Feasting at the Table of Taipei - NYTimes

Some of you know that Liz and I lived in Taipei from 2002 to 2003. This was before Philadelphia and NYC. It seems like a long time ago now, but it remains in my mind a really wonderful time. It doesn't take much to trigger nostalgia in me, so this article from yesterday's Times sent the nostalgia meter through the roof: Feasting at the Table of Taipei.

This opening paragraph is a great teaser...

LIKE any great restaurant, Old Wang Beef Noodle Soup King has no sign. It sits on Taoyuan Street, not far from Taiwan’s presidential palace, and there are pretty much only two ways you’d know to go there instead of the similar noodle shops that surround it. Either you spy the line, which is long but fast-moving, and figure all those families, businessmen on lunch break and fashionable college kids are onto something. Or you catch the scent of broth — soy, anise, chilies, beef — which draws you inexorably into the dining room, where your intrepidity is rewarded with chewy wheat noodles, a rich and clean-tasting soup and hunks of meat that shred juicily at the slightest pressure from your tongue. There may be no better beef noodle soup in all of Taipei.

And another paragraph to convince you to read the whole thing...

Which is a pity if you like to eat, for food is one arena where Taipei — the world’s most underrated capital city, according to Monocle magazine — blows Beijing away. Its food incorporates more influences, spans street food to haute cuisine with greater aplomb and is out and out more delicious than that of its mainland counterpart. Not to mention that its people are perhaps the most comestible-crazed Asians outside of Singapore — no excursion is complete without, say, a bag of stewed duck tongues at journey’s end.

I'm obviously biased because I happen to be Taiwanese, but I do agree that Taipei is one of the most underrated cities in the world. I miss Taipei. Here are some pictures for fun...

Our tiny little apartment near Shi Da (Taipei Normal University). Don't look too closely, I'm wearing boxers only. I was probably sitting there working on my business school applications.


Shilin Night market with our friends Tony and Sanli Yang who were visiting us from Beijing/Shanghai at the time. They are now in the Bay Area, expecting their first kid. We look so young and carefree in these pictures, ha!
The world-famous Din Tai Fung...what can I say? The most amazing Shanghai soup dumplings. The article mentions this place. There's an outpost in Arcadia, CA, which is really good. But just not quite the same.

This picture below is actually from 2006, not 2002-2003. Taipei has tons of these really hip cafe's. Cafe Melange is one of our new favorites.
Fried dumplings, or "guo-tieh." This place, called Overseas Chinese Dragon - or something like that (haha, Taiwan can still be a bit tacky), is one on of the best places for guo-tieh even though it's a chain. I'm salivating thinking about it...

If you've read this far, thanks for indulging me on my trip down memory lane.