It Was A Good Day (Week)

Pfft, as if a week off from this is anything new.

It was a good week. Got most of my work handled by the middle of the week, then made the most of the good weather on Friday, chilling out in the park, and then hitting up Yangmingshan Saturday afternoon. It's nice up there, nice and sunny, up above the smog and shit of Taipei, and full of people doing normal people shit you don't see in Taipei normally, like a family in the park playing backyard baseball. Nice recharge, and I'll slap up a few photos once I figure how to get the transfers off my phone working.

The nights were good too. Friday went out to Alleycat's at the invitation of Frost and got a nice dinner, chatting with people (and learning about the freakish genius of Blue Jam), before briefly going to the Taiwan Beer Bar and then to a place near the BJJ club called Playing, where me, Miltownkid, Pedro, and a few others hit up the hookah and potato wedges. Saturday, Bryan had a DJ gig at The Source, so from midnight till about 4 I was there making the most of the all-you-can-drink offer and spitting bilingual game like a modded PS2.

Then back into BJJ tonight after a week off for work/injuries/dodginess.

It was a good week.

Crackers Fit for a Fuhrer

It's no Dongda Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease, but I finally discovered a new piece of quality English. I'm not sure if it's a pun, a bad idea, a bad translation, or completely innocent and anything wrong is in my mind rather than their product, though. Here's the source - a packet of rice crackers from Thailand:


It's not immediately obvious - which makes it even better - but look more closely at the top left corner:

Disregarding any possible Aryan connotations, the title is fair enough - this stuff is hell of tasty.

Allahu Snackbar

After hearing about the place in the weekend from my flatmate Bryan, I finally managed to hit up Sababa Pita Bar today. Apparently they opened back in October or November, but this is the first I've heard of it, which is surprising. It's absolutely excellent.

The food is all nice and cheap, with pita sandwich type things costing NT$98 (NT$148 with chips and a drink), and the "cigars" - Middle Eastern spring rolls, basically - are delicious, particularly the Moroccan (spiced mince with pine nuts). I went down this afternoon and tried the chicken souvlaki pita and two cigars - the Moroccan and the Egyptian (spicy cheese). NT$244 in total, and a hell of a good feed. Tasty, freshly made, friendly service (with staff that actually speak English, rather than just pretending to)... top shelf the whole way. It is a little small, and their hours need some work (11:30am-9:00pm), but those are minor issues. They also do take-out and sell pita, hummus, tahini, and such in bulk. Strongly recommended for those of you in Taipei.

The restaurant's address is 1F, Alley 54, Lane 118, Heping E. Rd. Sec. 2, but the easiest way to get there is head to the corner of Fuxing S. and Xinhai, turn right onto Xinhai, right again at the Hi-life convenience store, and then first left. There's a map on the site that makes it clearer than that muddied-up pile of shit description though.