Shish kabob - a la Taiwan

___In Taiwan, anything edible can be put on a stick for convenience (no more dish-washing) and "take-away-ability"...cuttlefish, squid, quail eggs, candied cherry tomatoes (picture on left) and even stinky tofu - aka "cho tofu" (picture on right). --MM

Cuttlefish in Danshui

I'm back!! After spending a wonderful but hot and humid two weeks in Asia, I'm home again...at least until tomorrow. For today, I'll post as much as I can while I prepare for my trip to SoCal.

Mr. Moc and I went exploring in a neighborhood just on the outskirts of Taipei called "Danshui". There's a boardwalk like area lined with many little shops and restaurants (see top picture). We wandered into this little restaurant - more like a small room with a few tables. I noticed that a lot of the small restaurants in Taipei are little rooms with a few tables and with the "kitchen" located at the front of the restaurant. The second picture shows what Mr. Moc had for lunch...a steaming bowl of cuttlefish balls and vermicelli with various seasoning. My lunch (see third picture) was essentially the same as Mr. Moc - minus the vermicelli. We also shared a bowl of dan dan noodles (see bottom picture). --MM

Germany

This is a picture of some German Beer. Notice the line, that is where they are supposed to fill it up to. It's so good, and so cheap.




There's poop in my soup! Jk. In Cologne we went to this German restaurant and had "german" food. This is some sort of liver meatball soup or something. It was pretty good, although I thought it was going to be more of a stew as opposed to poop in broth.



And here is my main dish which was a mitwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Delicious! Good heavy food.



When we were in Cologne we also went to the Chocolate Museum. The Museum itself was kind of dissapointing, we thought we'd get to eat more chocolate. But we had some chocolate shake type things in the cafe. They also had an amazing souvenior store with all sorts of chocolate.





On our way down to Munich we stopped at a Burger King for a snack. We got fried cheese with jalapeno. It's a lot like a jalepeno popper at Jack in the Box but better! MM you woulda liked these.

--RD

Amsterdam

I am going to do one giant blog for Europe. So, I spent 9 days in Europe travelling with PigPen. We went EVERYWHERE. Holland (Amsterdam), Germany (Cologne, Munich), Italy (Bologna, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terra), and Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich). I have to say my favorite was Switzerland, more specifically Zurich. And the food was great everywhere. We ate a lot of meat, bread and cheese! Here is my culinary adventure.



The first picture is of Pommes Frites (Amsterdam) - Fries, here we ate it with Mayonnaise. We also had it again that same day but this time with curry, not at good as the mayonnaise which is way better than that American crap.



Here is a picture of Heneiken beer, fresh from the brewery museum in Amsterdam. We downed 3 beers in about 1/2 an hour. Not so bad! =)

In Amsterdam we also ate at this cafe where I experienced a pancake with cheese. It's kind of like a crepe with cheese. We also had Indian food for dinner, it wasn't so great. Also at the hostels we stayed at they provided breakfast. It was cold cuts, cheese and bread mostly. The same goes for in Germany. It was like our lunch here was their breakfast!

More to come later...
--RD

my apologies

I would first and foremost like to apologize to our loyal reader, Jill, because I have done such a horrible job blogging. Also to MOCMOC, because she's been picking up the slack. I have been MIA because I have been doing a lot of travelling. Anyhow, no fear! I am here and I have no job. So... let the blogging begin!
--RD