Taipei City - Yellow Lemon

Value for money: 7/10

Cleanliness: 4/10

Service: 9/10

Quality of food: 7/10

Overall: 6/10

📍Yellow Lemon, Taipei Not my usual Saturday afternoon, but it was pretty good fun. Pick of the bunch was probably the chocolate eclair, the crab macaroon and also the creme brulee were great, too! #Taipei #Taiwan #eatingintaipei #eat #eating #food #foodie #afternoontea #cake #cookies #pie #fun #creative #dessert #Saturday #chocolate #eclair #cremebrulee #crab #macaroon #flatlay #tablelay @flatlays @flatlaytoday #photooftheday #picoftheday #photography #photographer #love #ilovefood

A photo posted by Eating in Taipei (@eatingintaipei) on Feb 11, 2017 at 8:34am PST

Yellow Lemon has been here for over 3 and a half years, this was my first visit.

I've seen their 'picnic' sets for a while on Instagram.

It's a lot of fun inside the place, itself. There's lots of natural light as it's a corner space with very big windows, and everything is clean and well presented.

I am also a big fan of the open kitchen where you can see the kitchen staff working on things. Often I get caught staring...

I also like the long marble worktops, perfect for pastries and desserts.

I only took photos of the 'sweet' area of the menu, as that's all we came for, this time. However, Head Chef Andrea did show us some pictures of the rest of the menu and it looked great. So, I am pretty sure we will be back to try out those bits.

Picnic for 2

$600 x 2

The basket arrived on our table, along with the 'turf'. However, said 'turf' was very dirty. It seems like either it can't be washed, or hasn't been washed in quite some time as there were lots of bits of food over the turf, itself. Also, as the desserts made it to the table on the logs, stones or such, they also appeared to be fairly unclean, too...

Crab macaroons with salmon roe were one of the savoury pieces that came with our picnic. The macaroon was crunchy, which went nicely with the delicate crab meat and then topped off with the salty salmon eggs.

These little jelly babies arrived, shortly after the macaroons. The yellow was mango and the red one strawberry. If you've had a jelly bean before, you'd probably be expecting a chewy gummy. But, this wasn't chewy in any way. The flavours were fresh and natural.

Chocolate eclair. These were one of the better things we had at Yellow Lemon. The choux pastry was light, the raspberry jam inside was good and the cream with fruit on top was a nice finishing touch.

Whisky gummy. Possibly not for the weak of heart, as the whisky flavour is pretty strong. Luckily, I am a big whisky fan! So, I enjoyed these.

Creme Brulee. The Creme brulee was pretty decent, with a crunchy topping. However, the burnt sugar topping was a little bit too thick.

These jam filled madeleine's were good, but the jam filling was a little too much inside them, which made them a little soft and 'mushy'. On the trowel, there was some 'dirt' which was a chocolate crumb. It was fun, but didn't pack a whole lot of flavour.

Grandma's apple pie. The granola-like crumb was delicious, the chocolate covered bottom was delicious and the cinammon flavour going with the crunchy apple crisp on top was great, too.

Pizza. At first glance, the pizza didn't look great and I thought it was going to be quite doughy. However, it was crunchy, light and tasty. In fact, I could have eaten two.

Served atop a jar of dry ice, panna cotta was filling the bottom of the passion fruit, topped with passion fruit on top. The combination of sweet on the bottom and sour on the top combined together nicely.

This 'caviar' came in the forms of mini chocolate balls with a nice crunch on the inside. A couple of layers of these mini balls gave way to panna cotta.

Yellow Lemon photographs really well. However, the truth of the matter is - it just isn't as good as I was hoping for.

Opening Times:

Monday - Friday

11:00 - 20:00

Saturday and Sunday

10:00 - 20:00

Tel:

02 2533 3567

臺北市中山區明水路561號

No. 561, MingShui Road, ZhongShan District, Taipei City

Happy Eating!

Taiwanese Tea

Taiwanese Tea

I decided to change it up a little with this post, talking about something that I really enjoy about Taiwan (other than the food) - Tea!

