A day starts with good breakfast (which I haven't had lately, since I wake up so late..) with Ruby! We went to a more popular breakfast place around the area..... and here's what we had.
That's my food: rice "milk" with soy milk, and egg pancake wrapped around youtou (I don't know how else to write it..)
Here's what Ruby had: salty soy milk with shao bing (I think).
After a good breakfast, we sat there and thought about what to do for the day..... quite hard actually. Haha. So we decided to go to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial since it's pretty close and I haven't been there yet on this trip.
I think the whole memorial made me more confused about the Taiwanese history than after the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial.... now I really don't know what happened :(
While at the memorial, we saw that they have a few exhibits... but each one costs 280 NTD just to enter. Eeek.... it's ok. We'll skip. However, they let us take pictures with Snoopy for free!
And why did I stand so far away?! Sigh... because it says "do not touch" on it, so I thought I had to make sure that I don't look like I'm touching it... but now I just look like I don't even belong in the group -_-.
And while at the memorial, we got to Line video chat with our friends in America! Thank God that we were able to do it early enough before everyone goes to sleep....
We all haven't seen Ruby for 1.5 years.... so it was really nice for everyone to see her again!
And then more wandering around Taipei, trying to figure out how to spend the rest of the day.......... we went to a department store and Ruby saw Jamie Oliver's restaurant and thought to try it out. It was pretty good. Ruby misses American food... haha.
My pasta and Ruby's burger. Haha.
Oh yeah, and we also had mango snow at Ice Monster. I guess it turned out that the mango snow is about $8 in USD too! Dang the ice snow prices!!
It was pretty good..... very fluffy. Not like the one in Class 302. Good stuff.
And then there was more wondering what we're gonna do for the rest of the day. I remember my sis said she would always try to find a class to attend if she's at another country... so I suggested that we find a baking class. Ruby is an excellent Google-r, and found a baking class that welcomes walk-ins. So hey, here we go!
I've never been to a baking class like this before..... so interesting! You basically get an iPad that gives you the recipe, but does it STEP BY STEP. I mean, they make it foolproof. For example, instead of telling you "stir until it's creamy" it says "stir for 30 seconds, put a timer on". And it's pretty much exact. Wow. And their recipes have pictures with the items EXACTLY THE SAME, so it's almost impossible to make mistakes.
Everything was sooooo organized. I really feel like the owner went to a Six Sigma class and perfected the SOP (standard operation procedure) process, where everything is written exactly as the way you see it, all the tools have its own place (like the Kaisen process), and everything is very clearly labeled. It's amazing!
So what you do is first tell them what dessert you want to make. Unfortunately, they don't tell you the difficulty before you start making it. So I picked the Earl Grey No-bake Cheesecake, thinking that it will be hard, but it was super easy. Ruby picked the Lime Tart, that looked easy, but was very complicated.
They basically dumb everything down so much that it's foolproof. I mean, the easiest way to make everything foolproof is to take out subjective measurements and make sure they attach a number to everything. So they utilize the scales, the timer, the speed on mixers, things like that. Very clever.
Here are Ruby and me!
For my cake, it is pretty simple.... just make sure all the ingredients mixes together and add gelatin, that's it! It was interesting for me to use gelatin sheet though... I've never tried it before!
I like their storage of Kitchenaid Mixers..... there are soooo many of them!
Here is Ruby hard at work!
Mine turned out really well :) (as expected, haha). It was really really easy........
It's like a wafer bottom with earl grey cheesecake filling, then earl grey jello on top. It's pretty good. Ruby's was pretty good too... but I think the cream was a bit too sour for me... but maybe that's just because my taste buds are weird now that I'm sick. Bleh. Since I'm leaving tomorrow, there is no way I can finish all that cheesecake by myself, nor can I take it back to America (it will all melt in the 13 hour flight + 4 hour layover), so I gave it to Ruby to take it to her family!
I think the cost wasn't too much.... mine was 590 NTD. It includes everything... I mean, all the ingredients from start to finish, the box to take it home, they give you some beverage there to drink..... (you have to wash everything yourself though, but their sink area is very organized). We worked there for like 4 hours.... so I think that price is VERY reasonable. Considering places in America limit all class time to 2 hours, and each class is at least $30. Very new experience and very fun... will definitely try again!
Last night here.... gonna pack and get ready for the flight tomorrow. I'm aiming to make my flight tomorrow so I can get back to America on time!
Wow that baking class looks SO AWESOME
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