A heartfelt thanks to Q-Taro and his lovely girlfriend for ensuring that the penultimate meal of my trip around the around wasn’t McDonald’s…

After an afternoon of shopping I got the call to head out to Umegaoka Station on the Odakyu rail line. A short trip that should have taken 15 minutes instead took over an hour, partly because I couldn’t actually find the Odakyu line in the cavernous Shibuya station, partly because I took the express train instead of the local and overshot my destination and partly because email wasn’t working on my N86, due to lingering connection settings from Taipei.

None of this ultimately mattered, because by the time I got to where I was supposed to be my fellow diners were 45 minutes in to an hour-long wait for a table at Midorisushi.

Though we sat down for raw fish one of friendly staff talked us into this rather large cooked tuna jaw:

Once you scraped the meat off the bone it was a lot more tender than you’d think!

After that massive appetizer and an assortment of fresh-from-the-sea sushi (which I unfortunately neglected to photograph) it was time for dessert — (from the left) black sesame, green tea and sweet potato ice cream. There was but a single order of the black sesame left and it was supposedly the tastiest of the three. As the guest I was given the honour of devouring it but I shared because I’m cool like that…

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Here’s David and Carol (Sandy Chen‘s Mom and Dad) outside the world-famous dumpling restaurant DinTaiFung. As you can see from their expression, folks in Taiwan take their dumplings very seriously.

Oh, ignore the mascot…

Further proof: As soon as I sat down with Mr. & Mrs. Chen the server handed me this Laowai guide to Taiwanese soup dumplings. Little did they know I live just down the street from a soup dumpling shop back home…

The soup dumplings were indeed delicious, but by far my favourite dish was the taro dumplings we had for dessert.

The caption for this photo on Flickr:

“You have no idea how sweet ass-crap-delicious this is…”

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Okay, seriously… How can you not want to eat at a restaurant chain who’s tagline is “Shit or Food”?

Though Modern Toilet is a Taiwan-wide chain with multiple locations in Taipei alone, I chose to eat in the trendy Ximending shopping district. It proved quite challenging to find, and took a combination of Google Maps, the GPS on my N86 and an ad from a tourist map I brought with me from my hotel to arrive at this spot.

Though I was early for dinner I wasn’t early enough to beat the after-school crowd, and was sat at a large glass-covered bathtub with some non-English-speaking locals. I didn’t let that stop me from ordering up a big black toilet-full of chicken curry.

Okay, the toilet wasn’t actually to scale…

My meal also came with dessert, served up in a mini squat toilet. Can’t say it was as good as the curry, though… It looked like ice cream but I couldn’t really taste any dairy in it.

At the counter where you settle up you can also buy some souvenirs, like an oversized plush coil of poop with stitched-in plastic flies.

I can certainly recommend Modern Toilet as a unique dining experience. About the only complaint I had about my visit there was that I couldn’t use the actual washroom, as it was being cleaned at the time. Gross!

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Though the battery on my N86 ran out mere seconds into this recording, the story here is that halfway around the world and a week into my trip I was back on Qik, and it was all thanks to the SIM card I got with unlimited data from local carrier FarEasTone.

Because my costs for transmitted data were now $6 CAD per day instead of $4 CAD per megabyte I was now free and clear to (for example) make a public nuisance of myself in my hotel‘s lobby restaurant:

Though this little coffee shop offered a great view of Monday morning commuters, I spent the rest of my breakfasts at the top-floor buffet…

Shortly after breakfast it was time for another meal — this one with Carol & David Chen, parents of my good friend (and top-notch cat-sitter) Sandy.

After lunch Mrs. Chen kindly offered to take me through Guang Ha Digital Plaza, which must have been boring as all hell for her so I bought her ice cream. She returned the favour by taking me to a night market and buying me a bag of this bizarre Taiwanese chewing gum:

This concoction is actually areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves. You’re not meant to actually eat any of it, just swallow the juice and spit out the rest once it dries up.

Though often sold at roadside stands by scantily-clad ladies my purchasing experience was a little different; the grumpy old woman that eventually sold me this bag had to be talked into it — she was convinced I’d have a heart attack if I had all of it, and she was probably right… Just one piece gets your heart racing!

Here’s something a little different — an audio clip describing my first taste of durian fruit on the famous Bugis Street in Sinapore’s Chinatown:

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My First Durian.wav (1181 KB)

Here’s what the “meat” looks like. The durian monger was packaging them to order so I paid a buck or two to sample a little piece. No way I could have finished a whole one…

… But lot of folks do, apparently. Right beside the stand were a few tables with some diners (all women) enjoying a durian of their very own.

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