I wrote a previous entry about Cliff and mentioned his childhood experiences in 1950s Chinatown. He is such an interesting person to talk to. He has what seems like a limitless store of funny and poignant stories. For him, Taiwan Café is not necessarily the one closest to his roots (he is Cantonese and Taishanese) but he used to bring his volleyball team here to eat when he used to coach, and it has remained a staple in his local restaurant rotation.
After dining here, I understand why. It is reasonably priced (I was actually shocked when the bill came) and the portions are hefty without compromising taste.
Overall, the dishes here are Taiwanese, with a few other Asian cuisines added in for variety, I presume (see the dumpling basket below.) I noticed that a lot of the Taiwanese dishes included some sort of egg component with some making this protein the main attraction.
In the photo above (please excuse the grainy photos... my phone did not take very well to the lighting in the restaurant) you'll see two of the dishes that came out first. The one on the right is a breaded pan-fried chicken breast (it had good flavor, though not a wow for me) served with a side dish of very tender cabbage, rice, and a tea egg (my favorite!). These tea eggs are usually boiled then peeled and reboiled in tea and sold as street food. This one in particular (according to our lovely server) was steeped in tea for a good long while. It was incredibly fragrant, and a surprisingly good accompaniment to the chicken and rice.
Then, the dish you see on the left is a traditional oyster egg pancake. It had scallions, mushrooms and was slathered with a healthy portion of oyster sauce. Now, here is the real kicker: while the top was crispy and more of a traditional egg texture, the bottom layer was a clear, glutenous egg and flour pancake that was so sticky and gooey I almost couldn't swallow it. The photo below shows it in slightly better detail.
I appreciated this egg-based concoction for what it was but the texture was so unlike any preparation I have ever had, and that was hard to get used to. It was so gooey, it got stuck in my throat a couple of times. I looked around the restaurant, and a few other bright-eyed patrons were enjoying this same dish, and energetically attacking the stringy egg mixture with the same gleefulness I would have while eating melted mozzarella in a panino for example.
Scrambled eggs, beef and fresh tomatoes on a bed of rice. Classic dish, and something I would never think of having for dinner. There was a sweetness to it (provided by an oyster sauce-like gravy) that was so hearty and rich.
For me, this last bamboo basket was the perfect and climactic end to the meal. These delicate xialongbao (or colloquially known in English as soup dumplings or soup buns) were so flavorful. These were filled with the traditional minced pork filling minus the sometimes-used crab meat. The broth in the dumplings was not too salty, but with just enough fatty-ness and aroma. I drizzled mine with some rice vinegar. The acidity of the Chinkiang vinegar was a great complement to the rich pork.
How is that for a comfort meal?
