Day: June 10, 2007

In the basement of the Taipei 101, like most other shopping complexes in Taiwan is a food court. While they all tend to have similar restaurants, just as food courts in malls back in the States are much he same, there is some slight variation from mall to mall depending on the clientele.

The Taipei 101 appears to attract foreign businessmen and that’s reflected in the food court.

We arrived right at the opening time for lunch and chose the Karen Teppanyaki. My exposure to teppanyaki is fairly limited as the total teppanyaki places in Arizona can probably be counted on 1 hand.

Teppanyaki, for the uninitiated, is a Japanese style of food grilled at specially-designed tables. The chef prepares the food in front of you while you watch. Back in the US, Benihana’s is probably the most widely known name in teppanyaki, but whereas the cooking at Benihana’s is more of a floor show with lots of flourish, knives being flipped and food being tossed around, Karen Teppanyaki was more matter-of-fact.

We placed our orders (I had the filet steak, Irene had the prawn, fish and rib steak) and the cook set about preparing our meat to order. he worked in a no-nonsense, but very efficient and well-practiced manner, and in a matter of minutes we had our food. In addition to the main dish, the meals also include rice, fried vegetables (lettuce, I think), bean sprouts and miso soup.

Without a broad base of comparison, I can say the steak was tasty and cooked as I’d asked it to be. The sauce it was served with was mild, but added something to the steak. Typically, I’m used to a teppanyaki sauce with a stronger ginger flavor, but that wasn’t the case here.

The steak was served topped with slices of crispy-fried garlic which, after a bit of getting used to, is pretty good.

As I’m on vacation, I didn’t actually bother to pay attention to how much it cost, but I’d provisionally recommend it as tasty food and as good as any teppanyaki I’ve had previously.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Restaurant, Review, Taiwan, Travel

Saturday was the last day for Computex, and the only day they allow general admission. As I didn’t arrange my registration from overseas before we came and I wasn’t sure if the title of CIO would get me into the door (they’re mostly looking for bulk buyers) we waited for general admission day.

It was still raining, but the show is inside buildings surrounding Taipei 101. I’ve commented on the show elsewhere.

It’s a good area to get food – a lot better than what used to be immediately around Comdex Las Vegas – so we ate lunch in the basement of the 101.

In the afternoon, the rain actually stopped for several hours. While my wife and brother-in-law haggled over a discount on getting glasses, I finally got the chance to head off on foot with nothing in mind than to see the sights. While life in Taipei carries on fairly normally in the rain, I couldn’t help noticing that the streets were more active and lively, as people just wanted to get outside. Street food vendors were setting up everywhere they could. Continuous rain downpours couldn’t have been good for outdoor businesses.

Once again dinnertime meant “family time” and we all went out to eat at Ali Baba’s kitchen. Ali Baba’s is a long-standing Taipei restaurant run by Pakistanis with decent food, that they know I like. My mother-in-law, who is the one insisting on the family dinners, hated it. “It’s all too spicy,” she said, without trying a single bite. I think she had a salad and some fruit.

It’s horrible of me but not only did I enjoy the food, I enjoyed my mother-in-law’s dislike of it. It made up a bit for Friday’s dinner, which is what triggered my penguins post in the first place, which I haven’t finished writing yet.

Today it stopped raining for most of the afternoon. Two days in a row where I went outside and didn’t get wet. Could this be a promising trend? Tuesday we’re supposed to take the high speed rail to Chiayi and then the rickety old narrow-gauge, Japanese colonial-era railway into the central mountains. Assuming they haven’t been washed away in a mudslide.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Once upon a time I’d have killed for the opportunity to go to Comdex in Las Vegas to see the new technology and ogle the showgirls.

Through no planning of our own, Computex, the world’s second largest technology show was in Taipei this week, so I made the effort to visit.

Booth after booth after booth of USB keys and hard drive enclosures and water cooled PC and girls in skimpy outfits and thousands of geeks with cameras taking pictures of the girls and the hardware.

I made a few half-hearted attempts to catch the spirit, but it’s just more of the same, year after year. Ho hum.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Computer, Taiwan, Technology, Travel