Luxury BBQ

Just got back from having the most insanely delicious and expensive BBQ of my life.  When we say "go for bbq" here in Taiwan, it doesn't mean go to someone's house and throw some beef patties on a propane bbq on the porch.  "bbq" here is more like "korean bbq" at home.  You go to a restaurant and there's a grill inset into the table and you order raw meat and cook your own food.

Well anyways this place is named Kan pai Classic and it is one of the most expensive and top tier BBQ's you can go to.  I'll state it right now that the whole bill for 7 of us was over $10k NT.  To give you some perspective, my lunches are usually $40-$100 NT.  lol.  So it was about $45CAD per person and if you think about the average cost of living here that's a tremendous bill!  Not even a price I would normally pay in Vancouver.  However the experience was great and the beef was literally the most delicious beef I've ever tasted in my life.  It was melt in your mouth.

Asahi Half&Half (Half Asahi draft + half dark beer).
Tasted quite light and was really refreshing!

Each person had 6 small dipping sauces to choose from for each savory bite of beef.  There was lemon, some sort of delicious asian "bbq" sauce (nothing like north american bbq sauce), italian coarse salt, miso, sesame oil, and spicy miso.  The salt, lemon, and bbq sauce was my favorite.

We ordered some food from the menu and then one of the chefs came by with a big rib eye steak and a scale.  We then asked for 2 slices of steak.  It was $30CAD/100 grams!  Craaazy.  The chef proceeded to cut the steak, put each slice on a marble slab and then powdered it with Italian salt.  It looked delicious

Shortly after we received our platter of different cuts of meat.  I don't really know the names of any of these cuts but each one melted in your mouth.  I didn't even know beef could taste like this!

We started cooking food but then one of the chefs came by to cook it for us which was nice because he explained a bit about how to cook the different meats and what part of the cow they came from.

We couldn't tell what the heck this meat was:  Was it chicken?  Was it fish?  After we started cooking it we still couldn't figure it out until the chef came and told us it was Japanese Beef Intestine.  ahhhh!  It all made sense because when we put it on the grill, it started shrinking and moving a lot (lol sounds gross).  But it was delicious and actually tasted like... like a steak.  I didn't quite understand it but yah... so good.

It was time for the centerpiece: the luxury rib eye.

The chef came to cook this personally and he did a fantastic job.  He placed the steak on a fresh grill and then proceeded to continually spin it and lift up all the different sides.  After a few minutes the bottom started to brown nicely and get little crispy bits all over it so he flipped it over and cooked the other side for a few minutes.  The steak was in the shape of the island of Taiwan so we had a good laugh over that :P  We pointed to the steak and said "there we are!"

Each bite of this steak was heaven.  It really didn't disappoint and while it was really expensive and it has now ruined the taste of all other steaks in the world for me, the experience and knowledge that steaks like this exist out there in the world gives me more motivation to do well in business.  I want more of this stuff!

For dessert we had a green tea tiramisu.  It had powdered matcha on top, some light cream on the inside and a strawberry bottom.  yum!

And here's the damage... lol.  $335CAD total.  About $48/per person.

Another successful Saturday night in Taiwan with good food and more importantly, good friends.