Cathy2 wrote:It has long been my understanding the Chinese of Taiwan, the majority are from Fujian province, which is just across the straits. As an aside, many of the Chinese in the Philippines are also from Fujian. The culinary heritage of Fujian follows these cultures, which is quite different from the Szechuan, Cantonese and Mandarin we are generally acquainted with.

Tom (an excellent guide through the Chinese-language-with-barely-legible-pictures menu) explained to me that Taiwanese cuisine represents a range of different Chinese regions. The Kuomintang had representation from many regions (Sichuan province, Canton, etc.) and when Chiang Kai-shek's army fled Mao, they went to Formosa and brought their regional tastes with them. Consequently, this Taiwanese restaurant serves food from many regions.

C2, I would not say that the dishes I had tonight resembled that long ago Fujian repast we shared, though there were a number of bitter elements in several dishes (good for chest colds, I'm told, and I could use a little help there).

Incidentally, they plan to put English translations on the Chinese menu, which will be a good thing. The regular English menu is not bad but it is relatively uneventful.

Hammond

kuhdo wrote:We had the roast pork buns on our last visit, and thought they were outstanding.In addition to the garnishes Dave Hammond mentions, these also come with a dish of chopped pickles...I'm curious, what else did you order?

I noticed the pickle of bitter melon, garlic and chili turning up in several dishes.

In addition to the dishes I mentioned, we had Black Mushroom Soup, Fragrant Shrimp, Three Cup Chicken (The Wife swooned), Crispy Tofu (really good), Preserved Egg (they were fried, which I liked), and Eel Rice.

Thanks for scouting out this place, kuhdo; it's a find.

Hammond

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Sometime soon TonyC who is from Taiwan might take a gander at this thread. Perhaps TonyC and CrazyC could take a shot at translating the Chinese portion of the menu.

It has long been my understanding the Chinese of Taiwan, the majority are from Fujian province, which is just across the straits. As an aside, many of the Chinese in the Philippines are also from Fujian. The culinary heritage of Fujian follows these cultures, which is quite different from the Szechuan, Cantonese and Mandarin we are generally acquainted with.

Not to cast a long shadow on this discovery, I recall the dinner held several years ago at a restaurant featuring Fujian specialties. It comes up in conversation from time to time as an interesting meal, which many were pleased to experience once. There were a number of dishes and preparations unfamiliar to almost all of us. I was in the position of having gone earlier in the year, so the dinner yielded few surprises to me. What stands out in my memory were the tiny eel bones sticking like needles in my gums.

I'm always up for adventure and look forward to eating there someday soon.

Regards,

I understand Cathy's point here. It's one thing to be new and different and another to be new, different and good enough to keep you coming back for more. I suppose it's too early to tell but I've now been to KS three times and have found several dishes (cold appetizer platter, clam and ginger soup, beef with bamboo pith , smoked pork with garlic chive, three cup chicken and the above noted pork buns , I'd love to have again. I also really lihed their crispy baby eels (and no bones either!)> Time will tell.

kuhdo wrote:I understand Cathy's point here. It's one thing to be new and different and another to be new, different and good enough to keep you coming back for more.

See, for me, new and different -- and good! -- is enough. With a few notable exceptions, I eat at a different restaurant almost every time I go out to eat. I'm usually not looking for a lasting relationship with any one place...anymore. (In 1999, I went to Horwath's almost every Friday or Saturday night for a few months running; The Wife put an end to that.)

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:

kuhdo wrote:I understand Cathy's point here. It's one thing to be new and different and another to be new, different and good enough to keep you coming back for more.

See, for me, new and different -- and good! -- is enough. With a few notable exceptions, I eat at a different restaurant almost every time I go out to eat. I'm usually not looking for a lasting relationship with any one place...anymore. (In 1999, I went to Horwath's almost every Friday or Saturday night for a few months running; The Wife put an end to that.)