Beautiful Teapots

The Chinese character for tea - 茶

Taiwanese Tea

If you ask any tea connoisseur/expert/lover about Taiwanese tea, you are likely to hear about two specific kinds: 鐵觀音 Iron Buddha (TieGuanYin) and 高山烏龍茶 High mountain oolong.

A comparison between PuEr and High mountain oolong

If you walk into a tea shop and approach the owner sitting at a table unlike one in the picture above, they will absolutely ask you to sit down and offer you some tea. I started to study Chinese at ShiDa Mandarin Training Center 2 years ago and completed 9 months of classes. Regularly throughout that period I would sit down with tea shop owners and practice Chinese, drink tea, and talk about anything and everything we could. I cannot recommend this enough as a learning experience.

My favourite tea - LiShan oolong

The tea shop owner in this store gave me some of my favourite tea to try 

梨山高山烏龍茶 LiShan high mountain oolong.

The flavours in this tea are clean, crisp and delicious. I like this tea so much that it is one of the only ones I will buy for my tea set at home. When I drink it at home it has a fruity flavour, predominantly apple. It also has the characteristic milky flavour that oolong has become famous for.

However, sitting down with the tea shop owner this time, he likened the flavours to freshly cut apple and freshly cut pear. If you cut the fruit in half and smell the inside of the fruit, it's that kind of flavour. He hit the nail on the head!

PuEr Tea 'cakes'

PuEr tea is preserved in a way where the tea is packed into a 'cake' and stored for a long time. As a general rule of thumb - the older the cake, the more expensive the tea. I am going to guess that this tea is worth upwards of $10,000TWD.

How to drink tea, the Taiwanese way

Tasting cup

This is known as the 'smelling/aroma' cup. The tea is put into the long smelling cup and then it is upturned into your tea cup. You should then pull the cup up and let the tea flow into the tea cup beneath, as the aroma of the tea fills your 'smelling' cup, you should get your nose in there and have a good sniff. Just like a fine wine or whisky, you can test yourself to find the different aromas and then confirm them with the brewer of the tea.

Usually they will join you in drinking the tea, this is when you know the quality is really good!

High mountain oolong

When the smelling cup has been disposed of, now it's time to take a drink. 'Slurping' the tea is said to be the best way to get a taste for the different flavours as it is said to release the oxygen from underneath your tongue and to properly coat your mouth with the tea flavours. However, in the west it is deemed rude to slurp your drinks. 

Note: We are not in the west, we are in Taiwan. Slurp that tea and taste those flavours!

Comparison of teas - from left to right: AliShan red oolong tea, PuEr tea and LiShan high mountain oolong tea.

Tea in Taiwan is used in a multitude of different ways. Here's my recommendation: go to a tea shop and taste some of the tea, then buy a bag of what you like. Get a french press/cafetiere (traditionally for coffee, of course) and add enough tea leaves to the bottom so as they are 2 rows deep. Now, pour hot water over the top and leave the plunger at the top. Allow the leaves to expand a little for 30s, then pour out the water, retaining the semi opened tea leaves inside. This time, fill up with water again, wait 50s and plunge the plunger down. Drink the tea, and repeat some more.

If you order tea in Maokong, this is what you'll get, if you don't know how to use it, just ask!

How many times can I use the same leaves?

For a high mountain oolong tea, you can get 6-8 pulls from one pot, so don't go throwing your leaves away after just one pot! If you don't want any more tea, then continue to brew it there and then but just put it into a flask or a separate jug and have it cold later.

For a good quality PuEr tea, you can get anywhere between 10-15 pulls off of that, so definitely make sure you're not wasteful in throwing it away.

Jiufen is also a very popular place to drink tea

How can I choose my own Taiwanese teapot?

This is a tough one, because there are so many different kinds. I would suggest an enamel one like the white one in the pictures above. The size of that one is for 2-4 people, so it's an ideal size, too. You should only clean your pot with hot water, never soap! 

Alternatively, you could go for a more traditional teapot like the ones in the first picture at the top of the article. However, make sure to season the pot, first: brew your first pot of tea and do not drink it. Leave it for 24hours, wash it out with hot water, and now it is good to go.

Maokong is still my favourite place - killer view and killer tea!

I am happy to answer any questions about tea, just throw them over to eatingintaipei@gmail.com, or leave a comment on this post.