Crepes... they're just really thin pancakes

I often find myself looking for a 2nd or 3rd lunch after eating my initial lunch. This was one of those cases. After eating a proper meal already, I was walking around and ended up in the 師大 (Shida) area, near the teacher's college. There's a night market there that is kind of famous, and ridiculously crowded, especially after finals (this week) and at night. Luckily, the place I wanted to go to has a store, and is open all day so I don't have to fight through the absurd crowds at night. I think the name is 阿諾式可麗餅 (Arnold's Crepes), but don't quote me on that... in case you forgot, I'm an ABC (American born Chinese) so my Chinese in the grand scheme of things is pretty suxxors. Anyway, it's located at the opening of the first alley on 師大路 (Shida Road), and there's always a line of people waiting, so it's pretty easy to find (I actually think there are a lot of locations, since it seems to be a chain). As far as the store... small shack style, I didn't eat in, so I can't comment on the interior, but everyone there was getting it to go. Let's just say... it's equivalent to street cart food. Would you want to eat in a small shack with tables set up by a chicken and rice cart? Nevermind, don't answer that.


There's actually a dizzying variety of flavors, from the dessert (including sundaes, red adzuki bean, taro), to the sweet, fruity varieties (mango, strawberry, peach, etc.), to the savory (ham, teriyaki chicken, grilled steak, pineapple shrimp). I probably should've taken a picture of the menu... since I'd be hard pressed to even list 25% of the their entire menu (here, you can read it yourself if you know Chinese :D). They basically spread their crepe batter over a giant round hot surface, and while it's crisping, they'll butter it with giant butter knives, and either spread your sweet pastes, ice cream, or fruits on top to caramelize, or start to layer the appropriate ingredients. In the time that they're applying the additional toppings, the crepe comes to a semi pliable firmness, at which point they take another giant spatula and proceed to scrape, and fold the giant concoction into a perfect cone. Watching this go on was actually half the fun haha. As far as pricing, nothing on the set list tops 100 NT ($3), and most things are in the 40-70 NT range, so it doesn't qualifty as cheap eats (in Taiwan anyway), but it certainly won't hurt your wallet. I chose to get the 黑胡椒豬肉 (black pepper pork) which was 60 NT ($2).


How was it? Well, imagine a thin crepe cookie first covered with more butter, then stacked with thinly sliced peppered pork (like ham really), which is then covered by 3 slices of american cheese, further stacked with a heaping handful of shredded lettuce, carrots, and cucumbers, and finally topped with an orange mayonnaise sauce (similar to thousand island, but I really want to say that I tasted miso too). It was basically a giant salad stuffed into a crepe which has been buttered to oblivion. I thought it was pretty good for the price, it was a lot of food (good for a light meal) for a fairly low price. On top of that, it made me feel like I was eating healthy (even though I clearly wasn't)... double win. The notable ingredient here was the sauce, which would even make someone who hates salad want to eat heaping mounds of lettuce. Would I recommend it though? Eh, that's questionable. It's kind of gimmicky, and while I thought it was good, it wasn't... 'I have to have another crepe tomorrow' good. So if having a giant salad in a cookie sounds tasty to you, by all means... get one, but don't feel like your missing out if you don't get it.

I did sprint intervals today! Actually I don't really know if what I did qualifies as that. People always told me to do HIIT, but I've found that I can't run fast enough to force myself to have to stop in 30 seconds, so I end up sprinting for 2 or 3 minutes. In any case, I ran fast... then I jogged... rinse, wash, repeat several times. I went to Taipei 101 and back, so total distance ended up being 5.41 miles. A bit short, but hey... it felt hard all the same.

distance for the day: 5.41 miles
distance biked for the day: 0.00 miles

distance on the year: 374.25 miles
distance biked on the year: 142.68 miles