- [Iz] It's brunch time and we're here at Din Tai Fung.
This is the restaurant that put Taiwanese food
on the map and there's good reason why.
They're known specifically for their soup dumplings
but honestly anything you get here is gonna
be out of this world.
This place is like a food factory.
The efficiency is unreal.
Everything is served so fresh
and the attention to detail is exceptional.
Wow!
They still are the best soup dumplings
I've ever had in my life.
The outer is just like paper thin.
The meat is so tender and the broth inside
are just packed with flavor.
And having fresh vegetable dishes to go alongside,
it enhances the experience.
You can have something super savory
and then something slightly sweet.
And these cucumbers with chile oil,
I might name my first kid after them.
I already had one but I might rename him.
- I'm doing kid chopsticks.
- [Johnny] Okay, show me how you do it.
- We're going to head out and do a hike
in the national park here.
Oh no, dumpling down!
Then we're going to take on hot pot.
Taiwan has a specific way of doing it,
and I'm really excited to see what that's all about.
There's a dish that unites almost all of East Asia.
It's more of a method or even a ritual.
Put a pot of boiling broth in the middle of the table,
gather a bunch of ingredients,
and create your own adventure.
Here in Taiwan, they have their own riff on the format.
Pulling nearly equally from both
Chinese and Japanese influences,
hot pot in Taipei is a unique blend
of tradition and innovation,
and it's one I am excited and eager to try.
- [Johnny] Run to the car.
Run, run, run.
- We've got snacks.
We've got hikes.
We are all ready to go.
This is out of this world,
I've never seen anything like it.
There is volcanic geothermal energy everywhere,
so it's just super steamy and foggy and magical.
It's wild.
So green, so lush.
Let's explore.
This is stunning.
It is so beautifully kept.
It was completely stroller accessible.
The texture of the trees is very different
than anything I've seen, the mistiness,
and it's just such a nice escape for the kids
to be able to run around.
I can't recommend this enough.
And it's just 45 minutes outside of the city.
What?
We're now like in the middle of a cloud.
The traditional way to end a hike here
is the foot hot springs.
So we're going to go do that
and it's going to be amazing.
- [Johnny] Not too fast!
- [Iz] Everyone's just here at the end of their day,
at the end of their hikes to just soak, relax, rest.
I don't think the kids interrupted it too much.
They kind of did.
(laughs)
But it's fine, it still was really great.
It's time for hot pot.
We're here at the Addiction Aquatic Development
and we ditched the kids and we're going to have a date.
This place is wild.
You walk in and it's like a full market.
They're making sushi, there's wine, there's beer,
there's cheese, there's a flower shop.
Upstairs is where the hot pot is.
We're going to order the seafood deluxe,
which I'm really excited about because that's
what Taiwanese hot pot is all about.
And then we're going to throw in some wagyu beef
because that's very specific to shabu-shabu
which is the more Japanese-influenced hot pot.
I'm very excited, I've never done hot pot, let's do it!
Everything's coming.
We're gonna start with these vegetables,
the ones that take a bit longer to cook.
Look, I'm a pro already!
Then the corn.
Look at that.
Taiwanese hot pot has a strong Japanese influence
and is actually called shabu-shabu.
What sets it apart is this thinly cut beef.
Shabu-shabu is literally translated
to the "swish-swish" that you get when you dip the broth
briefly and just go back and forth a few times
and that's what we're going to do.
That's very good.
It's so thin, it's really tender.
And this peanut sauce goes perfectly alongside it.
Really good.
- Very marbled, it's just incredibly melt-in-your-mouth
even after just like 10 seconds in the pot.
Crazy.
- They just gave me the cooking times for each of these.
We have clams, prawns, no idea, crab,
lobster I think, no idea, fish.
The fish is almost done and that means that this lobster
was three minutes, so he can probably come out.
A big part of hot pot is this sauce.
They have here like a citrus-y soy sauce.
We're going to try it with a little bit of the crab.
That is really good.
The crab itself is incredibly sweet
and cooked perfectly if I do say so myself.
Big ol' piece of lobster.
I have to say that one of the things that's really standing
out to me is all of the seafood I've had before
and all of them taste much different
than when I've had them previously.
I think the cooking method, the broth, the sauce,
obviously all add but I really think
it's more about the method.
Addiction Aquatic Center gets a 10 out of 10,
the national park gets a 10 out of 10,
and the shabu-shabu was such a special experience to have
here in Taipei.
I loved it.
I loved it!
Be sure not to miss the next and final episode
where we dive into the art of handmade noodles.