t's

One of the most popular tshirts here has a red apple on it and says "Algebra is for lovers"

Nian gao

So here is my nian gao. I hope you can see the shape, which I enjoy. It's a little bit noodle like, but more solid and chewy from the sticky rice. The mushu at this place is fresh and delicious. You can see in the front that I got some taiwanese style pickled cucumbers on the side prepared with chili, garlic, and sesame oil alongside some sweet vinegar. It's crunchy and a nice counterpoint to the chewy nian gao.

Fried beef noodles

And here are the fried noodles with beef. On this day, my boss ate this but kindly allowed me to take a photo. You can see cabbage and onions and carrots which give it a nice flavor along with the beef.

fresh noodles.

They make their own noodles at this place. Basically that means that they keep this big hunk of dough under a towel until they need it (no pun intended). After kneading it, they cut it into a big pot of boiling water to cook briefly before they whisk it away to the back to be fried. You can see a flying piece of noodle near this guys curved blade if you look closely. The noodles are slightly uneven, which gives a texture i quite like.

Here are the small plates of side dishes that are available at this place. I usually get a kale type thing that has been sauted with garlic and chili and something sweet. They always have a variety of green things along with some tofu, noodles, and maybe a few pig's blood related items.

Food near my new job

So, I have a new job now and a few new places to choose from for dinner. The job provides free lunch for me, but it's pretty simple stuff. Maybe I will get some photos up of that soon. But today we are looking at one of the two places I like that I have discovered. This one has excellent, homemade noodles and Nian Gao. Nian Gao is made from sticky rice flour which is steamed into cakes and cut into oblong shapes. It is famous in a Korean style, but I get it here with mushu (mushrooms and pork).

Merry me!

i can't resist. someone was asking his girlfriend to merry him by dancing with cheerleaders and mascots during the break. it was a little embarassing to see him dance, but his future wife probably thought it was sweet for him to humiliate himself for her. hope you can see the sign clearly.

Coors girls

One of the joys of Taiwanese baseball is cheap beer brought to you by pretty girls. Here, Michael and I pose with our beer girls, one of whom seems to have a halo. I abhor coors generally, but what the hell.

companeros

Note my ridiculous yellow noise makers and suave black shirt from Thailand (perfectly matching the black and yellow coloring of the victorious elephants). Seated next to me are Michael (teacher from New Jersey of cuban descent - gave me his family's recipe for black beans), Dan (from Canada), and his girlfriend Rebecca (from Taiwan).

bows

At the end of the game, the losing team (losers!) applauded and bowed to their fans to thank them for their support. I was sitting with the losers as my yellow team enjoyed their triumph.

my baseball lunch box

Because the fried tofu wasn't enough, I also ate this "lunch box" at the game. It's pai gu fan (pork cutlet rice). On the left you can see a yellow thing (pickled radish - tastes sweet) next to a hard boiled egg (brown because they cook it in some stock with spices). On the right are pieces of sea weed tied in knots with carrots (salty - not the best version of this I've had), next to gray bamboo shoots (they have an interesting vegetal flavor) and a kind of pickled cabbage in the back (salty, this stuff shows up a lot. you might remember it on my gua bao).

drums and flags

without seeing my video, it's hard to understand the cacophonous nature of sound at a taiwanese baseball game. I bought stupid plastic horns that can be used to bang together or yell into like a bull horn or make terrible trumpet sounds with. The taiko drum and the marching band drum combine with the plastic noise makers to make a tremendous racket, over which the distorted mike pumps crazy cheers in mandarin. These pics show one of the drummers and the flag waver for the brother elephants. By the way, in the color sympolism here, yellow can sometimes mean perverted, which just adds to my enjoyment of the "think yellow" signs.

baseball 2

so, I made it to another baseball game a couple of weekends ago. My team (brother elephants) playing the La New Bears (who i don't like). Unlike the last game, it was a pitchers battle - we won 2-1. This is a picture of me (looking awfully scruffy) eating fried tofu on a stick covered with pickled cabage. yum.

oops

Sorry. Took a little break there. I haven't been eating anything new lately - just the same old stuff. But I have some news. I may have a new job where i will make more $$$ for less work, paid vacations, and no weekends in a beautiful school near to my home. It seems to be better in every way, but we'll see if it works out. I hope so.

