Taiwan Day 1: Orange Shabu

I couldn’t decide between two openers for this post, so this is now a choose your own adventure blog.

OPTION 1:
I think it would be easy to reduce crime if you told people that heaven were like dining at Orange Shabu.

OPTION 2:
I HAVE HAD WAGYU BEEF SHABU SHABU: BEHOLD MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR.

SO GOOD

A few blocks away from Taipei 101, this place is a chic Japanese take on traditional Chinese hot pot. The receptacle was a copper pot heated over a gas stove in the center of each table. Tables were separated by linen blinds. While I’m not entirely sure I am even qualified to list all of the stuff that went into the hot pot, a couple of things stand out.

• Oh my god wagyu beef. Soooo delicious.
• We had a special kind of pork, but the language barrier prevented me from understanding what made it special. It was served with a creamy sesame sauce, though, and that was phenomenal.
• Fresh shrimp and fish balls made by plopping the raw materials straight into the hot pot out of a piece of bamboo.
• We were served a special kind of tea, which tasted kind of like echinacea, but gentle and not medicinal. Its intention was to cool the body down after the hot pot.
• The almond tofu was like no almond tofu I’ve ever had. It was still silky and delicious, but held together much more firmly than almond tofu from a box.
• Instead of putting cellophane noodles into the broth at the end of the meal, they made it into porridge. Who was too fat to eat a lot of the porridge? This kid. However, we reserved a ton for breakfast tomorrow.

I was treated to hot pot because my aunt insisted that I should go easy on the greasy disaster on day one. Taiwanese food is less flavorful and more gentle than mainland Chinese food–she was worried that the broth would be too light for my boorish American taste buds. However, the broth we made (using, among the other ingredients, a combination of napa and white cabbage) was aromatic and complex, and made an excellent porridge at the end of the meal.

Tomorrow: the adventures of Chinese barbequed sea cucumber, aka, Jo’s most favoritest dish in the world.

Lunch bonus!: Taiwanese beef bourgignon is not nearly as good as Sophiese beef bourgignon.