Hardwok Cafe, Taiwanese Food: Restaurant Review

We celebrated my cousins birthday a couple weekends ago and he was craving to try out this Taiwanese café located in China Town. The place is called Hardwok Café (haha get it? Hard "wok"?) and is a Taiwanese style café that has many Taiwanese dishes as well as popular Taiwanese styled drinks and treats! (If I'm wrong about it being Taiwanese, my bad! But I'm pretty sure it is..)

First off, you got to have bubble tea! I had the Honey Green Milk Tea with pudding (instead of tapioca since I don't care for it that much) and holy crap this was so good! I usually love honey flavored anything and tend to get black milk tea over green milk tea, but I'm glad I got the green milk tea version since it is lighter and you can really taste the honey in it.

My drinke =)

We also ordered quite a bit of appetizer things. This one below is the pork blood rice cakes. Yes, this may sound gross to some, but seriously, this was good. It reminds me of the Korean pork blood sausage that is filled with rice as well. This one was actually a bunch of rice in a pork blood stew and then cut into little rice cake squares. The sauce on top was sweet and when dipped with the ground peanuts it made for a nice treat. I couldn't eat too much of it since it was a little sweeter than I would have liked it to be, but it was still good.

 



You can see that this is mainly rice and what holds it together like the glue is the pork blood sauce.



 

 

 

Another little snack that is one of my favorites is stewed chopped pork ears. The cartilage is nice and crunchy on the ear and the flavor is really simple. I really like the texture of this, but I know it doesn't math everyone's tastes.  We poured a little of the sweet/savory sauce over it and enjoyed nibbling on this.

 

 

My cousin, who is a really big fan of tonkatsu (the breaded and fried Japanese pork dish) wanted to try this Taiwanese style one and it was pretty good! There wasn't any sauce, but it wasn't really needed since the breading was flavorful enough on its own and the pork wasn't dry. I believe they pounded it out to be thinner and more tender.

 

 

Ah, on to my dish! This was so good! If you are a fan of braised pork and pork hock, you would absolutely love this dish. It came with a bowl of noodle soup which was very clean tasting and a real palette cleanser. The pork hock was nice and tender, but not too done where it would be too slimy/mushy. I definitely had leftovers and took some of this deliciousness home!

 

Another food over view

 

When we saw that they had the Xiao Long Bao (literally translated as little dragon bun/dumplings), I knew I had to try them. These are my favorite types of dumplings since they have the soup inside (if done right and the outside wrapping doesn't break!). I have to say this one wasn't as good as I would hope it to be and I probably wouldn't order it again since I've had better dumplings in other restaurants. For the price though, this isn't bad, and is good to share amongst 2 people for a quick snack.

Next, we had this turnip cake pudding type thing and again, this wasn't as good as I was hoping it to be. The flavor was there, but the texture was a little too soft for my liking. Also, I found the use of that same sweet/savory sauce to be a bit too powerful for this dish. A simpler soy sauce or something would have been better, or even nothing at all. Just having the sauce on the side instead of poured over would have been better.

 

 

My brother wanted the pork over rice dish. I took a bite or two and it was pretty good--it is definitely filling. I really liked the steeped hard boiled eggs on top along with the pickled radish (takuan).

 

And now, THE BEST PART! CAN WE PLEASE LOOK AND APPRECIATE THE BEAUTY OF THIS DESSERT!?!?!

 

This was the strawberry custard honey toast (more like strawberry ice cram). These type of sweetened breads/toast are really popular in Asia and in many Hong Kong and Taiwanese styled restaurants.

 

They loaded the dish with fresh strawberries, tons of ice creams, and some blueberries and a couple of strawberry Pocky sticks as garnish.

 

Inside, the bread is actually squared out to bite sized pieces and each piece is coated with the most delicious butter & honey blend and toasted to perfection. UGHHH! I'm craving it again! They have other flavors that I for sure want to try next time I'm there!

 

 

 

The only bad thing about the place is the size of it. If you are in a larger group or come at bad times, you will have to wait awhile. Other than the wait, everything else is on point. The staff are really nice and you can even order your bubble tea or other drinks beforehand while you wait, so at least you have something to sip on. The food comes out pretty fast too, so that's a plus when you're already waiting and are getting even more hungry. The pricing is very reasonable as well and I like that the portions are too big--it lets you try out more food things! I'm definitely going to come back here. Not sure when, but I definitely will =)

 

Have you tried any Taiwanese food? What is your favorite? Have you seen a dessert like this before?!

