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Photos by MJ Klein - Attention: FOOD PHOTOS!

UPDATE: I’ve added some video to the end of the article.

It was another great weekend in Taiwan.  The weather let up on us a bit and it got something approaching cooler.  So, when Becky invited us up to their cabin in Miaoli, well we knew it was a great time in the making!

The ride up was spectacular as we took the mountain road that comes up behind the cabin.  We brought our friend Ed with us and he’s very well traveled.  His comment is that he’d never been on a road like that one before and the mountain view was one of the top things he’s ever seen.  We agree!  Taiwan is incredible but you have to get out of Taipei to find out.

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Food and other photos by MJ Klein

It’s been awhile since we had an article featuring food and last weekend had a lot of it!  So now we’re going to show you some of the dishes that we enjoyed!  You have been warned!

Hui-chen and I met some geocachers in Taichung for an event.  We’re Taiwanese so naturally the first thing on the agenda was lunch!

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Photos by MJ Klein - A Few Food Photos….

The Carolina Theatre hosted a nice program for Veterans of World War II, featuring the film The Longest Day, on June 6, 2008. June 6th is better known as “D-Day.” From Wikipedia:

“D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. “D-Day” often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar terms. The initial D in D-Day has had various meanings in the past, while more recently it has obtained the connotation of “Day” itself, thereby creating the phrase “Day-Day”, or “Day of Days”.^[1]“

So even though D-Day is a generic term used in Military Science as time variable, D-Day term has since become synonymous with the invasion of Normandy. Wikipedia has more:

“Normandy Landings were the first operations of the Allied Powers‘ invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Neptune and Operation Overlord, during World War II. D-Day for the operation, postponed 24 hours, became June 6, 1944, H-Hour was 6:30 am. The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault landing of American and British airborne divisions shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France commencing at 06:30 British Double Summer Time. It required the transport of soldiers and materiel from England and Wales by troop carrying aeroplanes and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. There were also subsidiary operations to distract the Kriegsmarine and prevent its interference in the landing areas.^[1]“

Everyone thought that Dad would like to see this program. The only problem with taking Dad was the fact that it conflicted with Elliot’s High School graduation. After deliberation, my sister felt that we should take Dad to the movie and I agreed.

L to R: Janet (sister), Dad, Elliot (Janet’s son) and Wanda (Dad’s wife)

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Photos by MJ Klein and Hui-chen - ATTENTION: FOOD PHOTOS!

This series is a bit out of order.  It doesn’t really matter because we did write about some things just as they occurred, such as our 2 trips to Cabela’s.  So, to set the timeline straight, now would be when we went on the road trip up to West (by God) Virginia and to Cabela’s.

After we returned to North Carolina, Hui-chen and I relaxed for awhile before my brother John arrived from Florida.  Hui-chen decided to make some more Taiwanese style food, since we were really missing home.

This is Hui-chen’s famous stew, with pork and vegetables.  It’s as good as it looks and even better!

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Photos by MJ Klein  Caution: Food Photos!

As most of you know by now, Hui-chen and I went back to the USA for about 3 weeks. The reason for this trip will become apparent in future parts of this series. In Part One, I want to introduce you to a few people and places.

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Photos by Huang Shao Mao, Hui-chen and MJ Klein

This article has it all - music, drinking, food, and babes!

Introduction

I am producing the Fong band’s new recording sessions. This is the first production gig I’ve had in Taiwan, and I hope to get more. I’ve really missed producing and it felt great to get back into the studio, although these days “the studio” is a lot different from the 2″ analog tape and huge mixing consoles I’m used to.

In the past, given my considerable experience, I sometimes have performed on records that I’ve produced. This is nothing unusual, and in the case of the Fong band sessions, I played the backing guitar parts, mainly because it would be faster and much more consistient. It remains to be seen whether either of the two guitar players will add some parts to the recording, but at this writing, I personally played all the guitar parts. Needless to say, I won’t be doing any singing on these records because the songs are in the Thai language. I’m sure that I could learn the phonetic pronunciation and fake it but there isn’t any need for me to do so. These guys can sing quite well and we used 3 of them in a “gang vocal” configuration that you’ll see later (with photos taken from video stills).

