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Photos by MJ Klein

Many Taiwan bloggers have articles about this year’s Lunar Festival or more properly called the Mid-Autumn Festival.  So, why would I disappoint our readers by not having an article about this important holiday too?

This year, Hui-chen and I were supposed to visit her family.  Recently her mother had asked me to cook Dutch oven fare for the family as I did last year.  However, on Thursday I became ill with a virulent form of stomach flu and I couldn’t travel anywhere.  I spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday in bed.  On Monday I went out for awhile but I had to go back home early because I just wasn’t feeling well.

This year the actual event took place on September 25.  We were out the night before, at Shao-hui’s of course.  Here we see some of the food that was laid out before we got there.

One of the regular customers handles the grill.  One of the great things about hanging out at Shao-hui’s is that you can serve yourself.

Back inside, Shao-hui prepares some of her legendary marinade.  Every time she makes it, I swear it’s better than the last batch.

Didi is cutting up the pork meat after it came off the grill.

Shao-hui had her people take one of the tables outside just for Hui-chen and I!  We felt like real VIPs.

Here we see Shao-hui (L) and Hui-chen enjoying a good joke.

The fellow working the grill overheard the joke!

We had an interesting mix of the normal Thai fare, plus the grilled food.

Take a look at this Thai style fried rice.

But this combination of shrimp and marinaded grilled pork was an unbelievable as it looks!

Now, we jump forward to September 25:

Regular readers of our blog will recognize this grill.  I brought it to Shao-hui’s because we have had production throughput issues with just one grill.  I am very pleased with the performance of this design.  1/2 bag of charcoal lasted for almost 3 hours.  I am considering a commercial model based on it.  Initially it burns very hot so you have watch the food closely.

We started out with chicken wings, marinaded of course.

Hui-chen handled the grills on this night.  The grill on the left is a cheap model that is difficult to use because you can’t easily replenish the charcoal.

Yes, the shrimp really are blue.  This is just how they looked, shot in natural light.  They were still alive when I placed them on the grill.  They weren’t happy, but fortunately they didn’t know it for very long.

After consuming copious amounts of Sangsom Royal Thai Rum, I took a walk down the street to see what other people were doing.

The usual gang of suspects in various states of inebriation.

This is their grill.  I’d say the fire was a bit excessive!

This shot proves again, that one never knows what one will see in Hukou.  These are 2 Thai guys using a fork truck to move their sofa and coffee table.  Why they chose that night to move has yet to be explained.

The boss at the place where the fire happened the other night, and his grill, now well tamed.

And that, my dear readers, is the last shot that I took.  You see, I had more rum and I also had my guitar with me, so I spent the rest of the evening proving that alcohol does indeed turn you into Jimi Hendrix.

technorati tags:Taiwan, Hukou, Thai, Lunar, festival, grill, food, Shao-hui

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