taiwan madness: taiwanese breakfast

One of the things that I soooo look forward to eating in Taiwan is breakfast. I love breakfast here, I love breakfast there...I am just a breakfast person.

So me and Connie couldn't stand it, so the day before we went to Taiwan, we had a pre-Taiwan breakfast at Four Seas (四海) in Hacienda Heights. Okay so overlooking the C rating, I'd say it's pretty good and authentic. We got a sweet and a salty fan tuan (飯糰) and 米漿 (I'm not sure what this is in English but its a drink). The sweet one had crushed peanut sugar thing, which was a bit overwhelming and too sweet.

In Taiwan, guess what we found?! There are Four Seas there! So the thing that I got was a sao bing you tiao with dan bing (燒餅油條 with 蛋餅) with a soy milk (豆漿). It's a chinese donut (or so they call it) with egg mixed with green onion pancake wrapped in a flaky pastry dough. Pretty intense.

Okay so my all time favorite thing to eat ever, I mean ever is man tou (饅頭). They have different flavors like brown sugar, taro, whole wheat, etc. I like their plain one the best and it is soooo good in Taiwan. It's just like bread, but more delicious. They're humongo. Look! It's as big as my face!

This is 肉包. These are pretty good, kinda like mantou but with meat in the inside and sometimes salty egg. These aren't my favorite but everyone else loves them. There's like juices flowing in the inside kinda like xiaolongbao but different wrapping.

This is fantuan (飯糰) and dan bing (蛋餅). Inside the fantuan there's you tiao and pickled veggies (酸菜) and pork sung. It's very yummy.

Mmm. How I miss yummy breakfast, but there are places with Taiwanese breakfast! Not as authentic but it'll do. I heard Yi Mei is pretty good too. I haven't been there in a while but yeah, check them out!

Yi Mei

18414 Colima Rd
Rowland Heights, CA 91748

Four Sea

2020 S Hacienda Blvd
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

french toast

In addition to the eggs en cocotte (see previous post) I also made French toast with a strawberry sauce.





I used 2 eggs and mixed in some milk, sugar, and vanilla extract to make a custard mixture. I'm not big on measuring, so I added as much as I wanted. I like the ratio to be somewhat equal, though a little milkier is fine with me as opposed to it being too egg-y. Using the same baguette (again, see previous post), I soaked slices in the custard mix until it soaked. Don't leave it in there too long, or else it'll just fall apart! I then fried the pieces (didn't have butter, so I used oil) until the outsides were set.


As for the strawberry sauce. I took off the heads and mashed the strawberries with some water and sugar and boiled it for awhile... I didn't really know what I was doing, but it came out okay. Not sweet enough, but we ended up pouring the rest into ice molds to make strawberry ice cubes!


Enjoy!

san diego adventures and my mama's birthday part 3

Last part! And the best: brunch. I love, love, love breakfast food, so it's really a shame that I have to watch my cholesterol. The eggs! The fried potatoes! Hollandaise sauce! English muffins! Sugary, cinnamon french toast with maple syrup! Of course, now I content myself with nonfat plain yogurt and granola from Berkeley Bowl--not that it's a bad thing! I love yogurt.

Anyhow, enough of that, when on vacation, you must splurge. Right? N and I had looked up a promising brunch spot in La Jolla, a district a little north of San Diego, called The Cottage. We knew we made a good choice when we arrived--the line was insane. But not to worry, we didn't wait for too long. (Doesn't it look cute?)



I could wax on and on about the toastiness of the muffins, the silky texture of the Hollandaise, the creamy avocado contrasted with the soft omelette...but pictures speak louder than words.

The only downer in our experience was that I ordered a muffin that never came. It worked out for the best though; we definitely had too much food.

The Cottage
7702 Fay Ave.
La Jolla, CA 92037