My First Dinner in Asia

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

March, 21, 2012 - Taipei, Taiwan.  Last night I skipped any formal dinner.  Last night was our first (arrival) day in Taipei/Asia and even after the 12+ hours of traveling, I gave 3 or 4 training presentations.  In other words, by dinner time, I was exhausted and decided to go to bed early.  My dinner last night was some Hershey’s chocolate that I had brought as a gift for my colleagues in China (I had plenty more to go around) and a Coke that I bought at the 7-11, next door to the hotel.  This Taiwanese 7-11, instead of smelling from over-grilled, burnt hot dogs, smelled more from hard-boiled eggs simmering in a big black kettle and rice balls sitting in bamboo steamers.

Tonight, Sara, my assistant and translator on this trip, had plans with her Taiwanese relatives and no one else was around, so I decided to eat out on my own.  This was after ruling out just eating more Hershey's.  I took the elevator down from my room to the second floor and I tried the Japanese/sushi house located in the hotel.  Despite the international relations and cultural conflicts between China/Taiwan and Japan, the Chinese and Taiwanese sure love Japanese food (even in the US).

Picture menus are extremely common in Asia.  This practice runs counter to what Gordon Ramsey once said on Kitchen Nightmares, “if I see a picture menu I usually run from the place.”  But…whatever.  Gordon is not always consistent.

My table had a view overlooking the street and the entrance to the Xinpu Metro station.  My waitress spoke no English, but gave me an English menu.  Westerners are typically automatically given knives and forks.  It is assumed we do not know how to use chop sticks.  However, if you go as far as you can with the chopsticks, your Asian dinner partners will be impressed.  My only problem when using chopsticks is eating fine noodles, partially due to the fact that while Western etiquette frowns upon raising your bowl all the way up to your mouth is is entirely proper under Chinese etiquette.  As for the English menus, the English here was not all the helpful.  Here, each individual menu item was not described in English.  Rather, the menu used English for generalities, such as “Eight course dinner for one…Price….” or "fish", "meat", "noodles".

Anyway, I checked my wallet for how many New Taiwan Dollars I had and picked something and just went with it.  After all, I wanted to be a little daring on this trip.

The first course gave the meal a strong and colorful start.  A light vegetable salad with a rice wine vinegar/palm sugar dressing.  As a big fan of rice wine vinegar (Joanie and I use a lot of it in our Thai Cucumber Salad recipe and mixed with some sesame chili oil), and despite the asparagus, I gave this course a 9 and raised my expectations for the overall meal.

First Course: Rating: 9

Unfortunately, the second course was terrible, if not absolutely gross.  From the first photo it looks like some kind of maki sushi.  However, as shown in the second photo, the green was not nori (seaweed), it was some kind of spinach base supporting the "whatever" was on top.  As I don’t like spinach and I did not at all like the "whatever" was on top of the spinach, I gave this course a big-fat 0 and did not finish it.  By now, my non-English speaking waitress was getting a kick out of me taking apart and photographing each course.

Second Course: Rating 0

The third course was definitely a 10 and the highlight of the meal.  I don’t know what it was, but it had the taste of lightly-browned mashed potatoes.  The sauce was similar to the teryaki normally placed over unagi (eel), but not as thick (e.g., more watery).  The taste of potato, something as American as they come and one of my favorites, made me smile. Whatever this was, even if tofu, I did not care; it tasted like potato.

Third Course: Rating 10

The fourth course, I give an 8.  This was the first of many whole fishes that I would be given to eat over the next two weeks.  Whole fish was not very popular in the Reiss house, either growing up or now, but I am not against ordering whole sea bass or rainbow trout on rare occasions.  The fish was tender, mild/medium flavor and minimal loose bones, though it did have that big evil eye thing going on.  No one that I showed the picture to over the next 2 weeks knew the English name for this fish.

Fourth Course: Rating 8

The fifth course was a 5.  The light miso broth and presentation of the carved pattern in the small broccoli were highlights.  The HARD carrot, and mushy tofu dragged the course’s rating down.

Fifth Course: Rating 5

The sixth course earned a 5.  Two nigiri sushi pieces and one maki type sushi.  Whatever it was in the maki, it was pretty gross.  The sushi, itself was average.

Sixth Course: Rating 5

The dessert course was a 10. Watermelon, papaya, and something tasting like a honeydew.

Sixth Course: Rating 10

The final average score for the dinner was a 6.2 raw score.  I will boost that .5 for the excitement of not knowing what to expect next, having little clue what you were eating, and superior service usually given to foreigners.  Total rating for dinner: 6.9.