Authentic Taiwanese cuisine at Chef Chen restaurant

The restaurant locates at a big plaza. 5408-B Walnut AveIrvine, CA 92604. We come here very often for Taiwanese food. It is verified: the taste of food here is almost the same as in Taiwan! Here are what we tried.

 Ma po tofu

Meat ball with sea cucumber

Pork intestine with pickle (no pig blood)

Fried fish with hot and sour sauce

Meat pie

Seafood soup (with tapioca)

 Seafood and chicken over rice

Another kind of seafood soup but in clay pot

pork rib with boiled vege

Stir-fried rice noodle

Meet Fresh - Taiwanese-based dessert chain

Last week, we came to Diamond plaza to try Meet Fresh - a Taiwanese-based dessert chain - the first store in the US.

TIP: don't come here in weekends or dinner time/ evening, you have to wait about 30 minutes on line to order, and about 15 minutes to get your food.

I think the quality of the desert is better then it was in Taiwan (as I know, they are closing a lot of stores in Taiwan), especially the taro ball.

Here is their signature dish

How to use WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker - My first dish

To test the WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker we just bought last week, I cook stewed-pork shoulder with radish in soy sauce ( kind of popular dish in Asia).

1. Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds of pork shoulder (pork butt, pork belly is ok. I choose pork shoulder because it's less fat), I keep the whole piece but you can cut it into stew-size
- 1 medium radish

- Green onion (it's better to have big Japanese green onion, but the other green onion is ok)
- Sliced ginger
- Garlic: 3 to 5 gloves
- 5-spice powder (any Asian market, even Wholefood sells it):1/2 tea spoon
- Black cardamom: A spice used in cooking Vietnamese Pho (optional)
- 1/2 cups of rice wine (optional)
- 1 spoon of sugar
- Pepper
- Soysauce: 3 spoons, (or you can use 1,5 spoons of soy sauce and 1.5 spoons of thick soy sauce)
- Salt: 1 tea spoon
- Water: 2 cups

  

2. Method
- Marinate pork with pepper, 5-spice powder and a little bit salt for at least 5 minutes
- Heat 2 spoons of oil in the pressure cooker (not cover lid) at medium heat, than add the meat.

- For each side, cook 5 minutes. I know it takes time, but if you cut into smaller pieces, it will be faster.

 - Add ginger, garlic,  Black cardamom, and onion, stir 1 minutes to make fragrance

- Add radish, soy sauce, and water to cover the meat.

- Close and lock the lid, use high heat for 10 minutes or until you see the yellow indicator pop up, then reduce the heat to low medium to make sure the the indicator not over orange color. Cook for 30 minutes after you see the orange indicator.

- After 30 minutes, I turn off the heat and leave it there for 20 minutes.

- Because I cook the whole piece of meat, so when it get cool and stored in refrigerator, I can slice it as thin as I want. It's suitable for ramen  or other soup noodles dish. Or you can reheat the sauce, add chopped garlic, green onion, and cilantro, than cover the meat (after slicing and heating).

Taiwanese sesame chicken soup

1. Ingredients:

- A whole chicken, you can buy cut chicken if you don't like the whole one like this. I bought this one at Wholefood Tustin, level 5. This is the best chicken I can find in Irvine, it even better and more expensive then the fresh chicken at farmer market.

- 1 big piece of ginger

- 1 spoon of dried goji berries ( bought at Wholefood)

- 5 dried date (Asian date)

- 5 to 8 dried shitake mushroom (Japanese mushoom is better)

- 1/2 cup of sesame oil

- 1 cup of rice wine (Taiwanese rice wine)

- 1 spoon of salt, 1 spoon of fish sauce (optional)

2. Method:
- Rinse mushrooms, goji and dates under water for 10 seconds (clean extra dust or preservatives if added)
- Then soak mushroom in water for 10 minutes

- In a big pot, heat the sesame oil, then add sliced ginger, use medium heat for 5 minutes

- Clean chicken, dry well with paper towel, then add to the put, fried each side for 5 minutes

- Then add all other ingredients but the rice wine
- Add water to cover the chicken, open lid, cook for 45 minutes after it boiled

- Add the rice wine, open lid, use medium heat for 10 minutes to let the alcohol evaporated
- Then it's done, you can taste the soup to add more salt or fish sauce if you want.

This dish is suitable for winter time, but this summer, Irvine is too cold, I still want to eat  it ~~~~~

Guppy house's dinner

If you need a cheap but good quality dinner, this restaurant may be the best choice. Its disadvantage: you may need wait for 30 minutes in the peak hour.

The staffs here are very friendly and helpful. The store is clean, it's decoration just impressive!

Here is what we order:

Meat ball (pork) with vege. It comes with rice, cucumber pickle, potato salad, and fresh (not canned) pineapple

Pork intestin with pickle soup

Taiwanese style BBQ baby squid

I love the BBQ squid at night market in Taiwan. I don't know which kind of sauce they use to marinate squid or calamari, so I try to imitate it as mixing the sauce by myself. It seems to be "converged". 

I bought a box of baby squid from Nijia, that's whole squid, so I need to clean them by myself (take time and it's dirty job). Next time I will by the cleaned ones from Wholefood!!!

OK, so all you need is:

1. Ingredients:

- Baby squids: 15 or 1 big calamari (I prefer remove their skin, bone and inner part)

- Sauce: 1/4 cups of rice wine (guess white wine is ok), 2 spoons of brown sugar, 1 spoon of soy sauce, if you have oyster sauce, add 1, some dried red chili, 1 spoon of oil (olive oil).

- Skewer (prefer the metal ones), I got these from Mitsuwa: made in Japan!!!

2. Method:

- Making sauce: Add all sauce ingredients into a small pot, heat until broil then simmer for 5 minutes, the mixture will be thinker. Cook it while you prepare the squid (either clean the baby squid or cut a calamari into smaller pieces)

- After the sauce gets cool (warm is ok), add the squids into the pot, mix well and marinate for at least 15 minutes.

- Preheat the oven to 400 degree, then skew the squids into skewers

- I use baking setting, for 20 minutes.

- Here is the BBQ squids, the flavor is great, almost similar to what I ate before. You can eat squid with rice, mix with salad, or just squid

626 night market