Day trip to Taiwan's Northern Coast

It's the American Thanksgiving weekend, so we have a four-day weekend. We spent Thursday riding bikes to DaJi (大直) and Friday running errands. Nick went on a church retreat on Friday night with his pastor and friends from the Taipei International Church youth group and won't return until Sunday. So, it's just the three of us to go on our road-trip to Taiwan's northern coast.
The weather is perfect today. It's sunny, dry and cool, at around 15-20 degrees Celsius. We left our apartment at around 9am and drove towards Shanji (三芝). Enroute, we saw an interesting place called, Miss Olive's. It's just off the beach of Chan-sui-wan (淺水灣) and has a wonderful view of the Taiwan Strait. It is a fancy bed-and-breakfast/bar/restaurant about an hour from Taipei. It looked really interesting, so we stopped and parked our car to take a closer look. Unfortunately, we walked in at around 10:30am and the place was not officially open. Clearly, there weren't any overnight guests today, but it looked like it had a busy Friday night. There were quite a few dirty glasses still on the bar and a BBQ grill that saw some recent activities.

Our next stop was the Gunde Water-wheel park (根德水車園區) which showed a working model of a "water wheel." This is to illustrate how irrigation is done in this area. The park is not yet fully furnished but it is quite pretty. By this time, we were beginning to feel a little hungry and wanted something to eat. The first interesting place we saw was the Shimen (石門) county agriculture coop. It featured local produce as well as sticky-rice dumplings (粽子). Between the three of us, we tried one "northern" and one "southern" dumpling and agreed that the southern one tasted better. The northern one was tasty, but it was a little dry. The southern version was sticky and gooey as well as full of flavours. At NTD35 each or NTD100 for three, it's a good buy. About 100 meters further, we saw a huge crowd outside another roadside shop also selling dumplings. It's the Liu Family (劉家) dumpling shop. This place has been recommended by TV shows and newspaper, so there were a lot of tourists out front. We stopped our car and sampled one northern and one southern dumpling at this shop as well. While the northern version was better this time, more moist and flavourful, the southern one was a little bland.

After the snacking we've done, we decided to visit check out Shanji. After visiting the tourist information (a beautiful building on the hills of Shanji), we decided that the only place we were interested in visiting was a ceramic art studio. Unfortunately, the studio was closed and would not open until 1 or 2pm. So, we set off to our next destination, Jingshan (金山).

While we have driven past Jingshan several times, we have never stopped there. We decided to visit the old street (老街) and check out the shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, the old street here is not too different from old streets in the other parts of Taiwan. The street is filled with vendors of various food items including peanuts, preserved olives, candies, toys,..etc. The local specialty is the sweet potatoes and you can see it (in various forms) offered ever so often along the old street. About half way down the old street, you will see a huge crowd of people. Many of these people will be running around with one or two plates of freshly cooked food. This is the famous duck restaurant in front of the Guan-an Temple (廣安宮). This is truly an amazing place. All together, there are around eight or ten (or more) places with tables and chairs around Guan-an Temple where people would sit and eat. The would go to the duck shop to get their boiled duck (NTD120 per plate of about half a duck), then go to Guan-an Temple to get freshly cooked seafood, vegetables, soup, fried noodles,..etc. There must be over 20 varieties of dishes to choose from. Since we were there at peak lunch time hour (around 12:45), the place was packed. There were people 3-4 deep, waiting to grab food that just came off the wok. Since we have been snacking, we just took a plate of duck, a plate of duck gizzards (heart, I think) and a plate of fried noodles. In terms of taste, the duck was very good and cheap. The gizzard was interesting with somewhat chewy texture but the noodles were tasteless. It would be better if we had come with more people so that we could try a few more dishes. It is very cheap and worth visiting again with a larger group. Matthew was hoping to find souvenir but wasn't able to find anything worth buying. Felicia, however, shopped and bought a couple of kilograms of sweet potatoes to take home.

