Taiwan Trip (Part 2) - FOOD!

The thing I loved about Taiwan the most is obviously the FOOD!  I did not have one thing that tasted bad, and when I came back to Hong Kong things actually tasted worse/not amazing anymore.  So sad... now I only have pictures to remind my stomach of the awesomeness and countdown until the next time I go back (who knows when...).

Anyway, just want to share with you guys what we ate... I'm getting hungry thinking about it already!  (FYI, conversion rate is 100TWD = about $3.33CAD, just divide TWD by 30)

Breakfast at a local place

Was walking around before the hostel opened so we found this small restaurant with tons of Chinese breakfast items - Yao tiu (fried dough sticks), Xiao Long Baos (Steamed Shanghai dumplings/bread), and tons of other stuff.  Love asian breakfast :)  Each item about 20-40TWD

Seafood Noodles @ Yeliu

Had these amazing seafood noodles with TONS of seafood in it - mussels, shrimp, abalone and other stuff that I couldn't identify, and the sauce was so good.  We were right by the ocean and there were lots of fishing boats (and lots of seafood restaurants), so yes, the seafood was super fresh.  I don't think I've ever tasted mussels sooo good and flavourful.  Each plate was about 75TWD, pretty much the most expensive thing we ate all trip.

Tea @ Jiufen Teahouse

I guess this isn't really food, but had some genuine Taiwanese tea.  Fruit tea (with real pieces of fruit) and Jasmine milk tea.  Fruit tea was a little too sweet for my taste but the Jasmine milk tea was perfect!  Decently priced, we got a "deal" - 100TWD for each person (2 teapots)

Wheel Cakes @ Night Market

So yummy, I think I had 3 of these during the whole trip.  It's a light cake with some kind of filling and a crispy outside, fillings include and not limited to red bean, peanut, sesame and condensed milk. 8TWD each.  Yes 8... as in $0.25CAD. hahaha... I should have ate more!

Iron Plate Spaghetti @ Night Market

 (In order, beef steak, pork, lamb, yum!)

Choose your type of meat/steak and cook it yourself!  Well the meat is mostly cooked or that would be unsanitary, but I think my steak was slightly underdone, the way I like it. haha.  You can choose from beef, lamb, pork chop, and more.  Comes with spaghetti and an egg, only for 40TWD.  RIDICULOUS!  And so delicious!

Huge Ice Cream Crepes @ Night Market

Ridiculously sized crepes but so good.  I was so full at that point I just had a crepe with ice cream (mint chocolate!), but my friend Wendy got a crepe sundae which had ice cream, cookies, chocolate roll wafers and chocolate sauce.  Sundae was 60TWD and ice cream only was about 40TWD.

Mochi Bun @ Poker House Bakery in the MRT

Grabbed some breakfast in the subway station before heading out, I got a mochi strawberry bun which was a bun with strawberry jam filling wrapped with a layer of mochi.  Looked sooo cute so I had to buy it!  About 30TWD?

Gua Gua Bao @ Ding Gua Gua (Fried chicken chain)

There were seriously fried chicken chains EVERYWHERE in Taipei.  We went to this one to try there Gua Gua Bao, which we found out to be glutinous rice wrapped in fried chicken skin.  Sooo good!  They also have sweet potato fries which were quite good =)  Gua Gua bao was 45TWD.

Popcorn Chicken @ Night Market

I always loved popcorn chicken at the Toronto bubble tea houses so I definitely had to try the real thing in Taiwan.  Honestly, this was probably the BEST THING I ate in Taiwan.  Perfectly spiced, chicken was sooo juicy and tender.  Crying right now... 55TWD for a large portion

Corn Dogs @ Night Market

We saw these quite alot at the night markets.  My Korean roomate Soyeon ate alot of these, apparently it's a Korean childhood thing. hahaha.  Each ranged from 20 - 50TWD.

