Making the List : TPE - Part II: Din Tai Fung

Went to go watch Black Swan with V and Mama at 1PM.  Not only is that a strange movie to watch so early in the day, but it's an especially awkward movie to watch with your mother-in-law.  I'm not even totally comfortable watching an on-screen kiss next to my parents, so watching Natalie Portman go lesbian two seats down from Mama was especially weird. 

Black Swan was a pretty good movie and I can see why it got all the critical acclaim.  You will especially like it if you're a fan of darkness and downward spirals into insanity.  V's sister later asked us if it was depressing, and I told her it wasn't depressing but it certainly wasn't happy at all.  Lately, I find that life is plenty serious and I gravitate towards films with a little brevity and levity.  This of course makes me super unsophisticated but I maintain that there are dozens of brilliant kung-fu movies we haven't seen. 

鼎泰豐 - Din Tai Fung

I need to do a better job of always carrying V's camera around.  I didn't figure we would stay out after the movie, but we did.  Everyone knows about Din Tai Fung and its xiaolongbao, but I have something different to show you this time around.  The Truffle and Pork Xiaolongbao costs $540 NT for 6 small dumplings making every bit-size piece $3 US.  Yessir these may be the most expensive dumplings in the world.

They certainly look the part.  Peppered with bits of truffle, the rich flavor of fungus blankets your tongue with every bite.  In addition to the perfect preparation that is Din Tai Fung, if you like truffles, you will love these dumplings.  It's dangerous to eat too many of these, but for how much they cost, you probably won't ever get more than six.  Were they worth it?  They're actually not leaps and bounds better than the normal pork xiaolongbao, which are legendary to begin with.  If you want to give them a try, then I say definitely go for it, but it's certainly not one of the dishes I would order every chance I get.

Din Tai Fung in Taipei is actually a lot better than Tokyo's.  So everyone from Japan needs to come and give it a try first hand.  We rounded out the meal with a bean-curd dumpling soup, snow pea tips, and hot and sour soup.  The hot and sour soup is actually the one dish that was most disappointing in Tokyo.  In contrast, V had a really good time with her bowl here.

Bao Zai was pleased.

Yu's Almond Tofu

So V and I headed to Ximending to check out some indie T-shirt shops.  We didn't end up buying anything, but we did stop by Yu's Almond Tofu for some almond tofu topped by almond snow.  Always a treat.  We got some red bean and almond crunch with ours adding some sweetness and texture.  It was awesome.  Everyone else was drinking this almond tofu with soup thing.  I love almond flavored crap and I might need to come back to try all the various incarnations of almond that exist here.

We spent the rest of the night stopping by a number of malls.  On the way to 101, we saw these rental bikes.

Apparently, all you need to do is swipe your metro card (Yo-yo card) and then you can take a bike to go.  Sounds super convenient, but how do they prevent people from just taking the bikes and never returning them.  The Yo-yo card isn't traceable and people don't keep enough of a balance to make it worth a deposit.  Maybe you need a minimum balance on the card to rent a bike?  I dunno.

I feel like we spent all day wandering the city, doing nothing.  Things started to close, and I had no idea where the time had gone. 

We took a short break at an arcarde when I saw this:

It's another Bemani game!  Why do we always see these things in Taipei and not in Tokyo...  This one has balls that bounce around requiring you to tap them when they reach a line at the bottom of the screen.  It's aptly named Reflec Beat.  As expected, it was super fun and I took the first two plays before V hopped in.  She played a 1-star song and then I accidentally chose a 6-star for the last play.  Expecting to have to bail her out, I stood by ready, but she handled the difficulty amazingly well.  We might have to go back and play it again.

Now it's starting to feel like our time is running out in Taipei (which it totally is).  I'm still kinda antsy to get back home though.