After eating, we decided to go for a hike in the nearby Lion Head Hill (獅頭山). It is about a 5 minute drive from the Jingshan Old Street. The hike we took was about 1 km from the parking lot to the top of the hill where we could have a great view of the "Twin Candle Stick rock" (燭台雙嶼) in the middle of Pacific Ocean. There were a lot of rock formations down by the beach and Matthew was able to demonstrate his amazing rock climbing skills to us during our hike. We hiked for about an hour before turning back and return home to Taipei.

Fang's Restaurant 方家小館

In celebration of Frank's visit and his 40th birthday and to coordinate with the boys' school schedule, we had dinner at Fang's on Tien Mu East Road last night. Fang's is a pretty standard Shanghainese restaurant, featuring the usual Shanghainese fare such as stewed fatty pork (東坡肉), stir fried crabs (醬爆蟹), steamed dumplings (小籠包) and soup with ham and bamboo shoots(醃篤鮮). Apart from these, Fang's has branched out into food from other Chinese provinces such as Szchewanese and Cantonese food. Fang's is also the only decent Chinese restaurant (other than a couple of Taiwanese restaurants) in the Tienmu area.

We have been to Fang's a number of time and the food quality has been consistently good, albeit not spectacular. Apart from all of the above mentioned dishes, we had drunken chicken(醉雞)/sliced spicy beef tripe(蔴辣肚絲) for appetizer, followed by sea cucumbers with "tiger paws" (海蔘虎掌 which was excellent), stewed beef brisket(牛腩堡), spicy intestine stew (五更腸旺), scallion pancake, three-cup mushrooms (三杯杏鮑菇) as well as the traditional birthday noodles. Nick and Matt also requested a plate of shrimp fried rice and it was polished off by the two boys within 10 minutes.

Annie's Dad, brought a magnum of Chateau Margaux '86 to share. Unfortunately, the cork had rotted and disintegrated during the decorking process and the wine was probably shaken from the long journey from Uncle Tsu's home. Nevertheless, we finished the magnum of fine wine between Annie, her Dad and I with gusto. While I have never developed a taste for expensive French wines, this bottle was very tasty despite of the initial mishaps.

The dinner was topped off with a sugarless cheese cake from Florida Bakery.

Overall, our dining experience was good and the service was great. While all of the food items we ordered were good, I would specifically like to mention and recommend the "tiger paws" which is a pork tendon "part." When properly stewed, it offers fantastic texture (gelatenous) and flavour.

Food: **
Ambiance: *
Price: $$/$$$
Repeat visit: ***

TAS Citi Invitational Swim Meet -- a family affair

As part of the Taipei American School's Tigershark swim team, Matthew entered the 2008 Citi Invitational Swim meet held on 22-23 November. Nicholas who had attended this annual event since 2005 has decided to give it a pass this year, but volunteered instead as an official at the meet.

Due to the number of swimmers, over 400 representing 15 schools/clubs and four countries, the swim meet was held over one and an half day. Events ran for twelve hours on Saturday (8:15am to 8:00pm) and four on Sunday. Again, due to the large numbers of swimmers, our kids had to arrive TAS by 6:10am on Saturday and 6:30am on Sunday, for warm-up and pre-race stretching. For the second home meet in a row, Peter was assigned to run the marshaling area. As with such a large number of swimmers, we decided to divide marshaling into a main marshaling area by the pool and a pre-marshaling area in the upstairs gym area. Peter was assigned to run, along with Coach Kuhlke, the pre-marshaling area with Nick running the main marshaling area. Felicia who also attended the races on Saturday, also filled in various posts as necessary.

All in all, Matthew swam five events, the 100m IM, 100m Free, 200m Breast, 50m Free and 100m Breast, and getting a "personal best" in each of his five events. Nick worked the entire day and a half of the meet without taking a break, setting new record for holding his bladder for the longest time.

The event concluded with an award ceremony at the Grand Hotel, hosting 600 swimmers, coaches and parents, to a lunch buffet. While Matthew did not win any individual award, we had a good time participating in this event.

As an aside, a real upside from attending an "international" event is meeting up with old friends. We were surprised to see our friends, the Jettons, from Singapore then Japan were part of the visiting HK International School team. Also visiting were former TAS families, the Hsiaos and the Fangs, now representing HKIS.

