CantaloupeAlone

Green tea, pistachio, and strawberry on the left, and chocolate and tiramisu on the right and all with a crisp fresh cone It's my tradition to eat ice cream on my day off, because ice cream makes me happy. I'm very excited to have discovered a boutique ice cream shop a few blocks south to Da'an Park called 朱里昂冰淇淋 Julien Ice Cream that agrees 100%. Ice cream makes you happy Ice cream scoop stucco Ice cream cone lamps The shop has a clever modern design tucked away on a lazy, shady section of WenZhou St. They offer gelato, made in house in fresh waffle cones made a few feet away from the counter. They aren't taking any shortcuts here. The ice cream is rich, creamy and natural. The best part, 3 flavors for $100 or about $3.25 USD. They offer savory food and other desserts too, but I'm currently hooked on the cold stuff. Pistachio and vanilla are my flavors of choice. There isn't an English menu, but each time I've visited the staff have all s...

There are so many culinary advantages to living in Taiwan. One of which is the abundance of high-quality Japanese cuisine from both Japanese trained-Taiwanese chefs and authentic Japanese chains. Ramen nerds rejoice! There are plenty of chains and local stores to stand in line. I have been trying to educate myself on the nuances of ramen. What I can tell you so far is that ramen is good. Ramen is really good in the winter. I am beginning to understand why the Japanese needed to create a new word to define all the goodness. Ramen is umami, umami is ramen.  Menu, pictured here poorly in poorly pieced together photos.... Tonchin ramen usually has a line. When my friend and arrived on Wednesday night there were only 5-7 people ahead of us, and we waited for less than 10 minutes. Tonchin offers a fairly conservative menu of 4 flavors with different variations (with the egg, with seaweed, corn, or everything). The menu is full of photos so pointing a...

I like to keep up with Taiwan's food-spotting app,  愛食記 , or in English, ifoodie. It's a feed of photo-centric food blogs reviewing the newest and oldest spots around Taiwan. It is usually overwhelmingly cute. Ifoodie is driven by waffles covered in hearts, strawberries, cookies, marshmallows and pastel two-toned smoothies. Every now and then I give into cute. 思考吧 Thinking Bar appears to be nothing but cute, offering parfaits topped with dolls, flowers, and butterflies. I was delighted to discover that the ingredients in their parfaits are nothing but high-quality. The pineapple mango parfait I ordered ($190 NTD/$6US) was layered with raspberries, mangoes, crushed cookies, panna cotta, sorbet, and a very creamy and tart plain flavored frozen yogurt, topped with a slice of dried pineapple. It looks like an adorable sugar bomb, but it's a very thoughtfully crafted dessert with balanced flavor and texture. The parfaits are huge, maybe around 600-800 grams and ...