Lone Locust Productions

Day: November 2, 2005

  • Day of the Pig

    As my in-laws live near Din Tai Fung, you’ll often seen Japanese tourists in the area. It’s no joke that most of them are carrying tour guides to places to eat in Taipei. They come to Taiwan for the eating and the hot springs.

    I’ve helped Japanese tourists, in my own bad Japanese, try to find the feeding grounds and I see them with their guides almost every day. The area just behind Din Tai Fung, (To the south of Xinyi Rd and west of Xinsheng Rd) has a couple streets packed with restaurants, surrounding a small park. In addition to locals taking their kids to the park, this seems to be the area where the Japanese gravitate towards. Many of the restaurants have signs in both Chinese and Japanese and they do good business.

    Tonight, after a busy day which I’ll describe later, we went to that area to find something to eat. It was after 9, which means many of the restaurants were already closed. It’s a good thing, too. If they hadn’t been closed we wouldn’t have eaten in a Japanese Ramen & Curry shop. Not in any way modest, they claimed to have won the awards in Japan as best ramen and best curry, separately. When you figure they’re in Taiwan, that’s got to be pretty darn good.

    It is. I only wish I could tell you the name of the place.

    We were both hungry, so we went with curries instead of ramen. Irene had their special beef curry, which was chunks of pot roast, covered in curry with rice. I tried a bite of hers before my dinner arrived and it was excellent. Even though it was mild, it was very flavorful, the beef was tender and moist.

    I had a tonkatsu curry. The tonkatsu (pork chop) was flawless. Perfectly cooked, great tasting on its own, no waste. It was absolutely top notch. I also had curry and asked for mine to be spicy.

    The sauce was, like Irene’s, excellent, but it was unbelievably hot. I couldn’t believe this was coming out of a “Japanese” restaurant. It was almost too hot to eat, but not quite – once I got hold of something to drink with it.

    I highly recommend this place and will post an update with I get their name so they get the recognition they deserve.

    Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

  • The Emperor’s Happy Pork Chop


    Lunch today, not bad. The pork chop was very good until I started to get shards of bone in it.

    The noodles were passable, but the broth they were served in was about as flavorful as muddy water. Stick with the rice.


    Technorati Tags: , , , ,

  • Ghosts After The Fact

    IMG_1419.JPG

    We took Michelle out to the Taipei Municipal Children’s Recreation Center, which is Govspeak for a city-run amusement park which is apparently on the grounds of the old Taipei Zoo. It’s just a short walk from the Yuanshan station, which is one of the first on the Danshui line to be outdoors. (The subway runs underground in the inner city and then rises above ground for the outer parts on some of the lines.)

    Michelle, James and Irene were sitting down. Usually someone will yield their seat for Irene and the kids, but I frequently end up standing. I was standing near the connection between two cars. On the Danshui line, you can walk freely between the cars, but there’s a space where the connection makes it unsafe to stand as the floor moves back and forth to accommodate the join between cars. When you’re standing near the junction with your back to the next car you’re at the farther possible point from another person behind you as it is possible to be on the train.

    We were still in the tunnels, but we were about one station away from coming out into the light. As I was standing there, just as plain as day, I heard voices whispering over my shoulder. They were indistinct, yet loud whispers, like you’d expect as the soundtrack to a horror film. It was so vivid that I involuntarily jerked around to see who was there. There was no one, and the people on the seats nearest looked unlikely to have been talking.

    I turned around, thinking I’d tell Irene and scare her when the train thumped and rocked in a highly unusual way, there was a loud bang, and then another. On the second bang I clearly saw the train door shake as if it had been hit by something forcibly from the outside. There was a third and final thump, further down the train and suddenly we moved into daylight.

    It was all rather eerie and unexplained.

    IMG_1469.JPG

    Michelle had a lot of fun at the park. Consistent with my previous experiences, there was a school class there on an outing. These kids were probably 8-10 years old. If it weren’t for them, the place would have been virtually deserted.

    None of the food stalls in the park were open, so afterwards we needed to get something to eat. We headed to Shihlin Station (with no plan in mind) hoping to find something to eat – and more importantly, something open. Many restaurants in Taiwan close at 2:00PM for a break before dinner.

    We found a spaghetti and tea shop, which had a predominant British theme. Britain is well-known as the world’s leading culinary leader in spaghetti in ketchup and so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be quite good. Sadly, I have no idea what their name was to give them a plug, and there were at least three other pasta shops just off the Shihlin station.

    Interesting to note that in addition to this British-themed pasta restaurant, last night, late, we went to an “Indian Curry and Tea House”, which was also good, but I can understand the British theme a little more clearly in the case of Indian food. Last I’d heard, Italy was never part of the British Empire.

    IMG_1567.JPG

    Irene and the kids went back home and I went out to Zhishan station. Last time I was here it was called Chishan station. Nearby there’s a mountain (Zhishan) with an ornate temple and trails on it. It was a very pleasant surprise when I found it last time and it was still undergoing some new construction of trails and such.

    This time the planked trails looked 15 years old, but they’re still building new main steps and other enhancements to the temple. I guess I’ll have to come back again someday to see what they make of it.

    The photo album of the kids will be ready tomorrow. They called today and asked us to bring James back for more pictures, at their expense. They want to use his photos for promotional purposes and they’ll provide us copies of the new pictures they take.

    Since he’s only 7 months old and lives thousands of miles away the celebrity status will go to his head, but in case anyone ever sees the promotional items they make, please take pictures and let us know.

    Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,