 

 

The smelliest foods in the world

Maybe I'm just a bit more adventurous than the average person, but I've had about half of these and honestly like them all.! Perhaps I'll do a post on the ones I've had and how I like to eat them?
I've had natto, lim burger cheese, durian, century egg, and stinky tofu!

No need to bash people or judge them for what they like, every culture has 'different' foods and it is what makes them unique! You don't have to like the food, just respect the people that eat them!

Th smelliest foods in the world

Seattle's Chinatown-ID Dragon Fest 2014 w/ Food Reviews!

This past weekend was the McDonald's presents Seattle's Chinatown-ID Dragon Fest and I was so glad that I went!

I couldn't pick between two ice cream flavors, so naturally, I got both!

 

Here's a look at the event and of course..some food pics!

Day time on Saturday

 

Night Market on Saturday Night

 I didn't spend much time at Dragon Fest on Saturday since I went to the Mariners game, but on Sunday, I was there the whole day working, but of course, I had to try some food places!

My first stop was the My Sweet Lil Cakes food truck that makes, as it says, sweet cakes, but in stick form which I loved the idea behind. The workers there were also very friendly.

 

 

It took awhile for them to open, but when they were ready, they had the Free Range Chicken & Waffle w/ syrup and butter ready to go!

 

 

As you can see, this piece was a fried batter of goodness drenched in syrup and butter. I wouldn't recommend eating too many of these, but one is definitely enough to indulge yourself! I loveeeed this!

 

Inside of the chicken & waffle on a stick.

Here's my friends Chicken & waffle (It looks way better and more like a waffle than mines! Haha)

 

 

I also then ordered their Red Velvet pancake with cherries inside. This one wasn't quite ready and I had to wait 30 mins for it, but I honestly didn't mind because it gave me tummy time to digest the chicken and waffle so I could really enjoy this one. Doesn't it just look amazing!?! drooools 

 

 

Inside the pancake  you can see the cherries.

For a mid meal break, I then went ahead and got some ice cream bars! I love Full Tilt Ice cream (local to Seattle) and especially their Salted Caramel one. When I saw that they had it in bar form, I had to get it!

 

Buttt, when I saw that they were 2 for $5.00 and had an Orange Rosemary Honey flavor, I knew I had to get both, and both I did get!

 

It probably wasn't the best idea since at the end they started melting a bit, but I was able to finish them both off fine! I didn't care too much for the chocolate dipped on top of the bars since it took away from the natural flavor of the actual ice cream itself but once I finished the chocolate, I could taste the ice cream flavors. I really enjoyed the subtle hint of orange and honey on that bar (couldn't really taste too much rosemary). The salted caramel wasn't as salty as I thought it would be (slight disappointment) and  parts of the bar was iced over, so not smooth ice cream but weird iced bits that were crunchy and not what I was expecting. Still good for a hot day, but could have been better!

=)

 The last thing I ate, I wasn't even going to eat, but once I saw that it was El Salvadorian food with pupusas, I had to try it!

 

 

I  had the Crazy Pupsa with everything in it and a side of their version of horchata (made not just with rice but with nuts too!)

 

 

 

 

side of pickled cabbage

 

The pupusa was nice and hot, they put it on the grill once I was there. It is like a pancake stuffed with a lot of ingredients, or if you're familiar with the Korean Pajun (pancake) it is kind of like that. Another way I can think of describing pupusas is if it was like a tamale in pancake form but less dense. The flavors all melded together and the pickled veggies were a nice cooling touch to the salsa and heat of the pupusa. 

The horchata was different than most I've had that were just rice and spices since this one also had peanut in it as well (hence the more brown color). I really liked this a lot and it reminded me of a few Asian drinks that have peanuts in them.

 

Overall, this was a successful event and I was glad I was able to eat such good food and try some new things! I love Summer time in Seattle and can't wait to go to more events!

 

Do you like going to festivals and fairs in your home town? What are you favorite ones? If I ever am in your area during your summer, I'd love to check them out!