Posted in food photography, food review, taiwan, travel

Taiwan Food Experience Days 5-8

Our epic journey continues on in the run up to xmas and we started day 5 with a visit to a large department store in Zhubei called 四川吳抄手 遠百竹北店 and it was Michelin recommended for a few dishes, the slow roasted pulled pork being one of them:

It was very rich and flavourful but I thought the pork could have used more cooking time as it was a bit chewy.

Continue reading “Taiwan Food Experience Days 5-8”
Posted in British, experimental, fine dining, food photography, hospital, Uncategorized

A critical appraisal of hospital food

On a recent 4 night trip to hospital me and my SO had the privilege sampling the very best the NHS has to offer in terms of hospital food.

I must admit my expectations were fairly low, which is a bit harsh considering I’ve eaten a cat food stir fry; but who cares, what’s up first?

6

Erm. orange juice, some desert thing, pork chop avec une carrot et potato sauce.

The first thing that strikes me before I sample what I’m sure will be absolutely delicious meal, is just how accomplished the chef’s knife skills are. Every bit of carrot diced to symmetrical perfection:

7

And the taste? Fairly cuboid but with all the corners on the inside … and watery.

Next up the potato sauce:

11

This was actually quite nice; rich and umami with a dash of texture one did not expect on such a tight budget of approximately zero pence.

Next up the pork chop!

16

Which looks hopelessly dry and barren and chewy and lost and hopeless, but was perplexingly rather nice and edible. Shocked! I tell thee!

And finally on to dessert, which I think is some kind of crumble with custard:

9

Perfectly acceptable and edible.

10

Er, yay.

The next evening the entree was – I think – a burger. And once again our old friends carrot and potato made a welcome appearance:

17

One thing I need to draw your attention to is the gravy which seems to exist in a kind of quantum state. Let’s get the microscope and explore more of this microcosmos of food heaven:

15

As you can see, it has a gravy component and a strange unidentified negative spin anti component of yellow, which you might think is saturated fat, but I’m not so sure, I think it’s just grease. Anyway, ‘Burger Extravaganza’ was totally edible.

The next evening we were served more expertly diced vegetables, potato sauce and some kind of sausage entity:

18

This was fine and the sausage tasted exactly like the ones you get down the chip shop except without the batter.

On our final evening we had vegetarian calzone, or collapsed lasagne or I really have no idea what this was:

14

And this too was totally edible and not as sickly or undercooked as it looks!

So that’s my review of hospital food over four incredible evenings. My expectations were surpassed and I was impressed with the level of tasti-ness the food had, despite some questionable presentation skills (which I know the chef is working on).

But you may be asking, why were we in hospital?

This wee guy arrived, 8.9 lbs 6.44 PM May 23:

kid

But what do you think? Been to hospital recently? What did you have? A girl? A potato? Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook and let me know!

Posted in chinese, ethnic, experimental, fast food, fine dining, fish, food photography, food review, fungi, fusion, holiday food, japanese, oriental, taiwan, Uncategorized

Things I’ve Learned Stuffing Myself In Taiwan

14993559_10154045512027966_8809291375523534925_nStar anise ribs, chicken with chili, potato starch prawns, intestine, stinky tofu and chili, chicken with glutenous rice flour balls, green beans, stir fried squid. 

In Taiwan you will experience things you probably wouldn’t get a chance to in the West; over the past couple weeks I’ve had things like fish jaw, intestines, jellied pork blood, sea urchin and god knows whatever else. Continue reading “Things I’ve Learned Stuffing Myself In Taiwan”

Posted in chinese, ethnic, fast food, food photography, holiday food, oriental, travel

Taiwan Day One

Looks like the only excuses I need to write about food these days are A: when a new variety of cat food comes out or B: when I go travelling abroad.

Seeing as my GF is Taiwanese and hasn’t seen her folks in nearly two years a trip to Taiwan was planned and this is the first of what will be many food travelogueablogs or blaveralallels or blogetraveloparallelograms. Continue reading “Taiwan Day One”