I, too, had a lovely afternoon in the sun having a few beverages with my regular crew. The weather on Friday and Saturday was just sublime: it was hard to be stuck indoors at all. We headed out to the “big brother” which earned its name from a previous incarnation of the little pub, when it was the Soo Woo. Now it goes by some Chinese name which I can never remember, but the table tapping beers are still very enjoyable and the squid balls (don’t think too much about that!) are the best in town.
We really are quite spoiled at the moment. The new SOGO building is a 7-10 minute stroll from our place, quite beautiful with all its polished granite, wide boulevards and grass and trees and lighting and landscaping. Inside is a branch of the world famous Din Tai Fung, Taipei’s premier dumpling and Chinese restaurant. It is really top quality food at a very affordable price. The turnover has to be seen to be believed and it has all the theatre you would expect from a bustling restaurant this famous. The cooks show off their skills behind a huge window in front of house and it si quite mesmerizing to see their skilful kneading, rolling cutting and throwing. We usually end up by getting a Coldstone Creamery icecream in a waffle cone to eat on the wide avenue at street level, taking in the sights and watching the endless parade of people on an awakening Saturday night.
Today the weather snapped back to freezing winter type. It was 28 on Saturday and we were walking around in shorts, yet a day later, out came the long shirts and jackets as the mercury plummeted to about 12 degrees with a strong wind to boot. We had our fairly typical Sunday sleep in and decadently long and lazy brekky, mainly as the surf was small and listless, not tempting us across the mountain at all. We decided to hang around home for a while, and then head over to Neihu to go and get some much needed new stuff. We needed to shop for big kinda awkward things, so we took the car and planned to use the basement parking at some of the stores there. We bypassed the glitzy flash of the Miramar building, drove past the long lines of cars waiting for their car park and instead, went straight to the far less fashionable Carrefour. This store has a branch near us, but a much smaller one. This Neihu branch is spread over many floors and seems to have everything known to man on sale. We got our two new electric fans, 4 new pillows and associated and boring heavy and/or difficult to carry everyday goods to stockpile. I know it’s not even given a second thought back home, but we take advantage of the fact if we have the car with us: it feels quite special!
We squirreled our goods away in the boot then wandered back up and crossed the street to the Miramar. Just below the theatre level there are a number of pretty good restaurants, so we eventually decided to try Gillys. It was French affair, so we both got the set menu and had salad and soup, beautiful versions of both before our mains, mine the German veal and pepper sausages and Cassy the mushroom pasta. We had delicious coffee and a surprising crème brulee at the end. This place was fantastic! The irony is that we had discovered another Gillys restaurant on our big walk last week just a kilometre or so from our place and we were determined to get back and try it out one day.
Back home, the car purred its way back, the GPS guiding us (I knew where I was going, just liked playing with the toy!) and unloaded our stash and back I went to school to deposit the car in its park in the basement. On the way I visited our little neighbourhood car wash and got “Noddy” back to her pristine best. We had a great weekend! Photos are the incomparable Din Tai Fung, the girls snuggling against the cold this morning, Gilly’s chefs’ French diplomas, Cass posing in front of the water feature outside the restaurant and of course our low tech and hi tech friends in the car: I hope Ross notices I have transferred the Hawaiian girl to the new vehicle!