Stinky Tofu @ Night Market

My first time trying stinky tofu!  I was always scared of the smell in Toronto but after coming to Hong Kong and staying in the Mong Kok area I got so used to the stinky tofu smell and now it kinda smells good, hahaha.  In Taiwan they cut up the tofu into small cubes, and serve it in a bag with sauce and some kinda sour coleslaw type veggie.  The sauce was so good and the sour veggies matched perfectly!  In HK I noticed that they just serve you the smelly tofu in a big block with no sauce, so haven't really had motivation to try it... I think it was 30TWD for a couple of blocks cut up.

"Taipei 101" Chips @ Night Market

A really tall swirl of chips on a really long skewer.  You can choose the type of seasoning you want on your chips, I got a mix of something like seaweed, pepper salt, cheese or something like that.  Yum!  I got one that was freshly deep fried too, haha.  Maybe 20TWD per stick, can't remember.

Green onions wrapped in meat @ Night Market

No idea what these are called but that's what it is.  Pretty good but the onion taste was too overpowering.  Huge line up for this one though!  10TWD for one.

Huge Ice Cream Cones @ Night Market

...with really cool flavours!  Swirl of green tea and mango, taro and strawberry or chocolate and vanilla.  Only 10TWD for a regular cone and 20TWD for a huge one!

Beef Brisket Noodle (and Bubble Tea) @ Taipei 101 Food Court

BEST BEEF BRISKET NOODLE EVER.  The brisket was so so soft it was melt in your mouth, it's not sticky/chewy and doesn't get stuck in your teeth like normal brisket does.  Soup and noodles were also amazing, noodles were bouncy and gooood.  I can't even recall the taste properly because it was just too mindblowing.  I'm depressed now..... haha.  It was expensive though, probably because we ate in Taipei 101.  You can get this in the night market for 30TWD or something but we were just too full!  It was 138TWD for a bowl.

Also had a bubble tea with it and it was so so good, so creamy and flavourful!  We actually saw BBT for 10TWD in the night market but we paid 30TWD for this one.

Pig Blood Cake @ Sansia Old Street

From Wikipedia:  In Taiwan, pig blood cake (traditional Chinese: 豬血糕; pinyin: zhū xiě gāo) is made of pork blood and sticky rice. It is fried or steamed as a snack or cooked in a hot pot.  This one was interesting... I guess I wasn't used to the taste, it tasted a bit like glutinous (sticky) rice and yeah, not sure about this one. This local that was standing near us kept telling us that it's good and seemed a little offended that we weren't enjoying it very much. hahaha.  20TWD for one.

 Oyster Vermicelli @ Ximending

Huge lineup but really delicious noodles!  The people there are EXTREMELY efficient at filling up bowls with vermicelli, I should have caught a video if it.  They scoop almost 1 bowl a second.  We tried to blend in with the locals while we were eating =)  Small bowl 40TWD, big bowl 55TWD.

Onion Pancake @ Night Market

(Left - original onion pancake; right - with egg)

I can't believe I only ate this on the last day. So fluffy and savoury... ahh!  They also have an option to add egg in it so we tried both, have to say that we liked the original better though.  I should have eaten way more than 1 during this trip.  My stomach was sad and now I'm craving it again. Sad sad sad sad. One for 20TWD, with egg 25TWD.

Please don't count how many times I said delicious in this post... lol.  I can't wait to go back to Taiwan in the future, but for now I guess I have to "settle" for Hong Kong food!

Taiwan Trip (Part 1)

(extremely long post ahead!)

Had an insanely awesome trip to Taiwan the past weekend.  I am now absolutely in love with Taiwan and can't wait to go back!  Amazing food, beautiful breathtaking scenery, mountains, ocean, what more can you want?

My two friends Wendy, Soyeon and I went for 4 days on our own to Taipei and surrounding area.  We did some pretty intensive research before we left so we got to hit tons of places.  It'll take me too long to talk about everything we did and everything that happened, so I'll just share the main things that happened during the trip (and of course the food!!!).

Arrival at TPE

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To make sure we had a full day on the first day, we arrived in Taipei Taoyuan airport at 2am.  Yup.  The subway (MRT) stops running at midnight and taxis are quite expensive from the airport, especially at that time (or so we figured), so we just bummed around for a few hours in the main arrivals area.  Funny enough there were a few people doing the same thing including a group from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  It was fun experimenting different positions to sleep/nap comfortably (possible future blog post?).  The chairs were sooo small and the armrests were extra small so you can't even slip through to sleep!