So I hope you enjoy this article about what we did over the weekend. I enjoyed doing all these things for sure!

Bryan Chen, owner and engineer of Wellrick Studio

It was a weekend full of music and fun. It all started out on Friday (which was a holiday here in Taiwan). First, it was guitars, guitars, Burns and VOX mayhem and more guitars!

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Food Photos by MJ Klein

I know it’s been awhile since we showed you any homestyle Taiwanese cooking. So, we’re going to make up for that right now! Hui-chen’s sister Hui-ling and her son were visiting. The sisters decided to do some cooking, so they made a ton of dumplings, including wontons.

Without any further delay, let’s get right into the photos!

This is the base meat, consisting of ground pork and spices.

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Photos by MJ Klein

On our little trip to Wulai, we’ve seen that there is a lot more to the place than simply the waterfall for which it is famous. Wulai has hot springs, a river that is used for bathing, a downtown shopping area and an historical passenger railroad, in addition to the waterfall. Also many people don’t realize that you can see several other waterfalls within a few kilometers of Wulai. There are some excellent trails in the area for hiking.

We’re going to take a look at a few things on the way down to the waterfall. One of them is another shot of what’s been called “the cutest little train” the Log Cart.

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Hui-chen and I decided to go out for some Western style food last night.  We like steak and in nearby Jhubei is the Outback.  We’ve blogged on it before and we’re convinced that this will be the last time, unless they seriously upgrade their menu and service.

First, I ordered their “jacked potato” which is a stuff baked potato.  10 minutes later I was told that they were out of all potato items except “chips” (french fries).  He asked me what I wanted.

“I want you to go out and buy some fucking potatoes!” was my literal response.  I was pissed mostly because it wouldn’t occur to the waitstaff to check with the kitchen first so they can rely that information to the customers as they are ordering.  When he asked me what other stuff I wanted instead I told him I didn’t care (in Chinese).  Also, in Taiwan, restaurants are always going out and getting more stuff from the local grocery store.  I guess it was just too much to ask for them to have what I want, get what I want, or tell me when I’m ordering that they don’t have what I want.

The really weird part is that all of their boned steak items are gone.  You cannot get a T-bone or a Porterhouse steak at Outback.  This is stupid!  A butcher told me that Taiwan cannot import steak from the US with bone.  OK, so give me a choice!  I’ll take an Australian T-bone or Porterhouse steak over a NY strip any day of the week. Out of desperation, Hui-chen and I ordered prime rib. OMG, that was an exercise in diplomacy in itself.  You can’t get the grilled prime rib medium rare because the base roasting is medium.  We spent almost 10 minutes in 2 languages to finally figure out what combination of crap we needed to order so we could get a couple of decent medium rare steaks.  I was ready to go to My Home Steak and get some shitty T-bone fried on an iron plate and buried with pepper sauce, like our Monday night market.

What arrived on my plate was a quivering mass of fatty flesh that looked so awful, I shall spare you any photographic evidence.

Next time we’ll blog on Ruth’s Chris in Kaohsiung!

Recently, Mark went to the US to take care of some business. While he was there, he blogged on the size of fountain drinks at a gas station on the way to Boston. Mark says:

I’ve been living abroad for a while, and it’s given me a slightly different view of stuff at home than I’d have if I’d stayed…. I’m used to the large size [drink] being 22oz or something like that. Even drinking the second biggest size drink I saw at the gas station left me feeling like I’d just put my pancreas through a strainer. I mean… who drinks half a gallon of soda in one serving? Seriously…

I talked about that article with my friend Mike back in New England and he told me about some giant sized portions at some local restaurants. Mike got some shots and the story behind these monster dishes for us. Are you ready for this?

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