Hammond

I feel differently about Chinese restaurants, where I think repeated visits are often needed to extract the best a given establishment has to offer. This is especially true of a place like KS where the menu is extensive, unfamiliar and untranslated, a constellation of attributes which seems to mandate careful exploration.

kuhdo wrote:I feel differently about Chinese restaurants, where I think repeated visits are often needed to extract the best a given establishment has to offer. This is especially true of a place like KS where the menu is extensive, unfamiliar and untranslated, a constellation of attributes which seems to mandate careful exploration.

I would not say my "one night only" approach is the way to go for everyone. But for me, given limited time and stomach capacity, and my eagerness to try as much as possible of what Chicago has to offer before I leave it forever (ETD TBD), I tend to visit most places only once.

I am sure that repeat visits are the best way to suss out any good restaurant -- Chinese, Mexican or Samoan -- in all its dimensions.

Hammond

HI,

I dug up the reports from the Chinese Kitchen dinner of December, 2003 for your reference.

There is an interesting thread here on the predecessor to Chinese Kitchen named San Shing with interesting follow ups.

Just thinking out loud, I believe these two former Fujian restaurants had menu's pretty close to the regional Fujian cuisine, which really was very different. I wonder if this Taiwanese restaurant is a populist blending of several Chinese regional influences with Fujian cuisine just part of it, which would be more approachable and familiar to us.

Regards,

HI,

I see from reading those old posts, there are references to both Fujian and Fukien. I will estimate it is intended to name the very same locale with the difference one of transliteration.

It's fun to recall all the wonderful adventures I have had via association with this group.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I wonder if this Taiwanese restaurant is a populist blending of several Chinese regional influences with Fujian cuisine just part of it, which would be more approachable and familiar to us.

C2, I believe that interpretation is correct (ditto "Fukien" and "Fujian").

Thanks for linking to the old Chowhound posts -- that was one memorable meal that RST and VI planned in 2003, one of the most challenging I've ever eaten.

Hammond

I'm not sure if this is relevant or not, but Mr. Wu is not a Taiwanese speaker (he speaks Mandarin), and therefore is probably not of Fujianese origin, so that may mean that there is less Fujianese influence on the menu than there might be if he was of Fujian origin. If you follow me. YMMV.

I see from reading those old posts, there are references to both Fujian and Fukien. I will estimate it is intended to name the very same locale with the difference one of transliteration.

I couldn't find a copy of it to link to, but there is a great old B. Kliban cartoon of two Chinese peasants working in a field, and one of them says to the other something like: "I can't wait to get out of this Fukien Province". Hee!

geli wrote:I'm not sure if this is relevant or not, but Mr. Wu is not a Taiwanese speaker (he speaks Mandarin), and therefore is probably not of Fujianese origin, so that may mean that there is less Fujianese influence on the menu than there might be if he was of Fujian origin.

Is Mr. Wu the same as Tom?

From my brief encounter with this place, I would not say that their menu features the same bitter-sour characteristics of Fujian food. There was bitter melon, but heck, that's pretty much all over China, and the unrelenting sourness of Fujian stuff was not apparent at all. No wine lees, no shark skin, not a lot of offal...though further exploration could uncover that kind of thing (though I kind of doubt it).

Hammond

geli wrote:I'm not sure if this is relevant or not, but Mr. Wu is not a Taiwanese speaker (he speaks Mandarin), and therefore is probably not of Fujianese origin, so that may mean that there is less Fujianese influence on the menu than there might be if he was of Fujian origin. If you follow me. YMMV.

Did he specifically state he does not speak Taiwanese (whatever that may be)? I know people who speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, which means he could be a Mandarin speaker in addition to other languages/dialects. I'm not out to make you responsible for this answer, just more thinking out loud.

I wonder where the Taiwan-influence comes to the menu, because I know people from Hong Kong who consider Taiwan's food not Chinese. This may all be politically-rooted or it may be they don't like the Fujian-influence on their cuisine.

The more this conversation blossoms, the more curious I am to visit this restaurant.

