Gastro Monkey // 美食家

The older I get, the less I feel lik e celebrating my birthday. I am officially back to just having a nice, quiet dinner. I really had no idea what I felt like doing until The Sushi Geek posted about Sushi Sasaki. In case you'd like to see the post, here is the  Sushi Geek's Sushi Sasaki Review . Feeling pretty blah about what to eat, this was exactly what I needed. I researched a few other places but this is the restaurant that stood out to me the most. Plus, they (chefs Sasaki and Wada) both wanted to emphasize edomae sushi and simplicity. Key words that will more than likely get me to try a place - simplicity, traditional, understated (not that I won't go if it's not those things, those are just what attract me most). I made a reservation, which was already getting a little hard to do on the weekends. It's reservation only and they have two times a night that they start their meals. The restaurant seats twelve, so only twenty-four lucky people get to enjoy per

One of the reasons why I enjoy watching Bourdain travel the world and eating things is the cultural background he also provides. As a traveler, I feel that it's important to not only physically go places, but to also learn and gain a greater appreciation of what makes people who they are. Temples, churches, places of worship are a great way to do that. It's an extra step above the food (and really, doesn't the extra walking and learning just make you extra hungry so you can eat even more?).  That said, whenever I'm in Taipei, I always try to make time to go to Lungshan Temple at least once. Lungshan Temple is one of my favorite temples to visit (my favorite is actually Xuanzang Temple at Sun Moon Lake). Said to be one of the luckiest temples, it survived a bombing by the Americans during World War II (weird, right? Taiwanese people aren't Japanese, but colonialism blah blah can of worms blah blah please refer to my sources at the end of this post to read more).