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@Eating The Road: I did end up trying a MOS shogayaki rice burger; China Airlines served them for breakfast during my flight back to the U.S. (see photo above) I decided against commenting on the burger itself, though, since after having been refrigerated and reheated as airplane food it was clearly not up to normal MOS standards. Like you, I've also heard many great things about MOS burgers - the next time I find myself in Asia, I'd be happy to write off my two experiences as unusual and give MOS another try.

@haappyhed: Thanks! My relationship with Taiwan is similar to yours - my mother was born in Taiwan and I spent many a childhood summer, as well as part of elementary school, in Taipei. As a rule, whenever I return for a visit, every square micrometer of stomach space is reserved for my grandparents' home cooking, tropical fruit, and Taiwanese street food... so this tour was a marked departure from my norm, instigated primarily by my encounter with those absurd mini-burgers.

I wish I'd known better than to try MOS' regular hamburger - from the sound of it, almost anything else on the menu would have been more satisfying - but at the time I intentionally ordered what an uninformed, displaced American might when searching for a hamburger that tastes like home. Given my preference for traditional Taiwanese food, my recent two-week visit was far too brief to accommodate a truly exhaustive burger roundup (I'm not a food writer and this trip was personal in nature), but in the future it might be interesting to seek out distinctively Asian re-conceptions of the burger.

@kkyoung: You're right, it's often foolish to expect familiar food to be prepared authentically in a foreign country. I was raised on homestyle Chinese cooking and if I went into a Panda Express here in the U.S. expecting similar, my soul would probably die a little.

Reasonable or no, for the purposes of this review I deliberately assumed the mindset of a homesick American looking for a regular burger. People who order Asian-style burgers expect to taste something interesting and unfamiliar, but a customer who orders a hamburger probably just wants a hamburger. Whereas the 3-inch mini-burgers don't pretend to be traditional and MOS rice burgers are a deliberate and successful departure from the norm, I'm pretty sure Mary's does attempt to make an "American" style burger, and when MOS offers an apparently standard "Hamburger" alongside its more imaginative entrées, I think it's fair to examine it according to Western standards.

I'll know better next time, though. ;)

My first was one that I picked up on whim off a library resale bookshelf during high school: Alfred Portale's Twelve Seasons Cookbook. Before then I found recipes to be overcomplex and generally inscrutable; my culinary experimentation was limited to popcorn and cinnamon toast. Somehow, though, as I flipped through recipes in this book something seemed to click and the instructions suddenly made sense - they were persuasive, encouraging, even enticing. Why, I could do that to a chicken, YES I COULD. Capers? Shallots? White wine reduction? Easy.

Anyway, as they say, the rest is history.

Inimitably, endearingly silly. :)

That's absolutely terrible. I know there's much to be said for progress, but it's a shame to raze yet another a historic neighborhood when these are becoming few and far between in modern Chinese cities.

As one who has never used the stuff, what ARE the usual things one would fry in duck fat? I immediately thought of gnocchi, but that's only because Kathy recently mentioned doing so.

Most of us seem to have the right idea - good seafood shouldn't be overly fussed with. Depending on what we're talking about, I generally like my seafood steamed, grilled, baked, lightly sautéed, or raw. I am admittedly very fond, though, of my Chinese grandfather's "hong shao yu," or "Red Braised Fish," which is first marinated, then fried, and finally simmered in soy sauce and spices.

To cook more. I've been baking quite a bit recently, but still need to experiment at regular mealtimes.

Porterhouse.

Dark, rich chocolate mousse.

Really hot, hearty deep-dish pot pies.

Ahh...the enormous array of prosciutto and thin slices of lard, sandwiched with hot-off-the-griddle flatbread made by my adopted grandparents, on a farm in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy.
The food (and wine) alone would've made it memorable, but what makes me smile is the memory of grandfather, who would not tolerate the sight of my hands empty nor my mouth unfilled, hand-selecting cuts of meat and pushing another sandwich into my hands as soon as I finished the first, admonishing all the while, "Mangia, maangia!"

Dark chocolate mousse would hit the spot, right this moment...