I had a fun experience last weekend. I went with my buddy Dan to see a baseball game. Baseball is the most popular sport in Taiwan, and although most of the taiwanese people I've asked think the quality is too crappy, I had a great time. Admission is around $9 us and the stadium is more than half empty so sitting in the front row, or anywhere else is no problem . The game i saw had plenty of action (the pitchers suck) and at least one home run per inning for the first few innings. Taiwan beer (which is cheap swill, but not undrinkable) costs about $1.50 us, and is brought to your sear by beautiful girls in short skirts. The fans of the 2 teams sit on opposite sides, and when their team is at bat they chant songs in chinese (frequently to the tune of Popeye the sailor man) and play drums (a taiko style drum and a western marching band drum, in the case of the game we went to) along with those noise maker sticks and deep horns. It was a lot of fun. The teams we saw were the La New Bears and the Sinon Bulls. The bears won by one run. My favorite team in taiwan is the Brother Elephants - On the back of my baseball cap it says "We are all Brothers." I realize this doesn't have anything to do with food. just fyi, they don't have American ball park food. I ate sweet popcorn (not good), a fried chicken cutlet (ok), and some salty soup with grn. onion, cilantro, and pork balls (pretty good but a little too salty). After the game i went to a pub to watch arsenal win and had fish and chips (good, but no malt vinegar). sadly, i forgot my camera for the day - next time.

Speaking of drums and horns, the park where i go running is also the practice space for some Dragon dancers - I see them if I run in the afternoon. It's great to run with that throbbing drumming and resonant horn echoing around the park. And so cool to see them practicing the dance - without the dragon it looks the same as a kung fu form, with kicks and jumps and punches (which would move the thing around I suppose). All the kids doing it are covered in tattoos - my understanding is that young gangsters attach themselves to temples here and do this kind of thing. Great.

Korean Kimchee fried rice

Sometimes I need some extra variety at work. This pao tsai chao fan (kimchee fried rice) is really excellent. Not fiery hot, but with a good amount of kimchee flavor mixed in. The nori on top adds a nice salty-ness. You can see the extra kimchee in the back right of the box. In front of that is bean sprouts in sesame oil. And in front of that is seaweed and carrots. It tastes a little sweet and a little sour - I think it is sort of pickled. In the back is a basic dashi soup with big chunks of seaweed floating in it. They also give you some ginseng tea with the meal. After I eat this, I always feel very full but very good.

wonton soup

Since I've been here, I have learned how to make a fair wonton. But my home made version can't match this stuff I buy near my work (at the same place as the beijing tsong yo bing.) It contains at least three kinds of onion, with a funkyness that smells a little bit like lamb (I find this odor inexplicable.) The broth is rich and deep, with a nice stock flavor. The wontons are full of flavorfull meat, and they are generous with the wontons. You can have this with noodles added, but why bother. The wontons are the point, and they are delicious. Whenever I get this at work, at least one of my female coworkers will exclaim "hao xiang!" (good smell!) and look around to find the source and ask me where I got it. This place is a little expensive by local standards (this soup costs $2 us!!!) so others seldom go. But I love it.

tu two u gang

This is a fish soup that I quite like. It is a thick soup, with egg and probably corn starch thickening the broth. Mixed into that are pieces of cilantro, nice chunks of fried fish, and usually a little of the chili paste I like to add. It's not overwhelming, but there is a soft sweeness mixed with the herbal cilantro flavor and the flavor of the fried white fleshed fish that makes this an enjoyable meal, especially when the weather is a little bit cooler than it is now.

stinky tofu

So this is the fried version of stinky tofu (cho dofu). It is sold in little stands, seemingly in every neighborhood in Taiwan. You can usually smell it before you see it - it smells a little bit like old, foul gym socks. But when you eat it the stinkyness is just one of many strong flavors, alongside chili paste, sweet/sour pickled cabbage, minced garlic and/or ginger, and salty soy sauce. My favorite is the fried, though the bbq is ok. I don't usually like the stewed version - though that was Richard's favorite. A little too stinky for me. We used to get an extremely stinky version of fried tofu at work that would make the whole office smell awful. Everyone seemed to like it better and it was more expensive, but again, too stinky for me. I do like this version though. At night after 10 or so, the only food available is fried, so this is often a late night option. Like fried rice or congee, this seems like another example of not wasting old food that became a favorite as time went by.

My local fried rice

Fried rice is a pretty basic staple in chinese food. It's a good way to use up leftover rice and it tastes great. The place I get it here is always busy and always good. I think the key is a well seasoned wok on a very high flame. They bang the hell out of it too - Lots of banging and clanging as they stir the rice. The ingredients are fairly simple - you can see the one I get just has green onion, shrimp, and egg along with salt and possibly msg. But the high heat must carmelize the rice or some such thing as the flavor has a subtle smoky-ness. I always get some vegetable along with my rice - on this day it was fried cabbage, which they prepare simply with sweet, salty brine shrimp. Chili paste is involved and I get a delicious meal.

Chinese Class

This week I have started back into a chinese class with a private teacher. We meet every monday, tuesday, and friday for an hour each time. I really think this is going to help my chinese, especially my speaking and listening skills which are currently very weak. I don't understand everything my teacher says, but I like struggling to understand. I am doing homework every night, trying to write sentences with any new vocabulary I pick up and writing a short diary. It feels good to be getting back into my studies in a more serious way again.