Eating in a box

While in Tao Yuan I stayed at the Tayih Landis Hotel , they have these lion mascots. The hotel was really nice and compared to US standards a bargain. Anyhow when I saw one of their staff dressed up in the giant lion costume I couldn't resist snapping a picture. Anyhow, my girlfriend and her family took me to this vegetarian restaurant Easy House . I wish I took pictures of the restaurant, very modern open seating design. There's been a recent surge in demand for vegetarian cuisine in Taiwan the reasons behind it are unclear to me, reading around the web gives various answers from general increases in the price of food or increase popularity of the adoption of Buddhism. Either way I've found that vegetarian cuisine here is different from my impression of vegetarian food in America. I have a hard time giving up meat, I know there's a good variety of reasons people do so, but the bottom line for me is that generally after eating a vegetarian meal I feel quite dissat...

Short post on another leg of my trip and the business class treatment. I realize that when you go business class you're paying a pretty hefty premium, I think the cash amount is like 2x or more depending on where you're going. Even with miles and cash it's a considerable sum if you translate the miles you spend into actual money. But the upsides? Seating is bigger (2x), they're very "lenient" on baggage weight, priority seating, real forks and knives, it's really night and day. And then there's the food, as in, "not only do you get food and free booze, but they try to make it nice". Instead of a theme dinner designed by a Michelin star chef , this time I picked from the "regular" selections. First course Lobster with King Oyster Mushroom and Roasted Yellow Bell Pepper Tapenade. Err wow, kicking it off with lobster. Very tasty, I liked that they had nice grill marks on the king oyster mushroom. This mushroom goes by many name...

I've been doing a lot of travel recently, I mean two-trips-that-involve-30-hours-of-travel-time-each-way-inside-of-two-months type of lots. I've had the fortune (and airline miles) to upgrade myself in the crucial legs of the trip to make it not suck too bad and the first thing you notice in business class is that the food is clearly superior to what you get in coach. (not to mention free drinks and lots more leg room) So I'm going to devote a few posts to the stuff I got to eat. This first post is my China Airlines flight to Taiwan. It's pretty nice, they bring you a big menu where you get to choose each course of the meal, but the "China Airlines Michelin Sky Feast" caught my eye. Basically they teamed up with Chef Albert Tse of Tokyo's China Blue restaurant, he has earned a one star designation from the good people at Michelin. This really piqued my interest since this has to be one heck of a challenge for a chef, you have all the challenge of cre...