Regards,

Cathy 2 asked:

Did he specifically state he does not speak Taiwanese (whatever that may be)?

He said he only knew a few words of Taiwanese.

Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai-nese (i'm only using these well known example, there r many others) is analogous to French, Spanish & Italian. same roots, spoken differently, some written words still the same. orally, Cantonese only speakers will only understand a word here or there of Mandarin or Shanghai-nese. unlike French, Spanish & Italian, in written form, Chinese is almost all the same from region to region.

Taiwanese speak Mandarin. Mandarin is the "dialect". Taiwanese speak Mandarin w/ a Taiwanese "accent". it's like English spoken w/ a Southern, New England or Chicago accent.

in my humble opinion, if Taiwanese is not an "offshoot" of Chinese food, then neither is Hong Kong cuisine. 98% of Taiwanese can trace their roots to China.

While it's true that most Taiwanese people speak Mandarin (and Mandarin is still the "official" language of Taiwan), what most people refer to as Taiwanese is definitely not just Mandarin with a Taiwan accent. It's really a separate dialect of the larger Chinese language group, often even classified
as a language (rather than just a dialect) in the Sino-Tibetan family.

From personal experience, I can say that spoken Mandarin and spoken Taiwanese are not mutually intelligible, although there are some cognates.

Wikipedia has a brief rundown here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_%28linguistics%29

quote from Wikipedia:

<i>As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Taiwanese depends largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese).</i>

your explanation is just not my political view.

geli, i'm just kidding u. i respect ur knowledge.

Cathy, interesting link to the China Kitchen meal. Seems to me that the food at KS isn't nearly as difficult, but it may just be that Mr. Wu has been careful to keep me away from the more challenging menu items. As Hammond points out, there are some bitter notes in some dishes, and I did have a fish dumpling soup on my last visit that sounds something like your soup at China Kitchen (though the KS version was actually pretty good). Basil is a recurring theme in several dishes, so I suspect there is indeed some Fukienese influence here and they do seem big on the stinky tofu. The Funky/ stanky -food connection may be part of the whole Taiwan food scene (and maybe goes a little overboard at times

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/200 ... wl_res.php

With the affable Kuhdo and the even more affable Mr. Wu guiding us, the VI family (with the Kuhdo family) had a very nice meal at KS Seafood.

Dumbly, I forgot my camera at home, so I have no pictures (nonetheless, I could not do a better job than Hammond on the stinky tofu or bacon sammies). I'll try to list what we had with mere words. Word on the street was, BTW, that Hammond ordered 1/2 the menu, we may have ordered the other half

Wait, before listing the dishes, let me speak to the translation issue. Sure, Don was handling most of the ordering, and he had a few visits under his belt to know, but Mr. Wu and his staff were patient and very, very available to decipher or suggest. I think the staff can easily get you to a good meal.

- Calamari rings with salt n' pepper

- Baby eels fried Wiv crisp in a sweet glaze. My older daughter was especially singing the praises of these (and I was, later, to my wife, I was like, she knows those were whole eels, right...)

- An appetizer platter that stretched across two plates (complete with fake orchid flowers, with fake water droplets ) including beef and beef maw in spicy sauce; mock duck; jellyfish and a ginger poached squid with a dipping sauce that Don's son adored.

- Pot stickers (did not sample)

- The same stinky tofu dish pictured above. Honestly, it was stinky but no where near the stink of say durian or certain cheeses. It was very cheese like, however. The dish, like several dishes, featured tiny slices of fresh chilie, like Thai chilies, and it gave the food and nice sly bit of heat.

- Fragrant shrimps, smartly presented in a curved bowl

- Beef and bamboo, again well accented with tiny bits of fresh pepper

- Beef noodle soup "Szechuan Style" (oddly, this was the one Taiwainese dish my wife could remember from Mei Shung). This version had a subtle heat and nice noodles, it worked very well against the other dishes, but don't expect the killer app that is this dish at Katys (which I just had the other day).

