I want to hug everyone here

Without question, one of my favorite things about Taiwan has been the food. Not only is the food delicious, but it's not unusual to have dinner for under $20 USD for the 4 of us. There's times where we have walked away full from a meal for $10-$12. All that being said, I have eaten a lot of beef noodle soup, ramen, soup dumplings, regular dumplings, boiled cabbage, dry noodles, and braised pork over rice over the last two months.

Kim said she saw a pizza restaurant that had gotten good reviews. Everything we had heard up to this point is that it is very difficult to find good pizza in Taiwan. I was pretty excited to have something a little different, so we decided that we would give this restaurant a try. Poppy, Grayson, and I returned from Grayson's first Taiwan haircut after school, ready to go to dinner. Kim was exhausted from a poor nights sleep and it was pouring rain due to the incoming typhoon. We almost called it off, but decided to give it a go. We arrived by taxi to Antico Forno in the rain.

As we got out of the car, it immediately felt like we may have made a mistake on multiple levels. A few men standing at the entrance were wearing suits. I felt the most dressed up I had been in weeks because I wasn't wearing flip flops. I actually had socks and running shoes on to go with my shorts, t-shirt and sweat stained baseball hat. When Kim approached the hostess and asked if they had a table for four, her facial expression told me that we should have made reservations a month ago. She quickly turned around to go grab someone who could speak English with us. The owner came out, and explained in his thick Italian accent that they were completely booked for the evening because they were in the middle of a 3 day celebration of their 10 year anniversary. What we later learned was that it sounded like these 3 days were by invite only to their most loyal customers over the last 10 years. We should not have been there. It really escalated quickly as to just how clueless we were. In hindsight, I feel like it would be no less ludicrous if I walked into an orthopedic office, unannounced, and asked if I could get a knee scope in the next 30 minutes. Oh, and do you take credit cards? It looks like I probably don't have enough cash on hand for this place.

Kim asked if we could make reservations for later in the week when there started to be a couple of grumblings between the owner, the Maitre D, the hostess, and a guy who looked like one of the chefs who appeared out of nowhere. Out of embarrassment, I was ready to slowly just disappear stage left in the pouring rain when the owner, Marco, said, "Follow me. You will be VIP's". Marco walked us across the street to the restaurant's newly renovated market space. It was empty except for a woman behind the counter making spiral pasta by hand. There was one table in this little market where they make sandwiches for take out, offer some prepared foods, assorted cheeses, olive oils, and various other Italian condiments. "Is this okay? You all can dine in here by yourselves." All of the sudden it felt like Marco was apologizing to us that this is the only way that they could accommodate us.

We were in our seats for not even a minute when Maggie, the woman making the pasta behind the counter, started making conversation with us and invited the kids to come over and learn to make the spiral pasta she was effortlessly rolling, using the palm of her hand. While the kids were helping Maggie make pasta, Marco had returned with menus and explained that the "vintage" menu featured all of their best selling dishes over the last 10 years. Each menu item had the year listed when it was featured at the restaurant. If we had come any other night, we would never have had the opportunity to have many of these dishes as they were no longer on the menu.

We ordered burrata with focaccia and the melon with prosciutto for appetizers. We then had gnocchi bolognese and lasagna. Next for the carb fest was the thin crust truffle and sausage pizza and we finished with cheesecake and tiramisu. It was all delicious. I told Kim and the kids that I wanted to hug everyone that played a part in this magical fluke of an evening.

Marco and his wife made one last visit to us as we finished our amazing meal to make sure everything was satisfactory. I feel horrible because I couldn't fully understand the wife's name, so I don't know it. She explained to us that she met Marco in Taiwan 7 years ago. She's originally from Taiwan, but she studied fashion and design in London. It wasn't totally clear at the time if she was working in London or in Italy. Regardless, she was in Taipei with her team of 12 people from Gucci. She downplayed it, but it seemed like she was a big deal there. She met Marco (not sure how) and they hung out for her last 3 days of the work trip. As the rest of the team was preparing to return to Europe, she informed them that she was staying in Taiwan to be with Marco. She quit her job at one of the most recognized luxury fashion brands in the world and completely abandoned a life she had established in another country after 3 days with this little guy from Torino. I guess when you know, you know. Kim and I were just standing there with our jaws dropped listening to this crazy love story.

They finished our surreal evening with bringing us 2 complementary glasses of wine. Marco made sure Kim got his cell phone number so that we can contact him directly for reservations next time we want to come back. This was such an incredible experience that almost didn't happen for many reasons. We all felt so lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful experience of love, kindness, and delicious food that for all intents and purposes should never have happened. I guess this is why I keep seeing people wearing t-shirts on the subway that say, "Taiwan - The Heart of Asia". -- Trae