Young & Hungry

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015

Dumpling Class

I woke up early (around 9:00am) because I was meeting Ariel and Tracy to go to a 10am dumpling class.  It was a private class (1000NTD per person) and even better, it was in English! I have to give credit to Tracy for finding an English cooking class in Taiwan.  The place was called Drunken Monkey and only a 5-10 minute walk from Songshan MRT Station.  We got there about 20 minutes late and they were very nice about it.  We got started right away and learned how to make dumplings! I won’t tell you all the steps to make dumplings, but I will say it was a very fun class. Who knew you could make dumplings with sweet potato skin?! The sweet potato dumplings were really good too.  I also liked that the head chef was very creative. We made vegetable and pork dumplings, but he told us how he made peanut butter and jelly dumplings the other day with a couple of kids.  I got so excited about the idea of putting different things inside the dumpling skin.

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Unfortunately, I don’t have a kitchen in my apartment in Miaoli, so the cooking experiments will have to wait.

We were all impressed that our dumplings also didn’t explode when Alex, the head chef, cooked them in the water.  #success  We then got to eat the dumplings we made. YAY! I’ve learned food tastes better when you make it yourself.  I wouldn’t say I’m a master at dumpling making, but now I can say I know how to cook 1 kind of food: dumplings.

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Coffee Alley with Cindy

After dumpling class, I went to meet up with Cindy at Coffee Alley (Zhongxiao Dunhua location).  It was a little hard to find because there was no English sign and the cafe was kind of small.  Not being able to read Chinese, I walked right past it at first.  However, using my brain and google maps, I was able to find it.  

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Address: No. 42, Lane 187, Section 1, Dunhua South Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan

Phone Number: 02-2711-1910

We didn’t make reservations, so we just went and waited.  Cindy and I scheduled to meet at Coffee Alley at 3pm, so I went around 2:30pm and put our name down.  I was told the wait time was 30 minutes and we were seated at 2:54pm.  The staff was very friendly.  

I ordered a strawberry smoothie and a strawberry mille-feuille.  Never heard that word before, but it looked good, judging by the picture on the menu.  And it was good.  I was trying not to scarf it down in three minutes in front of Cindy.  It really was great to catch up with a college friend though.  It’s been three months since I’ve been in Taiwan and I do feel somewhat disconnected from my friends in U.S.  No doubt long distance friendships are hard too.  I was very lucky that she could squeeze me into her busy schedule, as she was only here for a week visiting family.  

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Strawberry Mille-feuille. YUM!