蒜味肉羹 (Garlic flavored meat 'geng')

This place is in 宜蘭 (Yi Lan County), so I likely won't be going back. Actually, the only reason I got to go in the first place was because my Aunt K wanted to go, but even she said that they only get to go once every 3 years or so. So considering all that, I guess I got a real treat haha. It's called 蒜味肉羹 (suan wei rou geng), which is exactly what it sells. The store front is, uh... well it's pretty crappy. In a beat up back road like street, it's a shack that is roughly the size of a small studio in NYC. The 'kitchen' is outside, where there's a giant vat of soup broth, and a second vat of the pork and fish paste. Inside, there are only 3 tables, maybe a total of 15 cheap metal chairs, and pretty much nothing else. If hole in the wall could be quantified as a measurable statistic, then this place is off the charts. This clearly hasn't hurt business though, since it was absolutely packed (we waited 15 minutes just to share a table with another family), and there was a fairly long line waiting for takeout.


肉羹 (rou geng) translates to... honestly I don't know what it translates to. It's pork which has a layer of fish paste applied to the outside, the same paste that is used to make fish balls and tempura (the Taiwanese variety). When placed in a pork soup base thickened with cornstarch, and mixed with Jew's ear mushrooms, bamboo, cilantro, and garlic... what results is the quintessential Taiwanese street cart food known as rou geng. What sets this place apart is the garlic though. From about 100 meters away, you can smell the overwhelming smell of fresh garlic, which is their trademark. We ordered 2 orders of regular rou geng and 2 orders of 肉羹粿 (rou geng guo/gui), all of which were 45 NT ($1.50). Yet another triumphant win for Taiwan, I'm pretty sure 3buckbites would fail miserably here, not... enough... bandwidth. The rou geng was thick and gloopy (I'm not sure that's a real word) and tasted adequate enough, but the standout thing about this place was the fact that their meat was almost all pork, and just a thin layer of fish paste (really uncommon given how cheap Taiwanese vendors usually are), and also that the garlic is overwhelmingly spicy (no hot sauce needed). All in all, probably the best I've had in Taiwan, which is fairly high praise, since you can find this everywhere, and I've eaten this at a lot of place. The one with the noodles... uh, I didn't try it, but it's the same base, so I imagine it's probably pretty awesome too. Would I recommend this place...? Hmm... I really want to, I really do, but I hurt thinking about not being able to go back lol. That and I don't have the faintest clue what the address is. If you were to see that store frong though... stop your car, get out, eat a bowl, and get 10 to go. I swear you won't regret it.

I had a really good run this morning, did a lap around 大安... ran over to CKS memorial hall... ran over to the President's office (where I got to see their morning flag ceremony), then sprinted back to my house. I didn't bother timing it since I had to stand still for the flag thing, but it felt moderately well paced. Final distance ended up being much further than I wanted to run, which was 8k, since I came in around 6.76 miles. You know, since I started working, I've found that I'm much more fatigued in the morning, that I doze off at work during meetings (in front of the Taiwanese equivalent of Stephen Hawking no less), and that I don't want to run. I need to find a way to fix this.

distance for the day: 6.76 miles
distance biked for the day: 0.00 miles

distance on the year: 381.01 miles
distance biked on the year: 142.68 miles
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Squid 'geng' (魷魚羹)

Sure, I've written about the thick starchy soup known as 肉羹 before, but when you take that same winning recipe and substitute in succulent pieces of fish paste battered squid, well that's a game changer. The premise is more or less the same, garlic and bonito flake laced pork broth, thickened by cornstarch, is filled with juicy pieces of randomly shaped pieces of squid, sliced bamboo shoots, thinly sliced slivers of mushroom, and topped with cilantro. Doesn't that sounds just freakin' dandy?

