Saturday, July 12, 2008

Gettin' busy


Summer classes started this week, so I'm busier than I've ever been since arriving in Taiwan. My blog entries have always been sporadic, but they may become even more so during the next six weeks.

I started seeing a Chinese tutor last Wednesday. The class is only for one hour, once a week, but with this hectic summer teaching schedule, it's just as well. Fortunately, the class is enough of an incentive to get my butt in gear and start seriously learning Chinese (isn't that one of the main reasons I came here?!)

As of today I have a new favorite Taiwanese food, 鴨肉麵(ya1 rou4 mian4), Duck Meat Noodles. OMG, it is so delicious! Anyone who knows me is aware that I hate pickles, but this dish has some kind of pickled vegetable in it, and its crunchy, tangy taste compliments the soup perfectly. What's next, me eating nasty cottage cheese?!

The place I got it at was recommended by a couple of students, and it's located just down the road from my work...how convenient! The restaurant is called 宜蘭滷之鄉 (yi2 lan2 lu3 zhi1 xiang1) which, when I looked up the characters, is literally "Yilan Gravy Village" or something like that. I'm guessing that Yilan is known for a particular style of sauce. The Duck Meat Noodles were so delicious that I'll be adventurous and try the Duck Feet and Duck Heads soon.

It's a beautiful Sunday--sunny and 86F--so I'm headed to Taipei to visit friends.


2 comments:

  1. i love sweet pickles, but yeah, i draw the line at cottage cheese. i always say it's something they used to throw out, but then one day someone got brave and tasted it!

    dylan brought home something from L.A. that i never saw before..it's a japanese thing where they take the rind from a melon and sort of grind it up and pickle it, dye it pink, and shape it into sausage shape and you slice it..it's sweet. they stick peppercorns in it to simulate watermelon seeds!

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  2. Michael, that Japanese dish reminds of something I had in Italy years ago. It looked just like a roll of salami, complete with marbled "fat" when you sliced it, but it was actually a chocolate-flavored dessert. Such clever cooks out there!

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