The balcony kitchen is complete

It can be difficult to find an apartment in Taipei that has a kitchen. I'm not talking about a full Western-style kitchen. I'm talking about a hot plate, a sink, and a bit of counter space. So, when I was searching for an apartment I already knew that my budget might not allow me to find a place where I could cook at home.

The balcony - laundry and kitchen combined!

When I looked at my apartment in Dazhi I liked the size of the room, the Western-style shower in the bathroom, and the fact that the unit was newly renovated. There was also a small desk, a new bright red couch, and a small bar fridge.

The apartment came with a washing machine, which was located on the balcony. (This is very common in Taipei, and probably most of Asia.) However, most apartments in Taipei only have a tiny balcony. The balcony for this apartment was huge, and covered.

The only problem with the apartment? There was no kitchen. Hmmm. That's when I came up with the idea of setting up a camp-style kitchen on the balcony. People have cooked outside since the beginning of time, so I figured I could kick my Western sensibilities aside in this case and embrace something a bit more rudimentary as far as kitchen facilities were concerned.

I didn't - well, couldn't - rush into setting up the kitchen. I had to prioritize setting up the bathroom and bedroom, and sorting out storage. Then I got sick with acute bronchitis. That was a whammy in my plans. Anyhoo, yesterday I finally had the time, energy, and motivation to make a big shopping trip to A-Mart to buy the necessary bits and bobs for the balcony kitchen.

A closer look at the pantry cart, hot plate, kettle, and storage

One thing you should keep in mind as you read this is that I don't have transportation. I have to rely on the MRT and my feet to get most places. A few weeks ago I went to Carrefour in Tienmu and hauled some household items home on the MRT. I learned that I never wanted to do that again. My plan this time was to take the MRT to A-Mart and then catch a cab home with all of my large purchases. So that's what I did, and it worked beautifully! I even managed to direct the cabbie to my exact address which was a bit of a Mandarin miracle.

The dry storage/pantry inside

Thankfully everything I bought was easy to assemble and didn't require tools. All of the appliances worked, too. (One of the things I secretly dread is having to return things that don't work. Oh, the miming I would have to do!)

Now that I had the structure to cook, I had to get food. I packed two large bags and headed over to the Wellcome grocery store. I've only ever bought snacks and drinks over there, and a little bit of fruit. This time I got a cart and loaded two baskets onto it, and shopped.

I tried to focus on basics - tea, oatmeal, sugar, soup, broth, canned vegetables, spices, rice, noodles, cooking oil, soya sauce, vinegar, etc. It was a big shop by the locals' standards - NT$1,800 or about CAD$60. And look at how my dry storage/pantry is filled up! It's located inside the apartment because I don't want to attract vermin or have to pick pupae out of my dry goods.


My first cooked meal at home was spaghetti, of course. I am a noodle girl. The only problem is that I bought a Taiwanese brand of bottled spaghetti sauce. The Taiwanese love sweet things, so everything is loaded with sugar. The sandwich bread is inedible because it's so sweet. And even if you can stand the sweet bread, there's the sweet mayonnaise, sweet mustard, and sweetened sandwich meat. I'm sure they'd add sugar to cheese if they could. (Maybe they do - I hate processed cheese slices so I have no idea what the cheese tastes like.) Well, I learned last night that they also put a tonne of sugar into the spaghetti sauce. Ick! I got down as much of it as I could, and threw out the rest. So, while the act of cooking was successful, the results were a little disappointing. Oh, well. I am looking forward to the next meal, and the meal after that, and the meal after that...