基隆海鮮和式料理(天母店) -- Keelung Seafood Restaurant

We came here for dinner last Friday night (11/14/08). We had a late dinner there after visiting Felicia's mom at the hospital. Since Nick was attending a TAS dance performance and Matt ate with his grandmother, there were only three diners (Felicia's dad, Felicia and Peter) that night.


Keelung Seafood Restaurant Tien-mu is part of a Taiwanese/Japanese-style seafood restaurant chain which serves shushi, sashimi as well as a variety of stir-fry seafood and vegetables. The Tien-mu location is on De-shing (德行) East Road, just west of Jung-cheng (忠誠) Road. While it is not located in the fanciest part of town, the restaurant gives an expensive, sophisticated look from the outside with a lot of dark-colored wood paneling and dimmed lighting. There wasn't a valet service available but we were able to find street parking just in front of the restaurant.


We ordered a small bowl of "pickled or raw" clams to start, followed by a plate of stir-fry clams, anchovy with peanuts and a steamed fish. We also ordered a plate of "mountain vegetables" or "山蘇" and a small serving of Taiwanese specialty - smoked shark meat or "鯊魚煙" with boiled pork liver. We topped off our dinner off with Uni handrolls for Felicia and Peter, an Ikura handroll for Matthew and a bowl of very tasty seafood soup noodles for Felicia's dad. With two bottles of beer and soda for Matt, the bill came in just below NT$2000.

Overall, the food was fresh and tasty but not spectacular.



Food: **
Ambiance: **
Price: $$
Repeat visit: *

一品巧廚 (Yi-Ping Kitchen)

After Nick wrote about the Kamakura-tei this afternoon, we decided to start a restaurant review section for our blog.

The restaurant under review tonight was recommended by Leelee Heng who brought Felicia here once before. It is a small restaurant which seats about 20-30 people. When we arrived on a Saturday evening at 8pm, it was about 30% full. I think they do quite a bit of take-out services as well. The restaurant serves Shanghainese dim-sums such as steamed dumplings, wontons, noodles, rice-cakes, as well as a few stir-fry dishes. The selections are limited but most items were quite tasty. We think the specialty of the house is probably their steamed dumplings. We had one basket (10) of the regular--pork stuffed dumplings, one with crab roes (in season during Autumn) as well as one stuffed with red-bean-paste (for dessert). The dumplings are wrapped and steamed after we ordered, so they are very fresh. Additionally, we had two bowls of wontons (one vegetarian and one with shrimps) with dry noodles and one order of soupy rice-cakes. The steamed stinky toufu was very stinky but quite tasty -- it was stinky enough for Nick to give it a pass. We also had a plate of stir-fry cabbage which was okay.

Overall, we had a decent experience and would visit again when we have cravings for steamed dumplings.

Food: **
Ambiance: none
Price: $
Repeat visit: **

Rating guide: Food and ambiance is rated from none to four stars; $-less than NT$300 per person; $$-NT$300-600 per person; $$$-NT$601-900 per person; $$$$-over NT$901 per person; Repeat visit: *-maybe; **-probably; ***-definitely.

Kamakura-Tei: Fried Pork Cutlet

As you walk past the Tien Mu Wellcome, you eyes might lock on to Kamakura-Tei, a Japanese fried pork cutlet restaurant. As you walk in, a waiter or waitress will greet you and take you to your table. Well, when we went this afternoon, that happened. I order a pork cutlet with fried egg, Matthew order a curry pork cutlet, and Mom order pork cutlet with shredded radish. Dad wasn't hungry at the time. It took 1:14 min for the first thing to arrive. It was some shredded cabbage and sauce. Then Mom's arrived in 8:45 min, while Matt 1min behind. Finally, my entree arrived in 10min.
There is a major difference between Chinese fried pork cutlet and Japanese pork cutlet. The Chinese version is usually not fried with bread crumbs. Japenese style is heavily fried with bread crumbs to make it crunchier. Also, Chinese style pork cutlet can be covered in a soy sauce. The other style is usually served with a thick sauce or curry. Finally, Japanese style pork cutlet is thicker than the other.
When you bite into a Japanese style pork cutlet, the initial feeling is the way it crunches under your teeth. After the first bite, your mouth will yearn for more. It takes years and years of practice to prevent you from finishing your cutlet within five minutes. Chinese cutlet, is usually harder and takes more time to chew, but the taste is extravagant too. Because of its shape, the oil usually drips out leaving an oil free cutlet.
The service was exceptionally good because the waiter or waitress ask if we would like more rice, soup or shredded cabbage. Many restaurants don't offer that kind of service. The price is worth it. About 250 NTD each person. If you are in the area and is looking for something besides Chinese food or Western, try Kamakura, the Japanese style fried pork cutlet.