- Their version of ma-po tofu - There were two dishes on the Chinese menu in a special box, my hunch was these were specials or something, and I was right. There were two chef specialites. I'm blanking on the one we did not get, but this was what we got. To me, this oceany tofu was a bit more harsh on Western palates. It's soft tofu baked in a broth of many (many) tiny dried fish, plus peanuts. It is VERY fishy tasting. Still good.

- The bacon sammies pictured above; kinda like Mr. Moto meets the East End of London, no? These were truly, truly delicious and would make a great offering at Wrigley Field.

- Three cup chicken - Hacked bone chicken, if that bothers you, otherwise tasty. (This may have been the other chef special)

- Pancakes stuffed with red bean paste. My younger daughter pronounced them "awesome".

I think that's it. I may have missed a dish or two though, it was way a lot of food. It was a great Chinatown-chowhound kinda night. It was all there, weird (or interesting) but edible creatures like baby eels; guts (literally guts, beef guts); fat in its gloriousness (the pork belly); uncompromising preparations like the bone-in chicken, the full array of flavors including that fifth flavor umami (stinky tofu IS umami ); accented with discussions of ancient Rolling Stones concerts, modern Grant Park concerts, card games, favorite places to eat on Da'Bomb and the secret anagram behind "ReneG".

A nice night!

VI,

Fragrant shrimp were very simple but very good. They had a lot of shrimpiness to them (if that doesn't sound too imbecilic) -- I had several for breakfast yesterday and felt that they were significantly tastier than shrimps I've cooked up at home. Not exactly sure why. Different breed, I think.

Hammond

A very nice evening indeed for all the reasons given above. On the way out we spotted a table enjoying a nice looking platter of oysters which appeared to have an intriguing preparation, being topped with ground pork and chile. It's on the list for next time. Fragrant shrimp were delightfully shrimpy, downright shrimpolicious in fact.

I spoke to the manager today. I suggested they offer a translated version of the Chinese menu any he said they're working on it.

sinos wrote:I spoke to the manager today. I suggested they offer a translated version of the Chinese menu any he said they're working on it.

Great. Thanks for keeping up the heat on this issue, Did you eat there?

Yea, I ate there twice this past weekend, dinner on Fri and then Sun. On my two visits I ordered the self-wrap braised pork with steamed rice buns accompanied by cilantro, pickled vegatables, and peanuts; Hakka stinky tofu stir-fry; numbing spicy tofu pot; and three cup clay pot chicken. All were good. I apologize for the poor translations as I'm translating the literal names. I also saw the drunken stir-fried clams that looked good and were recommened but that I didn't order.

One of the impressive things about the restaurant is the cleaniness, mainly due to the recent remodeling, but we'll see how long that lasts. The bathroom has been cleaned but has not been revamped, which was disappointing since they should've just taken the extra couple of yards like they have with everything else. I just wish they would've selected something a bit more palatable than seafood foam green for their walls and a big dopey looking cartoon fish as their mascot on their menu.

Service was decent for Chinatown standards. Pricing is a bit on the high side for certain dishes like the braised pork (14.95) but I consider that the premium for dining in a clean establishment in C-town.

The restaurant's BYOB for now since I saw a number of people bring their own drinks.

Dinner for 2 on Fri was about $32 and dinner for 3 on Sun was about $42.

Cathy2 wrote:Perhaps TonyC and CrazyC could take a shot at translating the Chinese portion of the menu.

TonyC was at a clothing-optional resort in Palm Springs when KS opened. CrazyC was ... somewhere in Burma.

bygones.

E9 "drunken clams":

not that drunk, hints of basil. not bad, should've just turned it into full blown basil clams. Thai-ish. way short on clams.

A6 "spicy sliced white meat" (Szechuan style, also found @ LSC), in this case, Taiwanese inflected, more vinegary than SZ peppery/spicy:


D4, boiling chitlin & blood cake (Taiwanese Benchmark I):

getting better!! whole chunks of garlic, clean intestine, stalks of green onions, great texture, what they like to call xia fan

stir fries:
E8, minced pork and squid +spicy:

looks like something made from 2 days worth of left overs. tastes great. more xian fan-ness.

