"Fashion Meat" Sukiyaki - Taiwan Taipei

10 more days till I'm back to California,
I miss the sunshine already,
It's like monsoon season in Taiwan, hot and humid.
Oh! did I even mention the non-stop rain?

So what can I do besides getting stuck at home?
How about getting stuck at a restaurant? Sounds merrier (or fatter)?

潮肉壽喜燒 (Fashion Meat Sukiyaki or Tsao Ruo Sukiyaki) -

"潮" pronounces as "tsao," contains different meanings such as tides or fashionable,
As for a restaurant, the meaning should be fashionable.
"肉" pronounces as "ruo," means meat.

One question first,
Have you ever had sukiyaki?
Basically it's a little bit similar to shabu shabu, 
However, instead of clear soup base,
Sukiyaki uses soy sauce based seasonings and either hot water or tea for the soup base.

For dipping sauce, simply take a fresh egg and break it into a small bowl -

Once the thinly sliced beef has been cooked in the pot,
Just dip it with beaten egg and enjoy it immediately.

Sounds weird?
Japanese use a lot of raw eggs in their dishes,
Same thing applies to Europeans,
So if you get a chance in the future, just be brave and give it a try,
Raw egg yolk is the best!

Beef and pork slices -

This place also provides Angus beef (not in the picture),
The service is awesome,
Waiter/waitress will stop by the table and start teaching customers how to prepare the meat properly -

There're some delicious items created by the restaurants,
Such as cheesy beef roll:
Simply make a beef roll with Parmesan cheese wrapped in the center,
Transfer to the soup base and cook till the meat is done,
Take it out, sprinkle with some coarse black pepper, one yummy dish is done!

Or just cook the meat and sprinkle with some wasabi powder, mustard powder, and Shichimi Togarashi powder,
You'll get various flavors popping inside your mouth.

I'll never feel full by eating meat only, call me a carb person,
So clear rice noodles is a must for me when eating sukiyaki (bottom left) -

(You can tell how messy my table was, one messy eater!)

Chicken thighs -

Stewed beef with potatoes -

This was not cooked with the soup base,
But it was on the menu and I love stewed potatoes...
So...so...even though I was super full...I still ordered this dish...

Dessert time! (Oops, that's my friend in the background) -

The waiter removed the pot and brought over an iron net for the dessert,
It's mochi time!
They slowly cook the rice cake till it turns fluffy and slightly burned on the edges,
You can either eat it as the way it is,
Or dip the rice cake with condensed milk and some peanut powder,
"Or" you can put sweetened red bean or ice cream inside the rice cake,
It's DIY, do-it-yourself dessert time!

Tsao Ruo Sukiyaki is an all-you-can-eat place,
Besides meat items, it also covers vegetables, salads, seafood, small cooked dishes, soups, soft drinks, and ice creams,
So all these food plus table-side service, only costs about $15 U.S. during lunch hours,
What a bargain huh?

Cindy's Rating: 7

潮肉壽喜燒 "Fashion Meat" Sukiyaki or "Tsao Ruo" Sukiyaki台北市大安區東豐街41號1樓

1st Floor, Number 41, Don Fun Street, Da En Area, Taipei, Taiwan
011-886-02-2700-0399

Hito BBQ 田季發爺燒肉農安街總店

This time I wanna show you guys this all-you-can-eat barbeque place in Taipei,
Hito BBQ,
They only have two pre-set prices,
One is $399 (around $12 U.S.), and the other one is $499 (around $15 U.S.),
There are more seafood items for the higher price,
But since me and my friends can be careless about seafood, we picked the cheaper one.

By the way,
For this restaurant location, 
Before getting to the meat, you have to first climb 3 floors of steep stairs,
Me and my friends were complaining to the guy who booked the place,
Exercise is good, but not when we're starving!

So for the first round, we selected all the meat items-

And few plates of vegetables,
Just for your information, the ratio of meat versus veggies is about 3:1,
We're all carnivores!

Free kimchi-

Very good, I was surprised actually.
Maybe I shouldn't blame the guy for booking this restaurant,
We'll see how other dishes go later on.

Pork items-

We seriously ordered way too much food,
I didn't have time to ask what kind of meat it was,
The only thing I remembered was plates of meat keeps piling up at our table...

To show you how much we ordered-

The waiter had to use 4 grills total in order to cook all of our food.
Oh yeah, the waiter/waitress actually cook for you, you don't have to touch a thing,
Some of us tried to cook our own meat...but after comparing with the ones prepared by the guy...
Mmmm...we've decided to let the professional to do the job.

This is the chicken thing our waiter made-

Looks like okonomiyaki,
It was slightly burned on the outside and very juicy on the inside,
The waiter used some spices on the table for the seasoning-

Cheese, mustard, dried seaweed, shichimi togarashi, pepper, salt,
The restaurant also provides seasoned soy sauce and lemon juice as additional seasoning options.

Our waiter also made cheese flavored beef-

Kind of different, but it was indeed very delicious and juicy.

Grilled fish-

The fish won't fall down even if you turn the net upside down,
You might be thinking that the fish skin is sticking to the grill net right?
Surprisingly, our professional chef simply gave the net a few knocks with two tongs and the fish came out perfectly,
Skills skills.

Shrimps-

What is he doing?
Peeling off the shells for us, how nice!!

(((Skipping some meat dishes pictures, sorry I was too busy eating)))
This is our final dish,
Sticky rice cake dipped in condensed milk and peanut powder-

The rice cake was grilled till it started to bloat up a little bit,
Then dipped in condensed milk, and rolled in peanut powder.

I rarely eat sticky rice cakes,
Don't like the way it sticks on my teeth...and I probably have to lick it out with my tongue..
Not a pleasant scene in the public.
However, this time I ate it because I never had it with condensed milk,
Glad I tried, it was delicious!
But I did have to deal with the "remaining" sticky rice cakes on my teeth afterwards though..

Hito BBQ is probably one of my favorite all-you-can-eat barbeque places within this price range,
Service was good,
Our waiter had to cook for a bunch of starving people, didn't really get a chance to rest in between,
Applause for that!

Cindy's Rating: 7

Hito BBQ 田季發爺燒肉
台北市農安街31號3樓 3rd Floor, Number 31, Ruon En Street, Taipei
(02) 2595-4100
http://www.hito-bbq.com.tw/