Taste of Tainan Past= Tai2nan4 Gu2 Zhou3 Wei4
After wandering the fabric warehouse, and starting to feel faint, Angelica suggested we swing by her favorite cafe in that district. Lunch was @ Taste of Tainan Past= Tai2nan4 Gu2 Zhou3 Wei4- a local street cafe on Nanjing Xi Lou (Nanjing West Road). Angelica's opinion- "I don't know why but their flavors are more complex and intense than other places." With that kind of recommendation, I'm there in a flash.
We had rice w/ red cooked pork, tofu & wilted spinach, fatty fish fillet w/ crispy skin, and Fish skin soup. The most different and interesting dish was the fish skin soup- basically a clear fish broth with green veg, fish balls and chunks of fatty fish skin. then grab some skin with shreds of ginger and dip in soy/wasabi to cut down on the fishy taste. Wow a medley of flavors. Yum.
All of the red cooked items were a tasty deep brown salty sweet goodness that had hints of anise, cardamom, orange peel and maybe cinnamon? The pork was succulent and tender, (and I made a tofu exception- also very delicate and juicy). Very scrummy mature master sauce which is the house pride and joy. I didn't get a clear shot, but the pot looks positively stratovolcanic. Apparently this pot has been red-cooking continuously since the cafe opened many moons ago, and is considered the source of the complex flavors. It was sooo good, but I'm glad I saw it after and not before.
The shiny part is the caked layers of soy, pork etc. I'm sure it would be an excellent candidate for the JGI's biodiversity sequencing project.
Language classes are going quickly so I have to work very hard to keep
up with the pace. Since I'm still in private lessons, I don't
have a very good idea of how my pace compares to anyone else's. I'm
constructing sentences now. have learned how to use ma? and
negative bu in questions. I'm confident enough now to try my baby chinese on the unsuspecting public at Shi Da Lu Market. Today I communicated successfully with 4 people- my highest number so far! They were all very kind and helped me with my pronunciation, tones and numbers. (Somehow confusing wu and liu).