D9, bamboo tip beef:

simple fair, home-style cooking.

F10, super garlicky (bean sprout?):


disappointments:
D19, 3 cup chicken (Taiwanese benchmark II?):

BLAH!@#$% Smelled great, looked.. well. I like to use darker aged soysauce ala:

no basil, needs soysauce w/ more punch. chicken over browned before stewing. easy to make, easy to botch up.

C*, non-fried stinky tofu hotpot style:

requested Manager Wu to fry me up some stinky tofu last week. after initially saying yes days ago he withdrew the offer. something about:
1) The processed tofu is already too dry by the time it gets here
2) Chinatown Square won't let them due to smell.
Avoid stinky tofu in the Midwest. no stink, no moisture, texture of dried human skin.

fun: 5 treasure taro cake

ehh... gooey sweet... baked with red beans, pineapple, etc. not my thing, but chics dig taro.

best: pepper & black bean stir fried anchovies

holy moly. i asked for seconds. shoulda took thirds home. better than anything from H-mart's panchan bar. if only i had some lousy Taiwanese beer that looked like pee. soju would also go well w/ this.

Of course... there were the "Taiwanese French Fries"(tm by Stagger), aka, fried baby eels. very interesting. The Taiwanese popcorn chicken (D16) smelled extremely pungent. Other interesting items: pickled bamboo shoot pork hock (D21), minced soybean over fish (pictured E14), spicy oiled kidney (D2), pickled cabbage (not napa) stir fry beef D12. Note the pickled cabbage may also be offered as amuse bouche. BWAHAHAHAHA. Taiwanese amuse bouche.. sorry. VI: avoid the other "Sea King" special in the "box"; main ingredient = fake crab meat.

Pardon the unorganized post, more tidbits on the restaurant: Manager Wu is, of course, Taiwanese, but perhaps wai shen ren(?), speaks Taiwanese fluently. Chef is from Kaoshiung (Southern TW), Owner's an MD with a practice on the 2nd level of Chinatown Square. Proprietor mentioned Taiwanese street food in the works. Honestly, what good is a Taiwanese restaurant w/o oyster pancakes and pork blood rice cake? Someone else mentioned pricing.. a plate of TW style rice vermicelli was $7-ish? "Clear" clam soup (B4) for $6? "Snow Fish" E14 for $22? Twin cold plat app (A14) for $12? Go to Katy's, pickup big boxes stewed pig ear and the five spiced mix for < $10, feed a family of 4 for 2 days.

Final thought: give me Simbala, Class 302, or even all the various dirty Shau May* anyday. Tho extremely glad KSS is open, just hope it doesn't need saving like Mandarin Kitchen cuz I'm going to need a second job.

* not self aggrandizing. first googled result of ("shau may" taiwanese food) yields link. alas, the SGV Shau May(s) no longer proffer $2.99 mango shaved ice, tho New Shau May in Rowland Heights did mix up a less intricate bowl for me on Christmas Eve

Thanks Tony, you're a real treasure to LTHForum!

Vital Information wrote:Thanks Tony, you're a real treasure to LTHForum!

Amen. This post is major assistance in the quest to suss out the real stuff.

And I also agree that stinky tofu does taste EXACTLY like dried human flesh.

Hammond

Every time you mention soju, I get a headache.... why is that Tony?

David Hammond wrote:And I also agree that stinky tofu does taste EXACTLY like dried human flesh.

You speak from experience?!?

David Hammond wrote:And I also agree that stinky tofu does taste EXACTLY like dried human flesh.

Dmnkly wrote:[You speak from experience?!?

My thought as well................................

G Wiv wrote:

David Hammond wrote:And I also agree that stinky tofu does taste EXACTLY like dried human flesh.

Dmnkly wrote:[You speak from experience?!?

My thought as well................................

You think I'd make such an assertion based only on hearsay?