the copycat baker: Seattle Adventures: Henry's Taiwan

The past month has definitely lived up to the motto of "work hard, play hard." It's been a whirlwind of activities interspersed between work shifts. Almost no time to sleep, and even less time to catch up on my blogging. But, I feel obligated to blog. I started this blog as an outlet, a place for myself to vent and pour out my thoughts. While I have realized that blogs are too public to treat as a personal diary, that sense of selfishness hasn't changed. I blog for myself, no one else. I think of it as a way for me to look back someday (one year? five years? ten years from now?) and see how blessed my life truly is!

I celebrated the end of another school year with lunch at a Taiwanese eatery in the International District- Henry's Taiwan. Unfortunately, I was running late, then Kyle was also running late (which actually turned out to be a good thing, since Donnie could then come with us)- in the end, poor Shu had to rush through lunch to go back to work. Ah... work, bane of life. Fortunately, the food was quite delicious!

To borrow a Chinese idiom, "my eye was bigger than my stomach" (yan du da xiao) which meant every square inch of our small table was crammed with various dishes. For the 4 of us, we had the popcorn chicken, shaved beef noodles, purple fried rice with Chinese sausage, another dish that I don't remember, and of course, stinky tofu! I made the 2 boys try the infamous Taiwanese delicacy- stinky tofu. In fact, our waiter suggested that in order to date Chinese girls, they both had to learn to love stinky tofu. Unfortunately, they weren't a huge fan... but that just meant more for me! Yum yum!

I especially liked the fried rice, which was made with purple rice and had chunks of Chinese sausage. It was quite flavorful and authentic (though, since I really am an ABC, who am I to judge authenticity?). Usually, I refrain from ordering fried rice at restaurants, since it's something I feel that I can cook at home; however, Henry's fried rice really is quite excellent and I would order it again and again. The other dishes were good in retrospect, but not memorable. For example, we devoured the popcorn chicken (who doesn't like fried chicken pieces dusted with salt and pepper???). And the stinky tofu was good (although, I thought Rocking Wok's was slightly better), especially with lots of Chinese kimchi! Perhaps, we over-ordered. Too many choices made us more picky and critical eaters. Our feast wasn't expensive- about $10 per person, including lots of leftovers for dinner or lunch the next day. Like most of the ID restaurants, it is a bit small, so seating is very limited. Another bonus: if the waiter happens to know you... free appetizers! Apparently the waiter recognized me from church... small world, eh?

Henry's Taiwan is definitely another restaurant I would introduce my Taiwanese parents to! I just love taking my parents to Taiwanese restaurants, so they can taste memories from their childhood. It's the best compliment when Dad approves a restaurant's stinky tofu, or Mom comments that the food is quite genuine!