions, comment away. hope to hear from you soon. later!

ps here is what the good stuff looks like from our local thai yum (or thai yun?) don't remember

(currently listening to the doves album - kingdom of rust. great.)