So I've been on the hunt for nice Taiwanese food ever since the outlet of Isshin Machi at G.R.I.D closed down.
Shocker that one, I tell you.
One day we were there having Lu Rou Fan and pork cutlet and milk tea with caramel.
Next thing we knew, the lights were out, the curtains were gone, and the shutters were down.
I don't know where the nice Taiwanese foods are, actually, and so in a way I'm glad that not too far away from the Selegie area in Plaza Singapura on Dhoby Ghaut there's Da Xi, a casual restaurant/cafe that my friend discovered quite by chance and decided it worth trying a meal there.
We went there on a weekday evening.
And can I just say that there were so many foods I wanted to try?
Not just the mains but the drinks as well.
What the full menu of Da Xi is, well, I don't know, but they've got signature dishes, including appetizers, vegetables, and amongst them, dumplings prepared three different ways are one.
Dumplings in chicken broth sounded interesting- I liked how thick the broth looked in the menu picture- but safer is the fried, so this evening we had ours pan-fried instead.
A pleasant surprise it was when the plate came.
I had not thought that them dumplings be fried above a thin layer of flour crust, much less that the crust resemble that of a honeycomb, and be crispy hot like a delicious cracker.
To get to the dumplings you had to break the crust according to the shape of the dumplings, flip each piece over, then eat through the crust until you got to the soft chewy skin of the dumpling itself.
It was quite fun trying to carefully poke through the honeycomb-like crust without spearing through the dumpling itself.
Full of soft tender minced pork each piece was, with chives and everything, served with a dip of vinegar and ginger.
I must say though, there was a fair bit of oil at the bottom of the plate we saw when we finished, but it didn't really matter- if one is going to have the fried, then let it be fried.
For dinner this evening, my friend got a bowl of Lu Rou Fan- with a hard boiled egg that he gave to me.
I got a bowl of soup noodles.
Both dishes, to some, might not be much to yak about- they are pretty ordinary when it comes to Taiwanese cuisine- but we liked the fact that the Lu Rou Fan of rice and braised meat in sauce had a simplicity to it, and it was a day where I wanted to have the warm, comforting feeling of soft, chewy noodles swirling about in hot, clear soup.
Perhaps the best dish of all we had this evening was this chive pancake with pork floss.
Ordinary as it might seem, this is one of the dishes that we miss most about Taiwan.
A street food snack it is supposed to be, but this one here is one thick piece of a crepe flour, chewy, soft, easy to tear, slightly salty, and well fried with egg so one gets the feel of eggy omelet mixed with the thin grainy crisp of flour.
I like the chew (mixed a little with the crunch)
I like how the crunch crashes into the chew.
Then there's the faint sweet from the pork floss.
It gives a wee bit of feathery feel.
Perhaps the next time when I visit Da Xi back here at Plaza Singapura, I'll try some of their drinks. $6 it might be, but I fancy the colors, and I don't mind taro as a sort of dessert-drink over the course of the meal.