We were ROBBED!!

Since moving to our apartment in Yu Sheng Street which only has one indoor parking space for us, we have been parking one of our cars on the street. Felicia and I have been taking turns parking our cars outside, depending on who is able to find a "good" outside space. Apart from street parking, there is an unmanned parking lot across the street from our apartment which operates on a first-come-first-served basis and is entirely free. There are a total of around 10-12 spaces there and we have been parking there whenever we are able to find a space.

After picking up the kids from swimming on Monday night, I parked our four-year-old Honda CRV in the parking lot across the street at around 7pm. Since I parked the car in a "good" spot, Felicia drove her car, her Mom's Nissan March, to bring the kids to school on Tuesday morning. When I finally made my way to the Honda, to go to the American Club for a workout, I discovered that WE'VE BEEN ROBBED!!" There wasn't any visible damage to the exteriors (other than the ones we have made ourselves) of the car. But, when I opened the car door, I discovered that the top of the car's steering wheel (where the airbag was located) was gone and the passenger airbag was gone as well. Furthermore, our tennis rackets including Matthew and Nicholas's new rackets from this summer, which we normally keep in the back of our car were also stolen from us.

The police came within 15 minutes of my call and took my statements and some photographs. Apparently, I was the third person to have reported stolen airbags that day. Even the Honda Dealership was out of airbags on the back of a recent "surge" in demand. While we don't expect to see our airbags ever again, we do hope our police will "solve" the case and get our tennis rackets back!!

Lessons: 1. never leave anything valuable in your car!!! 2. Cars with airbags should park inside -- at least in Taiwan!!

How do you like them burger

We BBQ often when- and wherever we are. Normally we would BBQ some steaks, baby back ribs, lamb chops, chicken wings/thighs, and an assortment of sausages and/or fish. It is rare that we BBQ burgers at home. In fact, before this summer, I don't recall the last time we grilled burgers for our kids or our guests. So, while we were at our home in California this past summer, Nick asked me to do some burgers and this is what I prepared: 3/4 pounds of ground sirloin, minced garlic, onion, parsley, a pinch of salt, paper, smoked paprika and some olive oil. I may have added some other stuff which I can't recall for now. The burger is served on a toasted bun with lettuce and a fried egg on top. The result is this huge burger that requires two hands to handle. Yummmm.

Everyone's winner!!

Everyone's winner at the ACC Fall Tennis Championship. While both Nick and Matt lost their first round matches, they won their respective second match during the Consolation round and met each other in the Consolation Final last Sunday. It was a hard-fought match between the brothers which took over one hour to complete. Matt shot out of the gate strongly and built a 5-1 lead but Nick was able to come all the way back to get even on serves at 4-serving-5. The boys traded the subsequent two games to reach 6-5 for Matthew before Matt closed out the match beating Nick 8-5 to win the Consolation Championship for the second time in a row. As you can see from the attached picture, everyone came away a winner at the Award Ceremony yesterday. Philip Chang, a good friend of both Matt and Nick was the runner-up in the Boys Championship (also for the second consecutive tournament at ACC). Not only did the boys receive their respective trophy, they were also winners at the lucky draw. Nick won a sports bag and Phil won a scarf while Matt took home the Grand Prize -- a new NTD8,000 tennis racket from Head!! What a wonderful evening for the boys!!

This is the beginning

After procrastinating for many months, we have finally started a blog about us: the Fung and Yeh Family. The main bloggers will (hopefully) be Peter, Felicia, Nicholas and Matthew. We will try to post interesting events in our daily lives to be shared with our friends and family around the world.

Stay tuned!!