 Yeliu Geopark

 

After napping at the hostel for 30 mins (best sleep I ever had) we set out to Yeliu (map) on the North coast of Taiwan, about 1 hour from Taipei.  Quite a challenge since none of us spoke fluent Mandarin, but we got by with some simple phrases :)  Spent 2 hours at the main terminal trying to figure out how to get there and running around to get a (free) youth travel pass for discounts on attractions.

 

Finally made it to Yeliu Geopark!!  Had to get off the bus at a random stop and then walk 10 mins towards the coast.  It was also freezing and super windy. :(

 

 

The park features tons of naturally formed hoodoo stones with the main attraction being a rock that is shaped like a queen's head. It was soooo cool and I loved the crashing waves!!  This was just the start of our epic jumping pictures... :D

   

Jiufen
Next destination was Jiufen (map), a mountain town south of Yeliu also near the coast of Taiwan.  Getting there was also a challenge; had to switch buses at Keelung and Jiufen was not the final destination so we had to figure out where we were supposed to get off.

   

Jiufen was really pretty, very Japanese influenced with tons stringed lanterns hanging over lots of little shops and stalls.  Apparently the town was used as a model for the movie Spirited Away!

   

There were also tons of teahouses there.  We went into one and the owner was super friendly, he even let us tour his house-turned-into-teahouse which was hundreds of years old (the stuff there seemed like it too).  Tried some fruit tea and Jasmine milk tea.  Really really good and authentic. :)

Xinbeitou Hot Springs

   

 

The next day we headed up to Xinbeitou for our first experience at a hot spring.  On the way there we passed by the Geothermal Valley, aka Hell Valley, which is a natural hot sulfur spring where the temperature can reach up to 100°C.  It looked sooo "cool" (pun intended), because steam was just floating over the water the whole time.  Oh yeah, and it smelled like eggs (coz of the sulfur).

 

We went to a "higher class" hot spring resort called Asia Pacific Resort, which we had to walk to the end of the street with all the hot springs (we passed by probably 10 or more) and up a slight mountain.  It was super duper nice; we paid about $16CAD for a private outdoor room for 1 hour which also includes 3 hours in the public spring.  They give you a robe, towels and slippers to change into.  The place was just really classy and clean.

    

Really glad that we got a private room because the public springs were so awkward.  Tons of old women just chilling there (naked of course).  We only stayed for the 1 hour in the private room and it was more than enough for me.  You get sooo tired because your body is so relaxed, you just want to sleep after you're done :P  It also made my skin super soft :) :)  Loved it!

Danshui

   

After the hotsprings we headed to a town called Danshui which means "fresh water".  It's right by the sea and the waterfront was lined with little shops and tons of food stalls.  Soooo nice and it was the perfect place to catch the sunset!

Danshui Fisherman's Wharf

 

We caught a 15 minute ferry north to the Fisherman's Wharf to see the famous Lover's Bridge.  Unfortunately it was really cloudy so we couldn't see the sunset very well, but we still took some nice pictures and ate some food there :P

Sanxia Old Street (Minquan Old Street)
 

 

 

Sanxia is a small town about 1 hour south of Taipei (map).  The architecture on Minquan old street is well preserved from Japanese colonial times. A really commonly sold food there (like every other store) is "bull horn croissants" which is basically a small crunchy croissant.  Tons of food everywhere, with lots of vendors making the food on a cart on the street and selling it right there.

Sightseeing in Taipei

We actually didn't get to "see" Taipei until the last day, so on that one day we went around to quite a few of the famous landmarks of Taipei (and took epic pictures with all of them) 
 

 

 

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (The symbol of Taipei)

 

Taipei 101 (Second tallest building in the world, lots of Chinese symbolism)

  

Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (Founding Father of China)

 

Longshan Temple

 

Ximending (trendy shopping and entertainment pedestrian area)

I took about 1600 pictures during the trip.....yeah. I cut it down to 1400 ish though! View all 1400+ pictures here.

I'll talk about the food in Taiwan in part 2 since this post is getting too long!