Sunday - February 16, 2003
Despite being up
quite late last night, this morning we had to get up early. Our breakfast plan
was to go to Din Tai Fung for their Xiao Long Tang Bao,
apparently their most famous dish, but only served for an hour on Saturday and
Sunday mornings.
Chu-Wan had never had the Xiao Long Tang Bao and
couldn't quite explain to me how it was different from the Xiao Long Bao
that I'd been eating on my previous visits. The confusion stemmed from the fact
that Xiao Long Bao means literally "a small basket of steamed
dumplings." Din Tai Fung's Xiao Long Bao are distinct and quite
famous because they manage to have a pocket of soup inside them. Soup is
"tang" so Xiao Long Tang Bao is the same thing except them
emphasis the word soup. The basket refers to the bamboo steamer that they are
served in. Each steamer of Xiao Long Bao contains 10 steamed
dumplings.
I was very worried that they couldn't improve upon the
regular dumplings, so we hedged our bet by ordering 1 steamer of regular buns
and 2 steamers of the "special" ones.
Din Tai Fung was very quiet
at 9:00AM. There was no waiting outside, although the restaurant was more than
half full inside. It's certainly the right time to visit the
restaurant.
Many of the customers were again Japanese and one table of
Japanese even had a travel guide entitled "Eating Tour Guide to Taiwan." I
cannot understate how pivotal eating is in Taiwan, and, to a lesser degree, I
think, to the Japanese.
Because the restaurant was not as busy as in the
past, we ordered at the table, rather then out front before given a table. In
the past, Chu-Wan or her mother has ordered the food outside, but this time,
they handed me a English menu and a photocopy of a 1993 New York Times
newspaper article on their restaurant. The article was one of a series entitled
"Top-Notch Tables: 10 Food Experts Choose Restaurants That Inspire Pilgrimage."
The article essentially said what I've told you, it's great Chinese food. It's
positively the best I've had in Taiwan. Remember, that statement comes from
someone who generally does not like Chinese food, so don't just take my word
for it. Take the word of hundreds of visitors who line up every day to eat here
or who travel hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of miles to eat here. It's good
stuff.
I didn't read the English menu, which was a mistake, instead I
was concentrating on the NY Times article. Had I looked at the English menu we
would have known that Xiao Long Tang Bao translates to "Mini-Steamed
Buns (20) with Soup."
The problem being, we had inadvertently ordered 50
dumplings.
When the dumplings arrived, we understood that the English
was also less ambiguous. The dumplings didn't contain more soup, they came with
a bowl of soup. The dumplings themselves were about 60% of the size of the
regular ones, and we managed to eat all but about 10, which we took home.
Despite being stuffed, on the way home, Chu-Wan bought some duck tongues - to
eat!
I did a little research on Din Tai Fung when I got back,
they now have 4 restaurants, 2 in Taipei, 1 in Shanghai and 1 in Hong Kong.
Although their page is only in Chinese, there are some better pictures of their
main restaurant than what I got.
Later, when we went out again, it had
begun to rain. At least the good weather had lasted through the main ceremonies
of the Lantern Festival, and the temperature was still comfortable, if wet. We
went to Sogo so I could check out the Kinokuniya bookstore (a Japanese
chain) inside. It was gone, replaced with an Eslite bookstore, which was a
disappointment, but I found a couple books that I was looking for.
I was amused by a sign outside Sogo I'd
never noticed before. A computer counter keeps track of the number of people
who enter and leave the building, giving a total number of occupants versus the
maximum capacity of the store. When we were there, the store was relatively
empty, with only 3,889 people inside. The capacity of the store is 21,860
people.
Back home, I had Chu-Wan order me a pizza from Domino's. This
time they were open, they delivered the pizza, it was correct and it was
delicious. It's about time. I enjoyed having a pizza and soda in Taiwan's
biggest cup.
We were doing shopping for people back home today and went
out again to look for more items, this time heading to Kungkuan market.
When we got off the bus, about 8 high school girls swarmed around me. They were
very polite and asked if they could ask me some questions. Their school
homework required them to find a foreigner who spoke English and ask him/her
some questions. I was the lucky one. When I agreed, they stuck a tape recorder
in my face and asked away.
One of the questions they asked was "How long have you been in
Taiwan?" They seemed surprised I could instantly rattle off "33 days" without
thinking. I guess they haven't been reading these journals.
Afterwards,
Chu-Wan was kicking herself for not taking a picture as it was really quite
funny. I'm sure that they immediately headed to McDonald's (where all students
spend all day writing up their homework) where they sat down and spent the
afternoon listening to the tape and trying to figure out what I told
them.
In the evening, Chu-Wan's friends, Nora, Judy and Judy's boyfriend
came over and took us to Ali Baba's Kitchen, an Indian food restaurant. The
word is still out from the others, but mine was very good. It was also rather
expensive.
Yesterday, I was a little short on time when I was writing my
journal. I've got a little more time this evening and I want to mention the
Lantern Festival again. It really seems like this entire trip has been a
build-up to the Lantern Festival and it came and went with little comment from
me.
In fact, the Lantern Festival is only the finish of the 15-day Lunar
New Year holiday, which is what we scheduled this visit around. It's a time for
families to be together - much like Thanksgiving is in the United States.
Michelle's grandmother, great-grandmother and her various aunts had never had
the opportunity to meet her and that's why we came when we came.
To be
honest, I had somewhat of a misconception of the holiday as a whole. The
concept of the New Year's Eve Party is so ingrained in the psyche that it was
unbelievable that the streets on Lunar New Year's Eve were deserted with
everyone at home (or out of town at their family home) playing games and
eating. Chinese New Year is also portrayed in the west as a party with Lion
Dances and firecrackers and people in the streets, and all of these things did
happen, but not all at once.
The flurry of activity in advance was
people buying food. That shouldn't have surprised me, food is central to the
entire Chinese way of life. At the stroke of midnight, mostly teenagers and
college kids hit the streets to set off as many firecrackers as they could get
their hands on. On the first night, the police didn't bother to try to stop
them.
On the next day, the tradition is for daughters to return home to
their family (having spent the previous day with their husband's family).
Another feast is prepared. This time, the son-in-law is the guest of honor as
the parents want to make sure he takes the daughter back with him when he
leaves. The third day people begin to return home and then day-by-day after
that life begins to returns slowly to normal.
During the next 2 weeks, the signs of
New Year are still all around and lantern decorations begin to
appear.
Finally, the Lantern Festival arrives, the New Year's Party that
didn't happen. As I indicated before, the organized celebration in Taipei was
packed, everyone was there, but what did the party consist of? The Horns
produce a 10 minute light show, shown every half hour. There is a
half-kilometer block of food vendors and 2 more blocks of that length showing
"lanterns". The lanterns are intricate, ornate, beautiful, sometimes pretty
lame, but essentially non-mobile parade floats.
There are some live
performers at the stage each night, but apart from that, little else of
note.
Other cities around Taiwan has variations of the festival. In
Tainan, for instance, millions of firecrackers are exploded. Participants need
to wear heavy clothes to avoid being burned. The streets end up 2 inches deep
in firecracker casings. Perhaps I expected more from the major holiday of 1/4
of the planet's population. Maybe it could never live up to my
expectations.
It was all fun, but it wasn't the end-all-to-be-all
holiday I somehow anticipated.
Associated Links:
Din Tai Fung - Chinese only
Eslite Books - Chinese only
Pacific Sogo Department Store - Chinese only |
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