Gastro Monkey // 美食家

Every time I get caught up, I manage to fall behind again. I went to Dumpling Kitchen early on this year. I don't even remember why I was in SF, and how we ended up here. Maybe it was CAAM? I honestly don't remember anymore. Luckily, I do remember the food. After parking a few blocks away (parking can be tricky on the weekends in this neighborhood), I had a feeling of deja vu. It had been a while since I went to Shanghai Dumpling King, but the walk there, the road, the trolley, and the facade of the restaurant were very similar (yes, I know, the signs are different colors). It had been over a year so I started to question if I had actually been here before. Both restaurants have Shanghainese style food, but when the food came out, Dumpling Kitchen really stood out to me for the pork belly, and the pan fried dumplings.  "Braised Pork Belly With Preserved Vegetable" - super tender, and definitely recommend trying if you're in the neighborhood! ...

At some point, I knew it would get to the actual day of the Spartan Race. Since this is a food blog first and foremost, I will spare the details of that soul crushing race (glad I finished, should have trained more, and wouldn't want to do it again!). But, I will let you know how the food worked out for that day! Figured it would be too much effort to go too far to find food so we just stocked up on musubis from Iyasume Musubi. I am a big fan of the original spam musubi, but I also really like the spam, egg, cheese, and bacon. Or even just spam and egg. Or spam and cheese. They have a ton of combinations. They have other items aside from musubis, but of course, it's what they're known for so be sure to give them a try! Musubi Cafe IYASUME 2427 Kuhio Ave Honolulu, HI 96815 Website The race itself took a good portion of the day. Not to mention the hike from the parking lot to the starting line. That had to be at least 1.5km! It would have been better...

I found my go-to breakfast spot in Kaohsiung! 興隆居 is actually a local favorite and is known for their soup buns. I am a huge fan of meat buns in the morning when I am in Taiwan, so I was definitely interested in trying some soup buns. It's located pretty close to the City Council KMRT station. It's also right next to another bigger breakfast place. I haven't given that place a try, but I have seen a good amount of people eating there, and wonder if it's just people who don't feel like waiting in line for  興隆.  There are two lines. One is for if you want the soup buns, and one for their general breakfast items. Sometimes both lines are incredibly long, and sometimes it's just one line that is long. I always go for the soup bun line. Don't worry, if you get the soup buns, you can still get the regular breakfast items. You just can't get the soup buns if you only wait in the regular breakfast line. If you can't read Chinese, the regular line is on ...