Eating in a box

This is another post from my Taiwan Leg of my trip this time at a preview of a wedding banquet. It's where a restaurant is presenting it's dishes and the bride and groom are trying all the dishes (usually gratis) depending on how big your wedding party is. Keep in mind a standard wedding party in Taiwan is something on the order of 60 tables of 10 to 12 people each. Food is a central theme in an Asian wedding so the banquet really takes the place of the giant wedding ceremony. There are smaller private tea ceremony for the immediate family and every city has it's own traditions but the big deal is the banquet itself. I'll keep this post short since it's a ton of dishes and you really don't want me yammering on and on about stuff. Edit: Ok I lied, I did a lot of yammering on this one. Just a note I did both this and last post completely on an iPad, camera connector and iPad photo cleanup apps. Is mochi sweet or savory? Is it meant only for desert? Apparently no...

The second leg of my trip was a week in Taiwan. We took a small excursion with my girlfriend's family to a spot called Lavendar Cottage. There are a few of these dotted around Taiwan it's like a chain of flower gardens. You can rent a room in one of their cottages there on site although spending half a day walking around you pretty much see everything. As the name implies there are huge fields of lavender as well as a lot of other neat flowers and animal life. The park was stared by two sisters that wanted to grow spices and herbs and create a beautiful place for people to visit. (that's about as much as I was able to determine about the background of the place) The shops are full of soaps and fragrances made with herbs and flowers grown from the park/garden. I'll reserve the flowers for my non food blog but I had to post this picture of this giant snail that we ran across, I dropped my lens cap next to it so you have a sense of scale, it was roughly the size of my fist...

So I took a last minute trip which included a stop to LA for a wedding reception for my girlfriend's friend. It was a great reception the groom was Vietnamese and the bride was Taiwanese. The banquet was a fusion between the two with the hosts repeating everything in English, Chinese and Vietnamese (very impressive if not tiring for them). There was plenty of singing and dancing but most of all food. I'm going sparce on the words and more with the pictures. I've got a few more posts coming from this trip but I wanted a chance to document everything. So I present to you stop #1: LA wedding reception. Sorry about the pictures, they were done with my cheaper point and shoot and as the night went on it got pretty dark. I need a high speed point and shoot that fits in a pocket anyone got any solutions? Prawn Roasted Chicken Salad. These were very large prawns dressed in a mayo based dressing. The topping you see is a fried rice noodle. Fish tripe and Crab Soup, yes ...