The above bowl was from a small shop in 中崙 (Zhong Lun), on 遼寧街 (Liao Ning Street), called '三代圓環老店阿財魚翅肉羹.' Let's just ignore how stupid and long that name is. Supposedly, their family has been in the squid geng pimping business for the past 3 generations, and I always figure you don't stay in business for that long without being at least halfway decent. For, I think, 50 NT ($1.50), it's not exactly cheap, since I've seen some street cart vendors selling the same for 35 NT, but you're paying for history... er, sort of, so it's more or less okay. Their version is nothing short of spectacular, blending all the elements of the dish artfully, like a symphony of flavors in your mouth. The subtlety of the squid is articulated, not masked, by the prudent use of garlic, ginger, and fish flakes, with the broth seemingly absorbing every last bit of flavor from the other components. All in all, for what most consider pocket change, you can get a stew that would put most soups in NYC to shame. Sigh... and to think I used to think this mystery meat creation was vile. Man was I a dumb kid.

PS - if a full meal is what you seek, look no further than the addition of thin noodles. A similar, yet at the same time a completely different, experience to that of oyster noodles.
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基隆廟口's best of the rest...

I know what you're thinking... "is he still talking about that stupid seaport? God I wish he'd shut up already." Sorry. Wait, no I'm not. I guess I could've written about 基隆廟口 in a singular long post, but I feel like that would be an insult to each and every incredible shop located there. They're all tremendously unique, and they all deserve their spot in the limelight (even one as weak as my blog). Combine that with the fact that I have the attention span of a goldfish and you'd have a recipe for disaster. Basically you'd get more rambling and made up words than anyone should have to put up with. Anyway, here's a condensed 'best of the rest' post for things I put in my mouth at Keelung.

Stall #55... home of 螃蟹羹, otherwise known as crab 'geng.' Without rehashing a full explanation of what 'geng' is (read here), this stall serves up a crab meat variant. Like Goldilocks said about the stupid porridge, theirs is neither too thick, nor too thin, existing at equilibrium at just the right consistency for slurping with minimal effort. The mushrooms were forgettable, but everything else was spot on. The bamboo shoots were remarkably tender, the cilantro and garlic were playfully complementary in flavor, and the crab meat with fish paste was absolutely sublime. I won't ruin the description by making up fake words to describe how delicious this was, but all I know is for 55 NT ($1.75), you can buy soup that'd put your grandmother's secret recipe to shame. No offense to your grandmothers.



Still from stall #55, is a single serving of 油飯 or oily rice. They're not really famous for this, but it was 25 NT (75 cents). It just seemed like a good value. Besides, you know how Chinese people are... we fucking love rice. Obviously, if I bought soup, I was going to get rice in some capacity. Theirs was pretty average. Nothing really out of the ordinary, just short grain rice cooked with plenty of oil, mushrooms, pork, and shrimp. Nope, what made me decide to mention this was their accompanying orange sauce. I'm not really sure how to explain what it is (you'll see later that it shows up pretty often), but basically it's a thick, citrus flavored sauce (miso based maybe?), that you can slather on just about anything. For reals, I drowned my bowl of rice in this sauce, and oh it delivered.



Hell yeah son, return of sauce! Stall #60 serves up something called 油蔥粿 for 35 NT (just over $1), which is really just taro cake. Another instance of things being lost in translation, this isn't the kind that fat kids like, but rather a savory 糕 kind of cake, like turnip cake. They serve this two ways, either fried or straight from the steamer. Clearly I didn't make the ordering decisions here, as the version I got was steamed, but in the end it doesn't really matter. Having the consistency of a fresh and jiggly rice cake, you have a soft and tender block of... stuff, with the slightest hint of taro flavor. That probably doesn't sound overly appetizing on its own, but the redeeming factor, again, is the sauce. It's like liquid crack that you can pour on everything. Slightly tangy with a long lasting sweetness, this is the stuff of legend. When combined with the steamed block of taro, you get both components of supreme texture and flavor i.e. pure and unadulterated win.

