Taiwanese Temptation

I broke my vow to eat only Viet food while home with my peeps in Virginia. My cousin Peony took me to a cheap and yummy Taiwanese joint called A & J. We had lunch at the Annandale outpost of the two-door chain, whose other branch is on the other side of the Beltway in Bethesda, Md. It's hard to tell which location earned the restaurant the honors of being best bargain for five years in a row from Washingtonian magazine. Peony said the Annandale spot is better. We were a little worried when the waitress told us it's a cash-only business. But with rice porridge priced at 95 cents per bowl and the big plate of Taiwanese fried chicken with rice and pickled mustard greens costing $5.95, we were able to order a variety of dishes and have our bill, with tip, total $24.

This is the 95-cent bowl of rice and corn porridge, or congee in Taiwanese-Chinese-Hong Kongese. It was bland but hot and filling.

This is the chilled hodgepodge of bean curd skin, mustard greens and edamame beans.

This is the spicy seaweed and bean sprout salad, also served cold as a nice complement with the bean curd skin to the fried chicken.

This is the Taiwanese version of Japanese karaage, or fried chicken. The difference is that the entire boneless fillet of chicken breast was sliced uniformly and deep-fried with the skin on it. In contrast, the Japanese dish consists of blobs of chicken that could have been taken from the breast or thigh.

The potstickers were long and lean, but the flour skin barely held the meat. It was more like a wheat crepe that was filled with ground meat and fried in a pan.

Continuing The Food and Music Club's obsession with gnomes, I snapped a pic of Peony in the pointy knit hat that her beau got for her. In profile, she reminds me of a Little Orange Riding Hood who got lost in Gnome Forest and decided to stop by a roadside diner for some dumplings. Perhaps I should submit her photo to the online Gnome Club. I heard that Rien Poortvliet and Wil Huygen's Gnome Book has been re-issued on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. Gotta get me one of those!

This isn't a gnome. It's my grandmother's Pekinese. I hesitated from granting him a second appearance on this Web site because he is such a vain dog. But I changed my mind after Peony informed me of the full name written on his pedigree certificate: Sir Roscoe Kacee Boots Pug. Loony!

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