Exploring Taipei's eats - How did I prepare simple, healthy and delicious meals during my last trip to Taipei?

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Before our mid-September trip to Taipei, I had decided more or less that I would not spend too much time on cooking. Since our stay in Taipei would be short - only 4 weeks, I would like to spend more time with my father, instead of in the kitchen.

We arrived at Taipei on September 17, 2010. During the first week of our 4-week stay, it was still mostly hot and humid. The hot weather, coupled with the fact that there was no air conditioning in my Taipei kitchen, reconfirmed that my plan of no cooking during this trip was a smart one.

This trip turned into a trip of exploring Taipei’s eats. We explored quite a few good restaurants with family and friends. For everyday meals, we visited many small stores in our neighborhood for boxed meals and other light meals. For me, either eating in a restaurant or buying food from a small store involved the same steps, outlined below.

1. Pick the store or the restaurant to evaluate for the food that we are interested in at the time.
2. Study the menu and pick the dishes carefully.
3. Photograph the dishes before starting to eat them.
4. Critique the dishes and try to learn tips that may have enhanced the flavor of the food - the combination of ingredients, the way the food is cut or cooked, and etc.
5. Record the eating experience so that I may blog about it later. Sometimes, I had to visit a store or a restaurant multiple times to collect enough information or pictures so that I might be able to blog about it.

Here’s a list of restaurants and small stores that we visited during this trip. Some of them I have already blogged about; others I will soon.

1. 春天素食
2. 寬心園精緻蔬食 Easy House Vegetarian Cuisine
3. 陽明春天蔬食創作料理 - we re-visited this restaurant a week after the first visit.
   
4. 絹絲谷森林渡假村
5. 台北的冶春茶社
   
6. 銀翼
7. 榮榮園
8. 龍翔園
9. 半畝園
10. 富順樓
11. 在中正紀念堂的劇院軒
12. 恬園餐廳
13. 草菩提
14. 原興饅頭店
15. 楊媽媽的蔥油餅
16. 香港鑫華茶餐廳
17. 香港廣東粥麵粉飯點心名店
18. 陳園清燉牛肉麵館 - 不好吃退錢!
19. 悟饕池上飯包
20. 強記港式小館 Chiang Ji Hong Kong-style Restaurant
21. 春日日本料理的便當 Spring Japanese Food's lunch box
22. 周胖子餃子館 Fatty Zhou's Dumpling House
23. 元樂的酒味鳳梨酥
    
24. 紅葉的棗泥核桃蛋糕
25. Sun Merry's squid bread

Hopefully our experience with Taipei’s eats may somehow help our friends visiting Taipei in the near future.