As far as 基隆廟口 goes, I'm sure I only scratched the surface (I wish I were a cow, since then I'd have 3 stomachs), but if a preliminary sampling of random food all turned out this well, I get kind of scared thinking about the potential in the other 50 some odd stalls.
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Jia Xing Yu Wan (嘉興魚丸)

Another in a long list of restaurants I'll probably be visiting soon, 嘉興魚丸 (Jia Xing Yu Wan) serves up Taiwanese/Fuzhou style soups with noodles, fish balls, and I suppose what could be the equivalent of Chinese sausages (not the roasted and charred kind you find at night markets). This kind of store is a dime a dozen in Taipei, and most do a respectable job interpreting what I think is a simple, but amazingly homely dish, and Jia Xing doesn't disappoint. Do I have to even describe what the store looks like? Four words... Dingy, small, tables, and stools. That's it. No extra decorations, this place is entirely about the food. First up was something that I didn't order, my cousin got this dish known as 板條 (Ban tiao). It's basically the rice noodles that most people are somewhat familiar with at Chinese supermarkets, with the same name, which are then cooked up in the fish ball broth, topped with 2 Fuzhou style fish balls, and a pork ball (same kind as in hot pot). Served with a sprinkling of green scallions on top for flavor, it's a simple dish that's pretty satisfying. While I didn't try it, my cousin seemed to like it plenty, and at 50 NT ($1.50... don't quote me on the price), it's a ridiculously cheap meal.

My Aunt K, previously mentioned here, chose to go with a the 猷魚羹 (You yu geng) which is essentially ground pork squeezed with fish paste into little sausages, then dropped in soup. It gets cooked up with bamboo shoots, cilantro, and a whole mess of other ingredients on which I'm not too familiar (and don't care to know) until it's thick in consistency. Like a sweet and sour soup, but on steroids haha. Again, this dish ended up costing the same 50 NT ($1.50... and once again don't quote me on the price, I'm a bit hazy). Since I didn't try this one either, I'm not sure how good it was, but my Aunt seemed pretty indifferent. She did however suggest that there were much better versions of this nearby, so if that's any indication, she wasn't enamored with her bowl. Still, at $1.50, which is literally throwaway change for a lot of people in midtown, I don't think anyone would complain. There is a major drawback to this entree though... since you're already getting meat in the form of 'geng,' you won't be getting their fish balls or pork balls, which they're probably better at/more famous for... which isn't saying much haha.

As for me... since I had already eaten lunch with the 'mom,' I wasn't too keen on having a full on meal, but I have had a recent craving for Fuzhou fish balls, so I decided to go light and split an order. If you look back at the Lin Jiang night market version, it was clearly disappointing (what should I have expected getting fish balls from a place not specializing in that?), so my expectations were somewhat dimmed, and my experience had been sour from the get go. For 40 NT ($1.25) at this place, you get 3 fish balls, a pork ball, and the same broth as the ban tiao dish. The fish balls were definitely solid, thinner skin, more filling than the other place, and the pork ball was pretty good... chewy, but not to the point where you felt like you were gnawing on a super ball. It really was a solid showing, and I have to say, I have to reconsider my stance on fish balls. That said... would I recommend this place? Eh... if you really want to waste your time looking for this specific one, be my guest, but in truth, 75% of the places in Taipei taste just as good, and for the same price. My suggestion is just to slide into any street side stores and order whatever you want, this place probably won't reappear on my 'to-eat-list.'

Oh yeah, if anyone else has the problem I had about not being able to post comments on blogger sites, it's just because you don't have third party cookies enabled. For some reason, this doesn't matter if you're in the US, but if you're overseas, I guess the international sites aren't considered as the 'primary site.' So that's another task resolved (damn you Amex and you're 'agile' development terms).

Lastly... morning run... 7.23 miles in the book, the first 6.5 being solid running, and the latter 3/4 of a mile being stop and go. I had a really nice route from my house to Taipei 101, and then back to CKS memorial hall, where I saw a race event for a 2.6 mile run (unfortunately to officially enter, you had to register a month ago grrr). Whatever, today's run felt really easy, aside from it being overly humid, I'll take what seems to be one of my last good running days before leaving for TTT orientation (woo! first typhoon of the season!).

distance for the day: 7.23 miles
distance biked for the day: 0.00 miles

distance on the year: 333.05 miles
distance biked on the year: 142.68 miles
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