But it just so happens that taking pictures of food is easy(-er than taking pictures of stuff I actually do, or people. I'm terrible at photographing people. And events. And places (serious lack of spacial reasoning). And pretty much anything that moves on its own or exceeds a foot in any dimension. Unless I get complete control over the entire situation; then it sometimes turns out okay. But most of the time not so much. And that is why most of the photographs are food. And the rest are people pulling faces cam-whore style :D ) And writing commentary about those photos is easy(-er than coming up with actual content. Nobody wants to read about what I think. I think. I mean, you might discover I am a horrible narrow-minded person with peculiar tastes in just about everything. That's not very reader-friendly, is it?)
Plus, everyone can relate to food. You experience it every day. Constantly. You ingest it three to four, or even five or six times a day! Or maybe just once or twice, if you're on a budget, or very busy, or not feeling up to it.
But in Taiwan, there is not such thing as 'not feeling up to it'. You can walk down the street and pick up a filling meal for 50-200 NT any time of the day. ANY TIME. So that just leaves busy and broke.
Tangent aside, here is a SUPER DELICIOUS bread I got from Matsusei (a medium-high-end Japan-based grocery store). Normally I don't get bread from groceries (or convenience stores) because they are never as good as bakeries, and bakeries are everywhere, but Matsusei bakes its bread fresh daily, and this one looked good (carbivores can gauge the tastiness of bread based on appearance. I shit you not. It has taken me years, but I've gotten pretty damn good.) Plus it was 20% off 'cause it was made yesterday! Seeing as I planned on eating it straightaway, I couldn't care less.
Whole-grain bread with sticky black/purple rice, longan (dragon's eye fruit), and orange rind.
Purple rice and longan porridge is a winter dish, so it was like this super-awesome marriage of wholesome bread and traditional cold-weather food.
It was set up like a danish, except instead of fruit filling there was sticky black rice with the longan. Plus there was bits of sticky rice-longan and probably some dates and stuff mixed into the dough, along with the orange rind bits, so instead of just having all the tastiness it in the middle it was EVERYWHERE, and just EXTRA flavourful in the middle.
I will make it one day. Probably with some craisins thrown in instead of longan, 'cause I like craisins better, and they are easier to get ahold of in the states.
Actually, I should tell Mari about this -- she could probably make it since she's a bread-making CHAMPION.
Purple rice and longan porridge is a winter dish, so it was like this super-awesome marriage of wholesome bread and traditional cold-weather food.
It was set up like a danish, except instead of fruit filling there was sticky black rice with the longan. Plus there was bits of sticky rice-longan and probably some dates and stuff mixed into the dough, along with the orange rind bits, so instead of just having all the tastiness it in the middle it was EVERYWHERE, and just EXTRA flavourful in the middle.
I will make it one day. Probably with some craisins thrown in instead of longan, 'cause I like craisins better, and they are easier to get ahold of in the states.
Actually, I should tell Mari about this -- she could probably make it since she's a bread-making CHAMPION.
Side note, this was the Matsusei on Xinyi Rd. & Xinshing Rd, which is right where Taipei Compassion Field is at. I was there meditating in the morning, and decided to stop by the Matsusei 'cause they have lots of imported (MUESLI) and organic food for not as expensive as the organic stores. And there isn't a Matsusei by my house TT___TT
Aside from the bread and muesli, I also picked up organic black soybean milk (which is AWESOME -- I wasn't even looking for organic, just one without preservatives, but it was the only black soymilk they had. NT$80 for 1000cc. SCORE.) and pea sprouts :D
Next food item: curry hotpot from Indian Fans -- the indian/omrice/hotpot place down the street. We were gonna get hotpot from 899 'cause they have a nice veggie pot, but they were still on vacay! The guy at Indian Fans speaks a good deal of English, and he'd told Tai they would be open on the 2nd day of New Year, so we went there.
Veggie items are convenient labeled with a triangle ;)
Chock-full of veggie goodness! I ADORE their curry.
I don't know how they do it, but it is amazing. More Indian style than Japanese style, but adjusted for the local palate.
I don't know how they do it, but it is amazing. More Indian style than Japanese style, but adjusted for the local palate.
These things were in a picture of the omrice on the menu, so we asked for some -- turns out they're called 可利(?)饼 ke3 li4 bing3 -- NT$80 for four. Regardless of what they're called, they are WONDERFUL. They're like creamed corn in fried panko-encrusted patty form. The outside is super-crisp and the inside is filled with mildly sweet creamed corn-like porridge-consistency stuff. That's the best I can come up with.I need to figure out how to make these 'cause if I got back to the States and can't eat these anymore I will be a sad monkey.
Close-up. Big ol' chunks of corn and cream-goo-goodness. Apparently they can be served with curry sauce; personally I think they'd be even better with ketchup, but that's just 'cause I love ketchup on everything. The ketchup at Indian Fans is on the saltier side though, so I didn't ask for any 'cause it'd ruin the delicate taste of the kelebing.On a side note, Indian Fans serves ketchup on curry for some reason -- is this an Asian thing? Tai's baked seafood curry gratin came with ketchup on top, and last time I got omrice is came with curry and ketchup. ???
Have you ever had curry and ketchup in the same dish? I dunno how I feel about it...
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