Tofu pudding + mochi

In what might be the greatest travesties in the history of blogging (okay... maybe just my blog), I've apparently never written about 豆花 (tofu pudding) on its own. Outrageous! Anyway, to explain... extra soft tofu is sliced into small wedges with a spoon, then doused with a sweet syrup (often flavored with ginger), and then topped with whatever your heart desires (soft cooked peanuts, red beans, jellies... really, the sky is the limit). My advice though... go peanut. It's the traditional topping, for good reason. Served warm or cold, year-round, this shit is versatile, son.

Mmm, where I got the dish above isn't really important. It was somewhere in 淡水 (Dan Shui) that I don't exactly recall the name of. Maybe this is a cop out or whatever you want to call it, but if I don't like it enough to remember the name, then it probably wasn't spectacular (remember...? I'm easily impressed). Anyway, it was average. Which isn't to say it wasn't good... even an average bowl of tofu pudding is still pretty freakin' good, just nothing that'd make me all 'holy crap I NEED TO GO BACK right now' good. The formula is the same though, a sweet soup like dessert with an earthy flavor from the tofu, and a strong sweet aroma from the unprocessed sugar syrup. Devoid of almost any other flavors, the beauty of this dish lies in its simplicity. Oh, and the texture... it's definitely fun to slurp.



And mochi too. Covered in peanut flour (the way it should be served). Chewy, warm, and moist these were also okay, but unremarkable. I've had better... and cheaper too. They kind of jack up the prices for this stuff at 淡水 because of the overwhelming number of tourists. Eh, it's fine... sometimes you gotta pay for crap to truly appreciate quality, right?